XMTR Festival Selects: Three Rings of Sounds: San Antonio, TX

Radiophonic Institute (UK 2025)

10 min

This field recording project sprang out of the Soundscapes class offered in the Spring of 2025 at the University of Texas at San Antonio (taught by Justin Boyd

Assistant Professor, New Media and Sculpture, Art and Art History). As part of the curriculum students were asked to propose ideas around what San Antonio sounds like. Being a large city, they decided to split the recordings into three zones: The Outer Ring is based around Highway Loop 1604, The Middle Ring is based around Loop 410 and the Inner Ring is the downtown/near downtown area. The sounds you hear represent the students' travels within the city and provide a personal snapshot of San Antonio in the spring.

Produced by Louis Gillespie and Ilia Rogatchevski
Student field recordists: Kayla Byrd, Jaila Castro, Ruby Coker, Alma Cuellar Vazquez, Isabelle Davis, Sep Garcia, Elroy Kay, Nina Lemire, Bryce Mcgowan, Andrew Mendoza, Carmen Montoya, Alyssa Narvaez, Aniyah Nick, Aaron Olivarez, Noah Pitman, Kendell Price, A’Isha Walker, Laurel Westphal.
Instructor: Justin Boyd; assisted by Charlotte Irakunda
Mixed by: Justin Boyd and Charlotte Irakunda

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XMTR Festival Selects: The Spittal

Camilla Hannan (AU 2024)

10 min

Composition made from field recordings made in and around Glenshee and the Cairngorms National Park Scotland in July 2024

Produced and recorded by Camilla Hannan

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XMTR Festival Selects: In A Cowshell

Miri Berlin (DE 2025)

9 min

The electroacoustic composition „In A Cowshell“ is based on field recordings that capture the sonic microcosm of a cowshed, interweaving and abstracting its sound world. It follows the course of the milking process — from the magical stillness as the cows enter and take their places, to the rhythmic drive of the machines, drawing you in — gradually giving way to calm again as the milking ends. Finally, the cows leave the barn, guided by the farmers’ calls back to the pasture — marking the close of the piece.

Produced by Miri Berlin

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I Dream Of Water: The Well, The Bay, The Sea

Susanne Lambert (UK 2025)

7 min

This is part of a body of work is about people's relationships with water, based around a set of audio recordings from various people Suzanne knows. She asked contributors to share something about a place of water they have strong memories of, or connections to, and to say something about what feelings are evoked in the place.

Susanne set the audio messages within new compositions (including found sounds and field recordings) in different ways to create a series of pieces. She has combined improvised open passages (drums/clarinet/piano/synth) with more considered and formulated sections, in an attempt to echo, mirror and juxtapose the words, and build imagery around the stories shared.

The series will eventually also include factual information, alongside the personal connective elements, as an opportunity to examine the diverse and sometimes contradictory elements of our human relationship to water.

Produced by Susanne Lambert aka Suzi Lamb

Listen to the collection

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Coastal Soundforms : Tymbals and Golden Gallopers, Beach

Andrius Mack (LT 2025)

5 min

Coastal Soundforms is a field recording composition made entirely from acoustic coastal field recordings captured over several years. It features soundscapes from the UK (Dungeness, Camber Sands, Brighton, Bournemouth), Lithuania (Neringa, Palanga), Netherlands (Texel), Portugal (Lisbon, Cascais), Morocco (Taghazout, Mirleft) and Italy (Venice). Sometimes the recordings are presented as faithful sonic representations, sometimes they are heavily manipulated with filters in order to highlight certain features present in the soundscapes. It is an exploration of the contrast between biophonic soundscapes and urban anthrophonies. All set against the backdrop of a relentless, thunderous oceanic geophony.

Listen to the series

Produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by Andrius Mack

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16 Curious Thoughts: A Cognitive Visual Art Exhibition

Stephen Richardson (AU 2025)

30 min

16 Curious Thoughts is a cognitive visual art exhibition created by Stephen Richardson, an Australian conceptual artist now living in London. Stephen is completing his PhD on cognitive visual art exploring the nexus between visual art and the spoken word based on the Cognitive Art Manifesto. 16 Curious Thoughts is a 30-minute broadcast of Stephen's new cognitive visual artworks. It is an immersive visual art audio experience. This is visual art you can listen to! The artworks are accompanied by a unique soundscape composed by Stephen. Stephen has a BA in Fine Arts and a Masters in Visual Art. He has exhibited in the USA (New York), Italy, France, Monaco, and Australia.

Produced by Stephen Richardson
Original music and soundscape by Stephen Richardson
Narration by Diana Carroll and Stephen Richardson

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The Graves In The Ocean Are Burning

Per Wilhelm Wahlroos (SE 2025)

4 min

The Graves in the ocean is a poem by the Swedish poet Per Wilhelm Wahlroos recorded with EAM music and Buchla at EMS, Stockholm.

Produced by Per Wilhelm Wahlroos
Lyrics and Music: Per Wilhelm Wahlroos

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Invisible Body (Raw Noise)

Sylvain Souklaye (US 2024)

10 min

"A bodily and sonic experience about parenthood.

The piece was recorded at LEIMAY CAVE during my stay at the Incubator, a few days after the birth of my daughter. Between an unknown euphoria and sleep deprivation, my body and my senses were in a shamble. I was not myself anymore, but not yet someone new. The fatigue existed everywhere except in the studio, where I found an untapped energy and a balance into chaos.

During those days of experimentation, I wanted to rediscover my relationship with touch. I blindfolded myself every time I entered the studio. I had to forget myself, my vision of things and my definition of my body in a space. I had to become invisible to myself to explore and attempt to reach this other me with a newborn waiting on the other side of the studio.

While moving and trying to make sense of what it means to be again, I felt, hurt myself, and finally found ground. It was an out-of-body experience ; I became invisible and reached immaterial spaces.

I was learning to walk again, step by step, stomping my way to feel the joy and the pains to feel alive.

INVISIBLE BODY (RAW NOISE) is a bodily and sonic lover letter to my bones, muscles, and skin. More importantly, through this piece, I question what will be their purpose outside, in the real world.

PS: I’d like to thank Ximena Garnica, Shine Moriya, Krystel Copper and Brandon Perdomo from LEIMAY CAVE for their support during this crucial moment of my life.

PS2: Please use your headphones to experiment the raw granularity of the experience.”

Produced by Sylvain Souklaye

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Departures / Arrivals - Every Floor Has A Different Color

Umi Hsu (US 2024)

9 min

Departures / Arrivals is a bilingual experimental audio memoir that follows my search for where memory is held within a diasporic time/space. After having immigrated to the United States as a pre-teen 33 years ago, I return to sites significant to my life in Taiwan: the apartment building I grew up in, walks I took with family, the school I attended, and more. Each track on the album is an audio meditation on memory surrounding a specific place and relationship with unscripted dialogs. Each composition presents a diasporic architecture, where a particular time/space is stretched and compressed at once. It’s an invitation to listen in and between the cracks of sound, language, and memory.

Composition, performance, recording, and mixing by: Umi Hsu

Listen to the series

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Kaizen

Carlo Patrão (PT 2024)

5 min

改 善 Kaizen is a radiophonic sound collage of North American "tech speak" and "corporate jargon" that overuses the Japanese term Kaizen, meaning continuous improvement, as a form of control and shield against listening, responsibility, and reparation.

Produced/Collage/Music by: Carlo Patrão

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