Thomas Catlaw

Thomas is a sound artist, sound recordist, and musician
based in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert on the
ancestral lands of the O’Odham, Piipaash,
the Yavapai-Apache Nation, and their ancestors. 

My practice centers on transforming, layering, and (re)assembling field recordings into “soundsketches” that traverse the border between documentation and fabrication.

My compositions morph the familiar into other, other into the familiar. They play with sequence and forms of repetition to wonder about time, duration, and temporality. I hope the work will provoke personal and collective exploration about how memory, habit, and tradition channel the imagining—and destruction—of sonic worlds.

Rooted in a curiosity nurtured by the Sonoran Desert, water is the primary location for and provocateur in these soundsketches. I listen and record with rivers, canals, pools, irrigation systems, wetlands, and reservoirs. I walk the porous seams between “natural” and “engineered” water systems. My practice recursively informs conservation efforts on behalf of the Verde River watershed.

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