Sound Search

Sound Search is a game for a small group to play outdoors, ideally in the woods at night.

One person takes the role of searcher and the rest of the group each choose a small noise maker and go off and hide. Once hidden they play their instrument whilst the searcher uses sound alone to try and find them.

I just found this recording from a camping trip in Chailey Woods in 2018 where I got a group of friends to try Sound Search. I’m not sure how well it worked as a game, but I love the spatial dynamics of the recording; the natural sounds, the percussion, distant fireworks and a nearby owl all take me back to that evening and remind me that I forgot to pack a sleeping mat!

The Passage

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The passage leads from Basin Road South to a raised pebble path that runs parallel to the shore. The acoustics of this thin space, large weathered grey concrete blocks on one side and ugly metal fence on the other, funnel the roar of the sea which increases in power until you exit and feel the full intensity. 

The rain is heavy today, seeping through my waterproofs to my skin. I’m testing a new rain cover for my microphone and I’m a bit apprehensive putting my faith in it under these conditions but I’m holding out for a little while longer.

As I stand at the entrance to the passage, behind me I hear the familiar mix of port vehicles and cars, and the steel depot’s heavy machinery a distant drone. Often when I walk down this path I feel like I’m leaving one world and entering another, but today in the middle the two worlds blur, roaring sea trucks on slick wet roads.

I’m too wet now and ready to cal it a day. My thoughts distracted by Victoria’s trip to the hospital. I’ll come back to this another day. 

The Invisible Power Mix

The wind's invisible and silent energy blasts through this mix of field recordings.

I made a windy mix tape! To celebrate the release of my Electronic Breeze album this week I’ve collected my favorite wind field recordings in to a mix.

In isolation wind is silent. Only when it comes in to contact with an object does it reveal itself to our ears; churning up the sea, rippling through the forest, vibrating and oscillating otherwise static structures and materials. The Invisible Power Mix collects my favorite recordings of these kinds of sound activations.

Tendrils of hairy sea creatures

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Field recording journal - Shoreham Harbour arm sea defence boulders - 9th October 2022

Sea choppy this afternoon, churned up by south easterly wind. It’s busy down here but I take the chance on making a recording of the waves splashing over the sea defence boulders to the west of the harbour arm. 

Large clumps of seaweed float in the turquoise blue, tendrils of hairy sea creatures tangling and untangling. 

The sea is veined with white foam, constantly changing shapes and patterns as it rolls and splashes over the boulders. Occasionally a heavier wave hits, and I fear for my microphones. Large sonic cracks behind me as the sea hits the eastern part of the harbour arm. 

In the distance a medium size boat is entering the harbour. Looks like one of the dredgers. I tune my ears in but I can’t hear the deep hum of its engine yet. The sun is warm, cancelling out the chill of the wind. One of those autumn days where I can’t make up my mind whether I need a jacket or not.

On the other side of the harbour, the bright fluorescent sails of small sailing boats lined up on a small beach flutter. 

The dredger is closer now. It looks heavy, full of aggregate and sailing low in the water. A floating factory, full of industrial machinery - yellow cranes, cabling, metal walkways and at the front a tall brown rusted pillar.

The hum is lost under the sounds of the sea today. Maybe a faint drone ?

It’s called Dapper Dan.  It really is low in the water. The bow wash looks like it is covering the side.

As the boat gets closer I realise it is called Sospan-dau, not Dapper Dan.

A small yacht enters (GBR 1418L) and the hi viz Jacketed harbour arm warden is walking toward me from the end of the harbour arm. Earlier he was in conversation with people fishing off the end. I must record him one day. He’s a constant feature down here. 

On the coast guard station opposite where I’m standing, the radar spins slowly.

Sea Explodes

Field Recording Journal - Beach near harbour arm - 9th October 2022

I’m watching the sea make its way along the harbour arm in smooth flowing waves that leave water marks along the brown grey concrete. Wet traces of contact. The sea defence boulders that jut out from the middle of the harbour arm are visible now as the tide goes out.

Near the shore there is a break in the concrete structure of the harbour arm. It looks like a recessed wide wooden gate but I don't think it can be opened. The sea fills and explodes in to this gap with wild playfulness. I find myself wondering why the sea is interested in this space, why it doesn’t just roll past it, instead of making such a big deal of it. But it does look fun so i don’t blame it. I’ve stood in that space at low tide. It scares me imagining being there now, the ferocity of the water. How it engulfs and bursts outwards, spraying over the beach. 

It’s a pleasure sitting here listening and watching. Feeling the light spray on my face, tasting the salt on my lips. Close enough to the edge of fear but feeling safe.

Small groups of people wander along the arm. I wonder if they are drawn to the power of the sea. An instinctive pull to wonder at something so immense. I’m jealous of strong swimmers and surfers. It must be something to actually be in it. 

Harbour Arm

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Field recording journal 5th October 2022

The wind vibrates the fence I’m leaning against and I welcome its warmth and physical connection to this space.

Carrats cafe car park is almost full with surfers’ vans and cars. Some drying and getting changed.

The wind is blowing hard (I check on an app that says 26mph but it feels stronger). 

I walk towards the harbour arm passing surfers trailing wet footprints. The small turbines are spinning fast, blades cutting through the air, the deep whoosh phasing as I pass between them.

Light rain, tiny specks of sound against waterproof fabric, catch my ear and I consider turning back, but I push on judging it will only be a shower. 

I arrive at the start of the harbour arm and the familiar sound of the gate swinging and clanging fills the air, with lighter, higher pitch clinks coming from the fence to the west. No whistling wind today, must be a different direction. 

Looking to the east with a clear view that stretches along the coast, Brighton, Hove and the port seem squashed, closer together. Sense of perspective lost at this distance under these conditions. The sea is a light green blue, topped with white waves crashing against the beach, throwing up clouds of sea mist. 

The sea roars all around me, enveloping me in wide range noise. I position my microphone and press record. I'm interested in the rhythm of the human made objects as much as the natural. The undulating sea taking up most of the space, the gates and fences a percussive out of time loop.

The wind vibrates the fence I’m leaning against and I welcome its warm physical connection to this space.

A walker passes in short sleeves. I’m wrapped up in fleece and full wind and water proofs. He walks along the deserted harbour arm, conditions too wild for the fishing that takes place most days.

The tee shorted walker returns from the end of the harbour arm. We exchange smiles and nods of heads. 

The creaking gate sounds a bit like a farm animal.  A donkey maybe.

High Tide and White Foam

Field recording journal 4th October 2022 - 7.30PM Shoreham Port

After fiddling around with my gear I arrive later than I’d hoped. It’s dark and I switch my head torch on so I can see what I’m doing. I start by wandering down the alley between concrete blocks and fencing to the hidden path near the resonant sea defence boulders. It’s windy and dark and I’m spooked by the sound of movement. Pebbles thrown on to the beach by fierce waves or footsteps? I swivel my head left and right searching out the source of the sound, but the beam of my weak head torch is inadequate and my pace quickens as I head back to where the car is parked.

It’s probably too windy to record but I’m set up and keen to do more testing with my new microphone. The wind is coming straight off the sea, a ferocious roaring power buffeting me and microphone. The sound of it dominates tonight, no choice but to record it. It drowns everything.

I move on to the beach overlooking the hot pipe, wary of getting too close to the big foamy waves I keep my distance. I can feel the spray on my face and hear it pattering on my jacket.

A small group of photographers take photos of the hot pipe jetty (so called because it houses the outlet for warm water used by the power station). 4 or 5 five with tripods venture down to the beach. I feel a kind of kinship with these night time explorers. I wave at them when they leave, and one waves back.

I sit on a wooden groyne watching the blinking red lights of the distant wind turbines. Is there a pattern? There seems to be. I imagine the sequence as sound. The Hot Pipe jetty is covered by the sea, but its 6 tall red warning poles are visible. They look almost alien, hovering above the surface.

The cold wind is starting to get through my jacket now and my nose is running.

The spray of the sea glows orange under the street lamps and behind me the stark white light of the steel depot blasts the night in to day.

A runner accompanied by a cyclist pass on basin road. It’s too wild for strolling down here tonight. As I pack my gear in to the car, a cyclist in high viz jacket passes and enters the steel depot to start their night shift.

The Water Pump Again

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I’ve kept a journal whilst recording at Shoreham Port, but the entries have tended to be lacking colour. I’m doing more to practice my writing skills including writing reviews of shows I attend, and I’m also developing my field recording journal writing too. Here is an entry from this week with the sound to listen to as you read.

Thursday 15th September 2022

Recording at the water treatment plant and then at the steel depot. Still and calm. Hardly any wind. Taking advantage of the conditions to record without the constant white noise wash of sea in the background.

A team of workers move huge steel beams under glare of floodlights , using large cranes and brute force to lift and position them in slow and what must be exhausting movements. First one alone then joined by 3 others. The whine of industrial electricity is joined by clangs and bangs as steel is lifted, dropped and hit. Now banged into position. A different pitch of electricity and then the new water pump nearby creaks and crackles in to life. It sounds like a broken washing machine full of concrete and happens roughly every 12 minutes. The sound of the old pump is gone now and I'm glad I recorded it.

Shoreham Port

The fresh sea air is masked by the putrid smell of the Southern Water sewage treatment. Shit mixed with washing detergent is how I'd describe it.  On a windy day it is blown away, but on a calm still night like this it hangs around lingering like an invisible brown cloud.

It’s deserted down here apart from the odd cyclist using this route to bypass the main seafront road or a jogger running past with a big dog. I don't blame them, it is beautiful at this time of day as the sun disappears over the horizon.

I’m anxious though, feeling exposed. Constantly on alert, fearful of who might take this almost deserted route at night.  It affects my ability to quietly listen, to really tune in to the sounds.

The sea black now behind me. Red dots in the distance play a silent sequence.

The water pump again. It’s an ugly sound to go with the ugly smell.

A fox slinks across the road and slips through a fence.

It’s a relief when the pump stops.

Don’t know why I’m so drawn to the sound of the steel depot. Maybe it’s the spacious soundscape. You can hear the size of it not because it is a roaring constant, but because of the way the distant electrical whine is broken up by screeches and the clangs that reverberate around the space.

The next water pump sound will be my signal to call it a night. I'm glad I put aside my anxiety and kept recording because just before the final water pump starts up, the steel depot has a brief moment of sounding like Star Wars light sabres, as thick tense metal cabling is manoeuvred and metallic pings resonate around the space.

I make friends with a fox on the way home.

Missing the Mark

I don’t really talk much about my commercial production work here, but this one deserves mention (not that there isn’t lots of great work going on with clients - I even won a few awards recently….)

Missing the Mark is a podcast series by my old friend Eliza Fricker which explores the subject of Autism and the education system (in this case from a UK perspective).

When Eliza asked me to help her make the series, straight away we agreed that sound and music were integral to enhancing this very emotional and personal story. There are subtle uses of sound design throughout to sonically illustrate the stories and experiences we are hearing about. Eliza’s Missing the Mark illustrations (which she has used to share her experience online) are each given their own sound treatment.

It was a deep learning experience and very moving at times. My own education experience was not a good one and working on the series actually helped me to reconcile some of the things that happened to me at school. Its just saddening to know that 30 years later the education system is still getting it so wrong.

I also want to mention all the amazing musicians that donated music for the series. My distant online friend Sean Julian sent me a folder of music and two tracks in particular feature heavily in the series. My local friend Neil hale allowed us to use an album he’d made under the name The Relations.

Esem was someone I met years ago when I did a series of lectures on the history of electronic music at Ravensbourne College. I could see then that he’d be doing interesting things. He’s done some great albums and he let us use some of his material. Jon Tye who runs legendary record label Lo gave us a few lush tracks and Cate Brooks (otherwise known as The Advisory Circle on Ghostbox records) let us use music that could have been made for the series. Joel Wells and Abi Wade provided one of only two vocal tracks used in the series and finally Tess Roby gave the track that perfectly closes each episode. Another that could have been written for the project. THANK YOU. It isn’t taken for granted that you allowed us to use your work.

 







I Feel You Like Home

Now available on Lo Recordings, this album collects the music I created for the Refugee Buddy Project exhibition at the Dela Warr Pavilion this year. During the exhibition I also recorded conversations with members of the Hastings Buddy Project. Stories of community, love, care, support, hope and resilience, and these are included on this album.

A spacious sharing of voices that are so rarely heard. Please support the Buddy Project by purchasing a copy here.

The collection included 11 Postcards taken from the Stitch For Change Patchwork Project and exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion with contributions form the local community. Presented in a tin with hand printed block on hessian cloth. Includes the recordings and arrangements by Simon James inspired by the conversations with the members of the Hastings Refugee Buddy Project.

Electro Smog

Electromagnetic Field recordings from Shenzhen’s electronics markets collected on recycled USB stick with accompanying booklet.

‘Electro Smog’ collects electromagnetic field recordings from Shenzhen’s electronic markets, recorded while I was in China at the invitation of Musicity and The British Council. The first results of this were released in 2018 on the album ‘Musicity 003 – Shenzhen / Shanghai – China’. For ‘Electro Smog’, I returned to the distinctive sounds of the hyperreal, sensory intensity of the huge electronics markets clustered around Shenzhen, a Chinese city that didn’t exist half a century ago.

An area once home to fishing and farming, the electronics markets sate our unquenchable appetite for gadgets, from the useful to the pointless. Using an electromagnetic microphone, I was able to capture the raw, thrilling and mostly unheard sounds of energy – the randomised patterns displayed on LCD screens, the energy produced by ticking security sensors, banks of imitation iPhones and a wall of sonic effluence caused by hundreds of devices.

“As soon as I plugged in my microphone and started wandering around I was drawn to the LEDs, “10-inch diameter reels of tightly wound LED strips making swirling patterns, and the uncoiled strips hanging in rows. As each LED lights up in a pattern it is a bit like a sequence from an audio perspective – you are picking up the rhythm as electromagnetic sound rather than light.”
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My time in the Shenzhen markets yields rhythms formed from fluctuating pulses of buzzing, throbbing energy, whining tones, the clicking and chirruping sounds of what might be invasive electronic insects, ominous magnetic drones and dense clouds of electrical smog.

Back in my Brighton studio, I chose to leave the recordings mostly untouched, adding other atmospheric recordings and voices from the markets, minimal reverb and delicate EQ or filtering. The twelve tracks are at once a gateway into the alien world of sound that surrounds us wherever electronics are present, while also ruminating savagely on consumerism, technology addiction and our chronic device dependencies.

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‘Electro Smog’ is a mixed-media release, consisting of a hand-bound foil-embossed book in both English and Chinese. The book features a Ballardian short science fiction story by UAL Professor of Sound and Landscape Angus Carlyle inspired by the Shenzhen recordings, plus an illuminating interview between Angus and myself exploring the physical act of recording and the subsequent process of making the ‘Electro Smog’ album. The book also features photographs I took while recording in Shenzhen.

In an effort to balance the impact of the long haul flights, mass manufacturing and consumerism connected to the subject matter of ‘Electro Smog’, the desire to not impact the planet any further by pressing a vinyl or CD edition led to the decision to release the audio on upcycled USB sticks gathered from various sources. A sticker sheet inside the book allows the customisation of each unique USB stick.

Electro Smog is available now - get it here

Nail Bomber: Manhunt

At the end of last year I worked with composer Andrew Phillips on the music for Nail Bomber: Manhunt, a Netflix documentary film about the 1999 London bombings that targeted black, Bangladeshi and gay communities. It is now available to view.

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All In The Same Storm: Pandemic Patchwork Stories - De La Warr Pavilion

Last year I was invited to compose music for an exhibition of patchwork squares organised by the Refugee Buddy Project, Hasting, Rother and Wealdon, featuring patchworks created by refugees, volunteers and supported education students from Hastings College. After some delay that exhibition is now open at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea.

Photo by Rob Harris

Photo by Rob Harris

The commission came through Lo Recordings and in early discussions with Jon and Gavin from Lo, the themes of space (physical) and reflection were clearly important for this project. I wrote the following words about the 2hr 15 minute piece I created.

“The sharing of stories is a way to improve community connection and increase compassion. This feels especially important now. Short-sighted politics, economic injustice and greedy social media empires spread division around the world; the COVID-19 Pandemic has only added to that. It’s easy for individuals like me to feel powerless, but there is hope to be found shimmering and glowing in communities around the world where small acts of kindness and togetherness are making a difference. For example, the Buddy project shows that contrary to media reporting, there is a welcome for those in need, and that we can form bonds that transgress borders.

When I was invited to create a composition for this exhibition, I imagined my music expanding and dissolving the boundaries of the gallery. I wanted to create an atmosphere in which visitors would feel welcome to slow down and reflect on the stories within each quilt’s patch more deeply. I hope that time spent here might offer some calm in the storm.”

All in the Same Storm: Pandemic Patchwork Stories runs until Sunday 5th of September at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea.

What Does it Take to Make a Building full film available

What Does it Take to Make a Building?

Piers Taylor in conversation with Sarah Wigglesworth

A film by Jim Stephenson, 2021 - Music and Sound Design by Simon James

’What Does It Take to Make a Building’ is the second in a series of intimate portraits filmed by Jim Stephenson with Piers Taylor in conversation with an architect, where they reflect on their practice, ideas, influences, education and future, through the lens of one of their seminal buildings.

This new film focusses on Sarah Wigglesworth who talks to Taylor about studying architecture at Cambridge in a context where women architects were rarely mentioned, and the development of her socially and environmentally minded practice which has been mainly lived out in the groundbreaking house and studio ’Stock Orchard Street’ she designed and built with her partner Jeremy Till. Stock Orchard Street demonstrates the application of numerous experimental and prototypical ideas, and Wigglesworth discusses how designing and building the project more than 20 years ago with Till, and living and working in it since has helped shape a belief that architecture can be a powerful force for change where political ideals can be set out in material ways.

“I want to make everyday worlds better, it’s the worlds we inhabit all the time... I think there’s a chance that we’re going down a route whereby only if you can afford it do you deserve it and I don’t think that’s a great model for a civic society” Sarah Wigglesworth