I’ve fallen a bit behind sharing extracts but these are some things I heard earlier this year.
In my studio I notice the radiator is gurgling like a churning stomach. As I listen more closely I discern three distinct layers of sound -
A hollow void, quite low down.
In the middle, a hiss, spectral sweeping.
And then at the top of the radiator, distinct clicks and crackles.
Silver water escapes down thin pipes, gurgling as it drains. Metallic scrapes resonate in the world above against a blue hiss.
A yellow hum, warm like listening through a window on a cold winter’s day.
On dawn chorus day we walk to Mill Hill, north of Shoreham. A warm glow spreads over the horizon as birdsong swell from individual, discrete calls to a rich spatial chorus.
To the south I notice the long strip of concrete runway at Shoreham Airport. The angle looks weird and disorientating from this new perspective.
The chorus is softening now.
Behind me I hear a long stretch of road sounded by an intrusive bike. A beautiful bird appears hovering high in the sky and I’m captivated. Like a magical spell it holds my gaze until all too quickly it’s gone, chased off by pigeons.
A hollow train slithers past.
A pleasant brush, then a crispy brush.
Feather zips, feather pops. Michael’s squeaky stick. A creature scratches to get in. Clicky. Clicky. Clicky. Dry leaves.
Hollow train two.
Good tines.
At the end of a long corridor I hear a fridge, somewhere down there. Or I imagine all of that. The fantasy no less pleasing.
Echo, thanks for sharing how the ridges on your new iPad case make an interesting sound when you run your fingers across them.
Old storage breath. A long sigh. In fact, it never ends.
I found out this evening that Neolithic cannibals won the Sound of the Year award in the composed with sound category. I’m so proud of the young artists, of myself and the project. In the boxy acoustics of my car I let out a whoop of happiness for my ears only.
Remembering last night’s neck cracking, crackling bones in an auditorium.
Grinding friction with sudden moves.
In a large tent structure surrounded by urban drone. Whitehawk Hill rises here. The sounds of my childhood home transported from over the hill into the city.
Insects click and crackle as throbbing busses pass outside. Blue drapes flap under a glass structure and a red elf talks under the rippling sky. The sounds in here are oppressive, completely engulfing the structure.
A steady beep beep like a vehicle reversing, interrupts the performance. We try and search out the source, but it continues undiscovered. At times, it seems to multiply as if echoed.
The interruption causes a sound cue to be missed.
I slide slowly past the space where five hours earlier I was listening and recording. This different perspective experienced in such a short space of time feels….. uncanny. I’ve been experiencing this sensation recently, and it has something to do with time shifts or teleportation - witnessing a past memory of listening or noticing. Fantasy plays its part, as does connection, like there is an imprint of me or an echo left behind. I visualize myself there next to my microphone, lit by dawns soft, dim light and the synthetic glow of the communal living utopia. Ears following this movement from over there.
Today, suburbia. A listening walk and activities. Curiosity and noticing.
Paper pendants at St Nicolas Church entrance rustle and flap. Liquid slips and slops on a runners back. The creak of a garden fence is fleeting, gone by the time I draw the group’s attention to it. Surroundings, soundings, roundings, sursoundings. The sounds that surround us every day - the overwhelming major traffic routes, the quiet suburban streets and parks, the transitions in between and those unnoticed details that pass our ears.
Is the creaking gate telling me something? Is it sad that no one seems to notice and appreciate the texture and musicality of its moves? Dave describes the large leafed plant that slaps and cracks in the wind as a train crossing alert floats towards us.
The silent giant.
During two days of editing feedback material, we edge closer to finishing. I propose an approach for our last session at Made of Sand - using the outdoor space and the woods surrounding the house to project pre recorded material. Using distance and air to mix the atmosphere and tones. I think we can achieve a pleasing mix and include the acoustics of the forest. I’m excited.
Dwelling in the air.
Dwelling in the ear.
Dwelling in the imagination.
Dwelling in the shadows.
Dwelling in the structure.
Dwelling in between.
Dwelling in the parts.
In an old industrial building I move slowly, listening. I walk between sound zones, reversing my steps and playing back the point of transition.
Nothing to something.
Cramped to tall and open.
Air to dead.
Here to out of sight.
Doorway to corridor to watery sounds.
Corridor to boxy cupboard.
History, lack of funds and maintenance can add character. It makes doors creak, lets the outside in through broken or faulty windows. It can add friction and tones via dilapidated machinery.
Do the walls also hold sound?
Shimmering and unstable vibrations encircle me as I reflect on inner listening by way of Brandon Labelle’s new book. I’ve cultivated a sensitive ear to my inner voice, to listening to the many parts of me with all their entangled, compassionate sometimes difficult connections. I needed to hear these vibrations in the room with me to accompany this exploration so I set up a synthesiser to make sounds on the edge of perception. They are quiet and similar to what I’ve called phantom sounds whilst listening outdoors. There is rhythm. There is movement. Texture. Pulsing that shifts between four speakers in the corners of my studio. The space cultivated by the work on the feedback album gives me new perspectives on working with the Buchla synthesiser. I’d like to fill its memory with quiet vibrations.
On Truleigh Hill I push a wheelbarrow carrying workshop materials. I cross rough ground and the meeting of wheel and dry mud, sticks and chalk travel through the resonant metal barrow up the handles to my hands, where I feel the Earth’s vibrations.
Heavy rain pops and taps tent fabric. The tree canopy creates echoes of the rain, holding and releasing for a while after the downpour ends. A combination of sensory notes transport me. The very specific resonance, slightly empty and hollow, of tin cups rattling and moving together, the smell of damp forest and something else that evades me, maybe another scent, or was it the crackling fire? For a moment, I’m eight or nine at a Cub Scout camp, probably washing up. I’ve used these kinds of camping cups before recently, but it was different something about the collection of multiple moving, catching and sounding that took me there.
We use nets on sticks to catch bugs. They swish through the cool evening air against a backdrop that takes in a wide, distant sweep of the south coast of Shoreham. Another rain shower conjures a rainbow.
Door entry tones from within the room muffled by sound proofing and acoustic treatments.
The excited but hushed voices of two school girls in KFC talking about a boy I think. Echo invited me here for an after school snack - a boneless banquet. Later, I listened to Neolithic Cannibals played on BBC Radio 6 as part of an awards special programme. The most thrilling thing is hearing the young artists voices on the radio.
Near an anxious hum.
Is this space neutral without the layer my perception adds?
It’s just a collection of objects: chairs, faux leather, some cream, some blue. A portable radiator, a medical trolley with large drawers labeled basic airway, advanced airway, IV, access drugs and fluids. misc. It has grey metal oxygen tanks on the side.
Leaflet racks with pamphlets that look worried and caring. Pale blue lino floor, a bit like stone wash denim. A small table with magazines. Corridors. Me and my Dad.
He is handling leaflets with his treatment instructions. They tremble slightly in his hands, fluttering with light scrapes of papery contact.
I can hear a kind voice speaking with someone on the other end of the phone. Soft padding footsteps approach, arrive, scuff and twist against the stone wash flooring.
A watery pitch rises. A brittle, thin plastic cup clicks. Is it pitch, the sonic effect of a vessel being filled? Ah, yes, it’s something formanty, like a mouth cavity.
I wonder what happens to the structure when it’s filled.
We discuss the potential demolition of Bristol Estate, and I think about recording there in my old bedroom before it’s gone.
A soft metallic grating sound clicks on.
A soft connection with his sleeve makes no sound. And then he’s gone, behind a door to my left. He is being scanned ahead of radiotherapy treatment. I wonder if I’ll hear anything from there. I hear delicate, glistening droplets to my right. Behind me, I hear a rising pitch of machinery spinning and building in five second arcs. Now slowing.
On a walk to the local shops I overhear a voice say Good listening, from over a fence. I return home to a room emptied of soft furnishings rendering the space sonically bare. This shift in acoustics triggers a memory of noticing this as a child. The transformational qualities of decorating, visually and sonically and the headaches caused by paint fumes and the onion used to try and dispel the toxicity.
Echo and I hear the sound of bubbles in the bath. He tells me it sounds crunchy, squelchy, wet, foamy, like 1000s of bubbles popping. Each Pop is a fraction of a second.
Bubbles entry and illustration by Echo
The sharp metallics of shifting and sliding coins like a constant shower around us. A demented lo-fi speaker says Thank You as coins are deposited.
The sustained harshness of money, the amplified alerts, voices and jingles all have a cheap feel. Small speaker cones encased in the attraction’s enclosure’s project a boxy signal that I associate with amusement arcades.
Plastic buttons designed to withstand daily hammering clicked briefly and then held.
At night I hear an unusual beeping echoing outside. Between wake and sleep I struggle to separate it from birdsong and seagull croaks. If it is a bird, it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It’s closer to a vehicle reversing beep with cosmic delays than something natural. Maybe I was dreaming.
A delicate metal friction presents a challenge.
It’s morning. I’m propped up in bed writing in the half light that seeps through the wide gaps either side of the blinds in front of me. I hear soft frictions and cloth movements as Victoria is disturbed by my 6:50am alarm set to remind me to take travel sickness tablets ahead of our drive to London. We are going to the Barbican to see and hear a sound exhibition. I’ve already run anxious movies in my mind, scenes of me feeling rough in the car as we drive on motorways. I can hear the constant drone of the engine, the tarmac and the boxy acoustics of the car interior.
I need to listen to those fearful parts of me on the journey.
Foil splits and cracks, releasing two small objects of hope. In the car I’m so sensitive to every movement, shift, vibration, sound, scent, temperature change. It’s tiring.
Sawing pitch slopes down as the cut deepens. A sticky hiss of air in a sealed junction. Each door has a relationship to the other with the deep thud of one closing causing the other to open briefly, in a rhythm I can’t help playing for a while. They wheeze and thud, and it’s like I’m in a lung, alive, channeling oxygen between spaces.
A thin thunder slice rattles and vibrates sharply. A hollow bucket of thunder rings. From high above rails of motion close out the world. Whining, screeching, rising until it slurs, plopping, swoops and drips like deep jungle animal calls and a metal crunch pings with sparkling echo.