Soundtracker

John Muir once said, “The mountains are calling, and I must go.” This quote ends Nick Sherman’s film about Gordon Hempton, a.k.a The Sound Tracker. Gordon drives around the country recording the sounds of nature and is obsessed with clean sound without interference from civilization, which is increasingly hard to find and, in many places in the U.S., entirely extinct. Gordon says that America’s mantra has, sadly, become the persistent and never-ending buzz of electrical wires. A wonderful documentary character, Gordon is honest and emotional, brilliant and flawed as he goes about his craft far away from his family, mired in debt and wondering if anyone cares about what he does. Luckily, director Nick Sherman does care and told this story, realizing that Gordon is an essential voice in the wilderness.
—DH