There is a magical moment of “non-silence” that materializes in the air every time I rest the stylus onto the 33 rpm vinyl of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.
This magic is created in those few seconds of waiting preceding the start of the first track, Speak to Me. In that interval of apparently empty groove, a deafening hiss is felt—a warm, dusty crackle followed by an imperceptible and inimitable skip of the micro-groove.
The Boundary of Sound Experience
To me, that tiny, dirty analog noise represents the exact boundary between the frantic, chaotic daily reality and total immersion in a parallel musical universe. It is the physical breath of the medium, the sound of friction between the diamond needle and the wearing plastic.
It is a warm, living imperfection that no digital format, with its cold and sterile bit perfection, will ever be able to reproduce or gift me. Digital erases the flaw and with it the physical presence of the work; vinyl guards time even through its wear. This crackle is, in every respect, a precious "non-silence".
This philosophy of mindful listening and the value of waiting is intimately connected to the slow photographic approach I describe in Photographing is Storytelling and to the search for lost time in Praise of Slowness.
Roberto Lacava
