During the first weeks of Covid-19 lockdown I took to walking my local rec during the dawn chorus and was struck by the vibrant bird call and reduced noise pollution. So I started to take recording gear, leaving the mics on railings, or hung on branches, while continuing my permitted exercise. This 17 minute composition... Continue Reading →
Susan Stenger – Sound Strata of Coastal Northumberland
Sound artist Susan Stenger’s 2015 Sound Strata of Coastal Northumberland is a land music piece inspired by a 12.5 m long geological cross-section from Tyne to Tweed. Drawn in 1838 by local mining engineer Nicholas Wood, the coloured geological strata inspired Stenger to compose a sound piece presented in three main forms: a CD and... Continue Reading →
Underland Sounds
Robert Macfarlane’s journeys to and in the underland take us to now seldom heard soundscapes. Most of us are prone to detrimental physical and mental health impacts of sound - the urban soundscape is said to trigger the release of cortisone, a stress hormone, which damages blood vessels over time1. According to the World... Continue Reading →
Richard Skelton – Till Fabrics
Richard Skelton’s latest release on Aeolian Editions comprises two pieces inspired by research into glacigenic landforms and are the first recordings in his Moraine Sequence1. The title, Till Fabrics, directly uses geomorphological terminology for sediments left behind by former glaciers. Till refers to unsorted glacigenic sediment - that is it contains a full range of... Continue Reading →
Patagonian Soundscapes
The field recording of Patagonia’s landscapes and earth surface processes proved challenging. Either the famous winds would intrude when unwanted, or there was an inevitable stillness when I wished for the sound of air flow. One wind recording I had planned to make was from the floor of the Cañadon Caracoles. This large canyon was... Continue Reading →
Sand and Cobbles
I managed to grab some time in evenings and lunch breaks to do some field recording on our undergraduate field course to Nerja, Spain. I was able to explore the contrasting sounds of stormy/calm seas on cobble/sand beaches - I recorded the sounds of rolling beach cobbles on a beautifully calm evening just a couple... Continue Reading →
Singing ice shelves
Seismic monitoring of the Ross ice shelf (Antarctica) has revealed ambient resonances at frequencies >5 Hz1. Winds blowing across the ice cause the shelf to sing. The sounds occur year-round and spectral peaks occur at a range of frequencies between 4 and 50 Hz with power exceeding 15 dB. The singing changes in response to... Continue Reading →
Ester Vonplon with Taylor Deupree & Marcus Fischer – Lowlands
In the liner notes to Thomas Köner’s Novaya Zemlya (2012), Thierry Charollais writes that Köner produces “a physical, bodily music, pulsating and flowing like heart beat or tidal movement, surrounded by almost infinite horizons. Listening to Novaya Zmyla is like discovering and exploring unchartered territories, by moving through the innermost scenery and your own body”.... Continue Reading →
Environmental sound recordings from Patagonia
This demo track combines three environmental sound recordings from Patagonia - 1) a beach at the eastern end of Lago Buenos Aires (South America's second largest lake), 2) the River Baker (Chile's largest in terms of flow volume), and 3) wind at Chile Chico. So you can now listen to landscape sounds while reading our latest... Continue Reading →
Matthias Urban – Sial
Matthias Urban, an Austrian sound artist, has crafted an impeccable aural narrative documenting his travels in Iceland between 2013 and 2016. Sial1, in two 20 minute halves to fit this cassette release, takes an upstream journey from coast to inland glaciers, where we are witness to ice calving into a lake. Here, water molecules are... Continue Reading →