The History of Sound

Lionel, a talented singer from rural Kentucky, grew up listening to the songs his father sang on the porch. In 1917, driven by his passion, he leaves the family farm to study at the Boston Conservatory of Music and become what he has always dreamed of.

There, he meets David, a charismatic composition student with whom he establishes a deep romantic connection that changes his live forever. However, the threat of war interrupts their bond: David is called to the front lines in the final months of the conflict, and their separation becomes painfully imminent.

After the war ends, they reunite, and in the winter of 1920, they embark on a journey together through the forests and islands of Maine, a paradise sheltered by the waves crashing against the rocks. Their goal: to collect folk songs before they fade into oblivion.

In the process, they not only seek to preserve a collective sonic memory but also discover in music a refuge for their intimacy, a space where friendship and desire find expression beyond words that only can be understood by the magic of music and art.

Lionel's story is one of an artistic vocation intertwined with love and the need to document the ephemeral, in an America that is beginning to transform and open to other ways of love.