The desert is not a void, as it is so often depicted–it is an active landscape with vibrational subtleties that reward deep listening and looking. For half a decade, Hannah Spector travelled to West Texas multiple times a year to listen to this landscape.

They were mostly in Valentine–a town with a population of 73. Valentine sits on Route 90, just a bit West of Marfa and most people speed past it to visit the Prada Marfa store. It is an abandoned railroad boomtown, living out its days as a set of post-capitalist adobe ruins. There are no gas stations, no ATMS, and no stores. This type of isolation creates a need to band together, very unlike the trope of the lone and rugged cowboy. It also creates a feeling of being very at the edge of things–frightening at times, but also very close to the heartbeat of something very big, like some great lung breathing. Each time Spector arrived in town, a peculiar rhythm would appear–masses of toads croaking and mating in the rain, dogs eating other dogs, or a singular mountain lion taking up residence in shadows.

Hannah would like to thank artists and friends Mai Snow, Katherine Vaughn, and Tilly Hawk for their hospitality and collaboration during these stays out West.