Listening Journal February 2025 - In to Nothing

I heard these sounds in February.

Mausoleum acoustics, tuned air.

A strained nothing sound. Air thin choral resonances.

Leaning in between acoustic screens.

I step through the curtain, drop my self consciousness and sing. I find harmony with AI, enjoying the secluded, private space to share my voice. I wonder if I’m singing with another human, unseen in the booth opposite me.

I face a wall with my back to the speakers.

Ponies squelch through mud in Hyde Park. The ground I’m walking on is wet. Every footstep slick and glistening. I look up just as a formation of croaking geese fly towards me, passing just over my head. I hear fluttering details of feathers beating.

A voice against a backdrop of cicada’s, wavering tones and ambience, plays from a small speaker cone embedded in an old, brown wooden box. The sound waves leave that box, pass over a floating wooden approximation of a toilet bowl and cistern before activating the wide gallery acoustics.

A soft motorised rhythm pulses, then a hum and a click before that original pulse takes on a ticking higher note that ripples away from me.

Variations of the above sequence surround me.

Distant, faint rising and falling pitch like an air raid klaxon.

Occasionally a squeak ignites the room like a sneaker on a basketball court.

The wooden box voice drifts through to here.

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Echoes of Old Shoreham

Echoes of Old Shoreham

Beginning in March and continuing until August I’ll be running listening workshops in Shoreham on the south coast of the UK.

"Echoes of Old Shoreham" is a community sound art project that captures and celebrates the rich sonic landscape and cultural heritage of Old Shoreham. This collaborative initiative invites residents to explore their historic surroundings through listening, creating an immersive audio portrait that spans the Shoreham Downs from the Adur valley to Thundersbarrow Hill. Born from the success of a listening workshop during the FOLDS Heritage Festival in September 2024, this project expands on the community's growing interest in their unique aural environment.

To sign up email echoes@oldshoreham.org

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Intricate Frictions

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Curtains of water shimmer in fading light. Distinct zones of white noise showers.

Drips, splats, trickles, droplets, flow.

Wind activated waves of intensity, the outside swaying, rippling trees blown in through the huge jagged stone window in a wash of noise that fills the entire sound spectrum.

Every surface damp.

Listening to Cathedral Cave. Words and field recordings over on my Substack.

Emily explores the cave. Photo by Curtis James.

The writing was originally published in Boulderdash Zine 1 available here. Already on to their 4th edition, Boulderdash presents writing around the themes of Stones, Drones and Noise. Highly recommend checking it out.



Listening Journal - January 2025 - Mumbai

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Tinkers surrounded by piles of different coloured soles, pots of polish and assorted tools, sit at the end of each platform tapping small wooden sticks to gain attention from passing passengers. The combined tapping is spatially pleasing, woodblock polyrhythms moving back and forth along the ends of the platforms. A huge air horn blast adds a dramatic counter and now crow caws join the wooden pecking of the tinkerers.

Photo by Jim Stephenson

I was incredibly lucky to visit Mumbai in January to attend the ADFF. STIRR film festival. ‘The Architect Has Left the Building’, the multi screen, multi speaker installation I made with Jim Stephenson and Sofia Smith for RIBA, was being exhibited at the festival and Jim and I ran a workshop and took part in a panel.

I dedicate this month’s listening journal to the sounds I heard during this trip, my first to India. As usual it’s a mix of sound descriptions, metaphors and thoughts on listening. The practice of listening and writing about it is more important than the sharing. It’s worth saying that I didn’t set out to make a comprehensive sound portrait of Mumbai (this would be an immense and amazing project) and instead these are just the sounds that were unique to my time in this sonically rich city.

Thanks to all the teams at STIR, ADFF, RIBA, NCPA and The British Council for making this project and trip possible, and of course Jim for being a great travel companion.

Read it here.

Listening Journal - November 2024 - My Shadow in the Sweet Spot

Things I heard in November.

In a converted warehouse space an unexpected whoosh followed by the briefest whine, form an object in the air. It's the spatial trail that catches my ear.

Connecting with Echo through making pitched down remixes of his favourite songs.

Outside a long, drawn out noise sweep moves into the distance and I listen to its tail trying to hear where it ends. In my imagination it continues, stretching like the freeze audio effect that sustains a sound forever. I can still hear it minutes later.

From upstairs I can hear pitched snare drums on every offbeat and Echo singing along to the slurred, slowed down vocals. 

Today someone asked me if a sound carried on forever and if sound waves continue to oscillate, fluttering and vibrating into the ether, out into space. I imagine distant planets inhabited by beings with incredibly sensitive ears picking up Earth's din.

Liquid, bubbling and squelching bat echolocation. We try a human version, clicking using our tongues, exploring how our ears pick up spatial communication reflected from building’s surfaces. 

Two residents describe their windows shrieking when the wind is strong.

Stomping on drain covers, listening to subterranean booms, touching railings to feel the sound of passing trains. A small child with very good rhythm uses percussion beaters to sound objects around her community. She clambers up onto an outdoor gym apparatus clutching a Zoom audio recorder, eager to record the resonant metal bars that run at intervals along the top. 

I read out loud the lore about the king shouting his secret into the earth and I lose a metal spike that is meant to let me listen to those secrets. 

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Listening Journal October 2024 - A Temporary Sonic Imprint

Some things I heard in October.

The Entertainer floats around Brighton station, bouncing off the glass ceiling.

Squealing sharp travel, the hum of movement, upper frequency details ricochet around the expansive structure clattering against glass and metal. 

The Entertainer is not entertaining.  A train arrives unheard, and bags pass me jingling delicately as zips and fastenings swing. A distant beep, source unknown, smears in the reverb. 

Now a song that I recognise from Echo's playlist, Dance Monkey.

As I walk along the platform to the train, details diminish. It's much more enjoyable to hear the notes float towards me, rippling off every surface, merging with train drones and hiss. I'm sad to shut that soundscape out, but as the train door slides shut, it's gone, replaced with whooshing humming air and tin foil crunched brittle.

Factory songs.

A beautiful story of listening and the connection to landscape and more than human beings. 

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Listen Club 16 playlist

Sounds and music around the themes of Archaeology and deep listening. At Listen Club, The Rose Hill, Brighton on the 26th of September 2024.

Neolithic Cannibals Clip 1 - Neolithic Cannibals  - 4’22"
Cave of Shells - John Kenny - 2’13"
Stone Tape - Nigel Kneale/BBC Radiophonic Workshop - 4’45"
Neolithic Cannibals Clip 2 - Neolithic Cannibals - 6’12"
In the Cave - Pepe Deluxe - 1’51"
Star Carr - Ben Elliot and Jon Hughes - 5’59"
Sound Marks - Rob St John / Rose Ferraby - 7’44"
Mycenae Alpha - Iannis Xenakis - 9’39"
Neolithic Cannibals Clip 3 - Neolithic Cannibals - 6’03"
Vision of Truth - Blake Baxter - 6’31"
The Landscape Listens - Caterina Barbieri - 8’07"

Listen Club is organised by Sound Art Brighton. More here.

Luray Caves, home of the Stalactite Organ used on In the Cave by Pepe Deluxe

Last night at Listen Club 16. Deep Listening to the Unheard.

Listening to stone. Inquisitive about what we might learn from ‘listening in’ and expanding our auditory experience. Stone Tape. Stalactite Organ. Tuning in to materials and connecting on a deeper level. Imagined prehistory ‘sound fabric’. Blake Baxter Detroit Underground Resistance thru sound. Uprising. The submerged surfacing. My beginnings. The landscape listens. Representing the softness and kindness. Struck by the power of my vulnerability. Neolithic Cannibals playing in a dead (acoustic) space. A low hum sat between and under everything. Sharing this with one of the Neolithic Cannibals artists in the audience. A sound community.

Listening Journal

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Listening Journal

I started a listening journal in September 2023 whilst on a residency in the Pyrenees. It wasn’t my first attempt to make ‘no microphone’* recordings, but it began a sustained period of recording sounds using words. Maybe it’s because it is relatively new compared to recording using microphones, which I’ve been doing for decades, but I’ve found the process has become my favourite way of connecting with listening. 

My listening journal comes everywhere with me, and the feeling of opening it up to make a new entry is calming and invites a quiet focus I struggle to find anywhere else. I try to record in the moment rather than from memory, and find that this promotes a deeper listening and connection with the world around me, getting really inquisitive about what I’m hearing; the texture, rhythm, timbre, acoustics, time and spatial dynamics as well as exploring aspects of relationships, memories and place. 

There is often no context in entries, just simple noting of things I’ve heard, with an attempt to record something of the character and detail of the sound. Sometimes it is important to describe the sound source and sometimes that won’t be so clear. 

This is practice for me. Writing and listening.

I’m going to share extracts each month and begin with August’s recordings. I’m considering a number of bonus/subscriber content ideas including monthly extracts from the past year’s archive and an actual audio recording that accompanies each month’s extracts. 

I’d be interested to hear if any of these recordings resonate with you and hope they might invite you to listen to the world in different ways. I owe a huge debt to Pauline Oliveros and other Deep Listening practitioners I’ve been fortunate enough to learn from and good friend and mentor Angus Carlyle, whose writing about sound has been inspirational. 

*I read this term for the first time in Dirty Ear Report #2 last week. James Webb uses it to describe pretty much what I’m doing here. 

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Distillation

Location recording and soundscape composition for Dalmore Whiskey. One of those brilliant projects where my sound art practice meets my commercial work (and not my first Whiskey commission - see here ). Over a year later these sounds still conjure up the smell of whiskey and the heat of the stills. I melted a microphone during this project.

Surround microphone and contact mics attached to the still

Traditional microphones capture the wider soundscape and contact mics listen in to the stills, pipes and other elements of Dalmore Whiskey being produced. It will be at least 10 years before anyone tastes these recordings.

flat top still / condenser / down lyne arm / wash / charging / heating / water jacket / feints / foreshots / middle cut / spirit safe

Made of Sand

4 day residency with Max de Wardener at Made of Sand in the Blackdown Hills. Tuned microphone and feedback experiments. Recording imprints of the structure. Miniature oscillations. Exposed room tones. Facing speakers to the glass. Excited by spectral falcon wings. Sound wand.

……….

Thanks to Natalie and Tom.

Gathering

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The Neolithic Cannibals exhibition went by in a blur and I need to find some time to write about the experience and think about what it means to my ongoing practice and what I’d like to try and do next. I’m excited. It is one of the biggest (in every sense of the word) projects I’ve been involved with and brings together decades of practice and a new found confidence. I also think we witnessed how powerful a simple invitation to listen can be.

Our plan was to make something uncompromising (in the context of community/sound art). Something that connected the joy of playful creativity, heritage, archaeology, and Class Divide’s campaign for fairer education. There were many times when I thought the story was too complex and had too many layers and wouldn’t work, but listening was the beautiful glue that held everything together. Of course it was.

More thoughts when I have time, but I’m hopeful that there will be more to come.

And I can’t forget those amazing artists I was priveledged to work with and the team at Lighthouse, Emily from Stanley James Press and of course Curtis and Carlie from Class Divide.

More details here.

The young artists (and one older artist) stand in front of large hanging exhibition banners in the gallery designed by Emily Macaulay.

Photo by Phoebe Wingrove

Neolithic Cannibals workshop 3

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Workshop 3 was held at Brighton Museum and offered a unique journey into deep history. Exploring the Archaeology Gallery with Jon Sygrave from Archaeology South East, the young artists were transported to the Neolithic era, learning about the remains of Whitehawk Camp while surrounded by mysterious artifacts. With skilled flint knapper Grant Williams the artists experienced the intense sonic impacts and intricate crunchy  processes involved in crafting tools from aged stone. It turns out that listening to the materials is of great importance when knapping. Observing the timbral and pitch changes as flint was worked, participants discovered a wide range of sounds within the ancient rock.

Film by Curtis James

Using chalk gathered from Whitehawk Hill, artists translated Whitehawk Neolithic Camp’s patterns and shapes into graphic scores, for future explorations with electronic synthesizers. 

The workshop culminated in an improvised performance, where the artists gathered around a mock campfire, exploring the sonic potential of flints and recording their experiments with a surround microphone, capturing every gritty, resonant detail.

Neolithic Cannibals is a socially engaged sound art project and exhibition from the young people of Whitehawk and East Brighton, artist Simon James, who was born and raised in Whitehawk, and Class Divide.

More info here

Neolithic Cannibals Workshop 2

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In workshop 2, the young artists expanded their listening to the outdoors, exploring the sonic environment around The Crew Club. They used portable audio recorders to gather sounds, and percussion beaters were used for improvisation with materials and found objects.

Film by Curtis James

An unexpected highlight was an impromptu group performance playing the railing that surrounds a forlorn and empty playground. Where lack of funds have seen the playpark derelict, the young sound artists found their own way to play, circling the railing and dragging their beaters and brushes over the tines of the railing as they ran around and around. A surround microphone captured the swirling, spinning metallic resonances as they reverberated around the nearby valley walls.

Neolithic Cannibals is a socially engaged sound art project and exhibition from the young people of Whitehawk and East Brighton, artist Simon James, who was born and raised in Whitehawk, and Class Divide.

More info here

Neolithic Cannibals - Workshop 1 journal and video clip

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The first Neolithic Cannibals workshop took place this week. We enjoyed some simple field recording, exploring the corridor outside our workshop space. I guided the group in listening to and recording the resonances and timbre of various objects and materials such as a hollow plastic bin (which they dropped the microphone in to and then hit with percussion beaters), coathangers sliding and scratching on a metal rail, radiators clanging, squeaky tables and discovering that every door has its own unique sound signature if you listen closely. They mixed these everyday, found sounds with electronics, improvising their first soundscape, each artist engaging with the inquisitive, playful nature that lies at the heart of this project.  

Young sound artists take part in listening exercises and experiment with synthesizers and found sounds. Film by Curtis James

“A vibrational movement - through the hill to the city. Vibrating the earth and chalk that sit as a symbolic barrier.”

Often these tools - microphones, synthesisers and effects are more powerful in the hands of young people, with no preconceptions of what they should do with them or what they should sound like. That’s really exciting. 

I’m listening back to their work now and there are some lovely moments. After just one session I’ve no doubt we will fill the gallery space with wonderfully imaginative sounds.