Denver Nuckolls — Death
Reviewed by Lauren Levato Coyne

Denver Nuckolls offered up Death, a collection of various digitally-processed field recordings sourced from his day-to-day life. As he is a sound engineer it contains bits from a rehearsing symphony orchestra to the sound of eating. The description has the potential for discord but instead the work was harmonious and melodic which is a credit to Nuckolls’ immense skill as a sound engineer and musician. Life sounds are discordant taken individually, but layered together they could be a hot mess. The title put me the mindset to imagine the process of dying. The typical trope is that life flashes before your eyes, that it’s a visual experience. But the people in my life who have died were mostly eyes closed, fading slowly. Sure some people experience images behind their eyes (I do), but wouldn’t it make more sense that death is a auditory experience? This question is ableist in nature, I realize, because how would a blind or deaf person experience death, if death holds an aesthetic component at all? But this is what I want from artwork, I want it to shift my thinking and prompt questions whose answers may take years to learn.