Field Recordings: The Sound of 2023

Eleanor McDowall (UK 2023)

57 min

A slow weave of some of the past year’s Field Recordings, from a church in Vilnius to a floating choir in Copenhagen. As 2024 begins what do we remember of the past year? Let these sounds lull you into the new year away from the noise.

Orthodox Christmas service, Catholic Church of St. Johns, Vilnius, Lithuania on 7th January 2023 – by Vaida Pilibaitytė

Whistling wind rattling the windows, inside the library, London, UK in January 2023 – by Siddharth Khajuria

Summer dusk with birds near Vedia, Buenos Aires province, Argentina in January 2023 – by Joaquín Conde

The bells at St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, Kyiv, Ukraine on Sunday 13th February 2022 at 4.43pm – by Barny Smith

Sounding stairs, Kaunas, Lithuania on 19th January 2023 – by Marta Medvešek

Goose night, Eskdalemuir, Scotland, UK on 24th January 2023 – by Geoff McQueen

Crows, Vancouver, Canada on 27th January 2023 at 4pm– by Martin Zaltz Austwick

Thawing ice, Tammisalo canal, Helsinki, Finland on 4th February 2023 by Miia Laine

Department of Education, Westminster, London, UK on 15th February 2023– by Tash Walker

Walking in the snow, Vancouver, Canada on 25th February 2023 at 11.30pm – by Martin Zaltz Austwick

Underwater, Førdefjord, north of Bergen, Norway in February 2023 – by Jay Richardson

Woodpeckers in Wandle Park, London, UK on 3rd April – by Andrew Strangeway

Pigeon in the cinema, London, UK on 15th April 2023 – by Sam Clements and Louise Owen

Argentino Lake shores in front of Spegazzini Glacier, Santa Cruz, Argentina in April 2023 – by Joaquín Conde 

Emergency alert system test, Oxford Circus, London, UK, around 2.58pm on 23rd April 2023– by Anthony Ing

Jack in the Green procession, Hastings, UK on 1st May 2023– by Jorge Stride

A rickshaw journey through Bengaluru, India, at dusk, as heavy rain begins to fall on 1st May 2023 – by Siddharth Khajuria

Musical cacophony pouring through the open windows of practice rooms, London, UK on 18th May 2023 – by Eleanor McDowall

Whistling wind, Reykjavík, Iceland on 20th May 2023 – by Agnieszka Czyżewska Jacquemet

Eider ducks in the glacier river lagoon (Jökulsárlón) as rain falls, Vatnajökull National Park, south coast of Iceland on Friday 26th May 2023 – by Eleanor McDowall

Outside the Black Lion in Plaistow, London, UK, at 7.45pm on Thursday 8th June 2023, for the passing of the open top bus following West Ham’s victory in the Europa Conference League Final  – by Alan Hall

Spanish Point (Rinn na Spáinneach), County Clare, (Contae an Chláir), Ireland on 8th June 2023– by Kalli Anderson

Chair lift to the Wolzenalp, Switzerland, on Saturday 10th June 2023 – by This Wachter 

Thunderstorm, Abney Park Cemetery, London, UK on 12th June 2023 – by Joe Harvey-Whyte

Royal Courts of Justice, London, UK on Saturday 17th June 2023 at 1.30pm

Mountain goats, Kefalonia, Greece, in June 2023– by Tash Walker

Carillon, Sint Janskerk, Gouda, Netherlands in June 2023  – by Paul Ridout

Frogs of Lac Labelle at 1am, Saint-Adolphe-d’Howard, Quebec, Canada on 4th July 2023 – by Mira Burt-Wintonick

Competing fireworks, Hamilton Heights, Harlem, New York City, USA on 4th July 2023 – by Jon Moskowitz

Loons of Lac Forbes at Sunset, Mont-Tremblant National Park, Québec, Canada on 19th July 2023 - by Mira Burt-Wintonick

Demonstration at the Italian Embassy, London, UK on 2nd August 2023- by Lisa Hack

Delta del Tigre, Argentina on 4th August 2023 by Eva Moeraert

Tywardreath ringing the bells of St Barts, Lostwithiel, UK on 9th August 2023 – by Celia Robbins

Electrical storm, East London, UK on 18th September 2023 at 1am – by Joe Harvey-Whyte

Gaggles of geese, River Thame, England, UK on 23rd September 2023– by Paul Ridout

Midnight Soundscape, Sedona, Arizona, USA on 5th October 2023 – by Joe Harvey-Whyte

Palestinian Solidarity March, London, UK on 11th November 2023

Chimes outside the monastery, Stanstead Mill Stream, after dark on Sunday 10th December 2023- by Eleanor McDowall

Edith purring, Glasgow, Scotland in December 2023 – by Steve Urquhart

Santa Lucia kayak parade, Copenhagen, Denmark on 13th December 2023 – by Kara Oehler

Produced by Eleanor McDowall

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Requiem For A Mother

Miri Berlin (DE 2023)

9 min

This sound composition combines field recordings with electronic elements to document the acoustic and atmospheric character of various stages – from the intensive care unit to the vigil and on to the crematorium.

In the intensive care unit, the rhythmic sounds of the ventilator and the beeps of medical devices are the first things you hear. Afterward, we find ourselves in a Berlin courtyard where the casket, on a metal trolley, is transported from the mortuary to the room where the vigil takes place.

In the middle of the room, the casket is open. The door to the courtyard is ajar, allowing ambient sounds to permeate the space. The final stage is the crematorium, where the sounds of powerful ventilation fans and a relentless drone dominate. The furnace door opens with a loud mechanical sound as the casket glides on the rails. The fire becomes visible, hissing and crackling before the door quickly closes again.

Produced by: Miri Berlin 

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Keys to an Unlocked Door

Audio Flux - Megan Tan (US 2023)

3 min

Audio Flux is an open collaboration, fueled by short audio works that respond to a set of rules established with a different creative partner each time.

The inaugural circuit is partnered with writer and artist Wendy MacNaughton (New York Times, How to Say Goodbye, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat).

Six producers were invited to create three-minute “Fluxworks,” that:
Include some manifestation of the theme: letting go
Include previously unshared personal archival tape
Take inspiration from one of three illustrations by Wendy (keys, gas station, person reading)

Megan Tan merges two stories - one person is looking for the keys to life and another has the keys to life.

Production - Megan Tan

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Ghost Wolf

Joan Schuman (US 2023)

13 min

The sovereignty of bodies is conjectured through a shuffle of voices across the scaffold of hollow spaces—the mouth, pelvis; curled fists and open heart.

These voices spin and blur into an invitation to listen beyond the exacting stories we find comfort in. Imagine the wolf, hunted almost to extinction across centuries in the U.S. and their ever-strident returns. We fear them as we conjecture dreamscapes from their howls.

These spectral creatures and their autonomous nations fiercely compel some communities to seek their annihilation; others strive for management.; some are satisfied in the certainty of their hidden slinking. It’s a mirror to contemporary political dogfights over bodily dominion, of conviction and control. In a poetic mix of voices, in the barely sung utterance, in barking and yipped snarls, there’s a swirl of imaginary wolves inside the body’s cavities.

There’s also an urgency to stray across landscapes of narrative around fears and survival. We contend with a tension of opposites. The same person who absolutely values the sovereignty of reproductive rights for women might be the person who falls easily to the sway of another faith—a solid belief in government control of disease and culture, bodies and politics, scientific literacy and objectivity.

Like the metaphor of unseen wolves, there is a trope of hysteria that is palpable depending on the bodies and the faith in them. Can these disparate stories about sovereignty be open to debate? Felt in the body itself? Formed in another kind of skulking, a striding low across the loamy, forest floor?

Written, vocalized and composed by:: Joan Schuman

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This I is Made of Paper

The Paris Review (US 2023)

21 min

Pulitzer Prize winner Sharon Olds discusses sex, religion, and writing poems that "women were definitely not supposed to write,” in an excerpt from her Art of Poetry interview with Jessica Laser. Olds also reads three of her poems: “Sisters of Sexual Treasure” (Issue No. 74, Fall–Winter 1978), “True Love,” and “The Easel.”

Production and Sound Design - John DeLore
The Paris Review

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XMTR Radio Hour Ep26 : Steve Urquhart's Audio World

Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2023)

63 min / Episode 26 of 26

This Transmitter Radio Hour is a selection of audio works chosen by award winning Glasgow based radio producer and sound artist Steve Urquhart. He joins Lucia to discuss why these works inspire, make him laugh and more importantly break the rules and conventions of radio making. Steve has worked for local radio in Cumbria, National Prison Radio and made many many documentaries and shorts for BBC Radio. 

Works featured: 

1. LEAVING A MARK
Produced by Emily Hsaio for Transom Story Workshop, 2013
https://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/feature/leaving-a-mark

2. THE HOT DOGS
BBC Radio Cumbria, circa 1999/2000. Presenter: Alan Smith. Producer: Steve Urquhart 

3. RABBLE ROUSERS (extract)
Produced by Sarah Boothroyd, 2012
https://soundcloud.com/sarah-boothroyd/boothroyd-rabble-rousers

4. PRISON WALK (unedited)
Recorded by Chris Impey inside HMP Brixton, London, 2011

5. LYN AND MARY (extract)
The Listening Project, BBC, 2013
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p6rz3

6. THE FURNITURE SUPPER CLUB
Produced by Clara Lou, 2017
https://www.claralou.net/work/the-furniture-supper-club

7.  BUMP (from ‘Time Constraints AKA the 32Megabyte Mixtape’)
Produced by Alan Bryden, 2017
https://soundcloud.com/listentosteve/alan-bryden-bump-from-time-constraints
https://linktr.ee/alan_bryden

Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio

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Listening Not Knowing

Hannah Kemp-Welch (UK 2023)

miaaw.net · Listening Not Knowing

23 min,

Part of a series about listening in participatory art practice.

Albert Potrony’s website describes him as “an artist with a participatory practice examining ideas of identity, community and language. Potrony is interested in generating social spaces through his projects, and participation from diverse groups and individuals is a key element of his work.” In this conversation with Hannah Kemp-Welsh he introduces his participatory arts practice, describing a recent project with young fathers in Gateshead and former members of an anti-sexist men’s group. Albert and Hannah talk about collaborative practice in detail, and the role of listening within this.

Produced by Hannah Kemp-Welch

Made for Miaaw.net a platform dedicated to conversations about community, creativity, cultural democracy and the commons 


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Generative Engine

Joan Schuman (US 2022)

10 min

Sounds and stories, like dreams, elude our grasp towards a future deemed to be untouched, untarnished.

Along a series of voiced ‘book pages’ echoing from Joan’s creative sonic archive of more than 20 years ago, comes an intersection generated with material lifted up from the unconscious. Collisions of narrative are reconsidered along the timescape of dreams. It’s very much of the now and of a past that appears in the present. What is spoken and whirled emits a barely linear story accessing the cycles of death, but also the collective symbology of end-times and freedom.

This melding is driven by an energetic stirring of borrowed lines from the poet-theorist, Nicole Brossard, and the theorist-philosopher Gilles Deleuze—from texts produced in the early 1970s (A Book by Brossard and Negotiations by Deleuze). These ‘pages’ comprised a sonic engine originally played in a gallery space and ceded over to the machine’s shuffle mode. Now, in present time, both a past and a future unfurl. The ship of the night floats through turgid waters. A neat continuum of story is interrupted within itself swirling like an invertebrate, horizontal and regenerate. The underworld knows no time. Sounds, like dreams, elude our grasp towards a future deemed to be untouched, untarnished.

Vocals + mix: Joan Schuman
Texts + Words: Nicole Brossard + Gilles Deleuze
Composition: Joan Schuman derived from Creative Commons licensed freesound

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Folxlore - Stuck

Tin Can Audio (UK 2020)

13 min Episode 1 of 9

Folxlore tells the stories of queer people living literally and figuratively between two worlds. In one sense, we try to live normal lives while the world tells us we are not normal. In another sense, our normal lives are interrupted by a very not-normal rift opening up between our world and another plane of existence filled with nightmarish horrors. This pilot series deals with themes of first romance, hate crime related trauma, and queer parenthood Folxlore is rooted in everyday Glasgow, where monsters are always on the edge of your periphery.

Written and performed by: Ross McFarlane Syd Briscoe Bibi June ​
With additional voices by Hannah Raymond-Cox
Recorded and produced by David Devereux
A Tin Can Audio Production

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XMTR Radio Hour Ep25 : A Field Trip to Edmonton

Produced by Social Broadcasts (UK 2023)

60 min / Episode 25 of 25

This show is dedicated to the joyful chaos that is Angel Edmonton in Enfield, North London. Once an industrial hub attracting factory workers and their families, the area has been neglected for decades as factories gave way to warehouses and social housing fell into decay.  Today it's a multicultural crossroads undergoing massive redevelopment. Echoes of Angels produced by Social Broadcasts takes us on a trip down the main artery - Fore Street, guided by local residents and business owners. 

Echoes of Angels a Social Broadcast by  – Lucia Scazzocchio 

Commissioned by Fore Street for All 

Next we join Enfield People’s Theatre with local producer Soveks Lo behind the scenes of their latest production Bread and Roses - a community play recounting the 1915 Edmonton Rent Strike and the community action (led and won by local women) drawing parallels with the current housing crises.

Produced by Lucia Scazzocchio

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