The Taos Hum (2010)

The Taos Hum positions sound as a central motif from the very first scene and may seem like a conventional documentary. However, the film does not endeavour to offer any answers - in fact, nothing is really asked of it. Instead, ‘the hum’ becomes a countermelody to a chorus of voices offered by the landscape and its inhabitants.

What the film does assert is that the inhabitants of Taos, a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico, have a uniquely reciprocal relationship to the sounds around them; extremely elusive tones are heard, communicated and are then performed back as an anthology of practices ranging from sonic healing to opera, from furniture-making to instrument-making.