Scent Clouds

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I headed down to Shoreham Port this morning to do some listening. I took microphones but I had no real intention of recording. As I passed the Lagoon to the East and turned the corner on Basin Road, the familiar overpowering odour of fish from the fishing boats and dock hit my nose. I’m not a fan of fish, my memory of living in a council flat and the communal areas stale with the stench of a neighbour’s fishy dinners putting me off for life. Usually I hold my nose and walk briskly past, but today it struck me that this space is full of smells and how I’ve never fully turned my attention to them. 

As I pass the fishing docks I picked up a smell from the building on my left, large air vents blowing out warm musty air that smells of bland dust. I walk on and sniff bouncy, rubbery clouds floating from the bicycle workshop.

Loud trucks pass me, exhausts spewing diesel fumes. In contrast, distant but growing is my favourite smell of timber shipped from Europe for local building work. It is an evocative smell and reminds me of walking in woods and forests. It mixes with the fresh air blown off the sea.

It’s quiet down here today but I pass a few people and pick up the scents of their soaps and deodorants. Clean, sweet fragrances that cut through the industrial haze. Next a hot, burnt scent - toxic. I think it is the fumes from the old gas works. Oil seeped in to the ground gets churned up by rough seas. On the road the sea scent is faint. I have to draw in deeply to pick it up.

Sound from a machine on the docks bounces off the sea wall throwing it’s location and confusing me. Smells do the same. Some are just out of reach. I can’t quite take enough in to establish what they are. They sit on the periphery of knowing.

A single cormorant sits on the cold pipe warning light. 

My nose is already preparing for the water treatment plant, and it hits me before I’ve even crossed the road. I’ve described this stench as a mix of shit and washing detergent. A trace of perfume from a passing walker cuts through the stink for a moment. It is a welcome relief but I let them go by as I don’t want their scent trail to cloud the natural and unnatural smells here.

The whiff of freshly caught fish from a family set up with tents and multiple fishing rods. Two young men stand on a wooden groyne and leap in to the sea. I can smell sun tan lotion and more human odours as I approach Carrats Cafe. Fruity shower gels and clean deodorants. Hot oil, fried foods and coffee. 

Smells are similar to sounds in that they are carried in the air, sometimes fleeting, difficult to place; sometimes loud and obnoxious, sometimes actually noxious. As I turned my attention to smelling I realised how easily confused I became and wondered sometimes if I was imagining smells - scent memories triggered by certain conditions. 

Flux and Phantoms

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Sheltered by a concrete harbour arm and a shingle and steel embankment built on sunken ships, Shoreham Port houses a sewage treatment works, a power station, a rock processing plant, a steel factory, wharves, lorry parks and burger vans: a backdrop for swimmers, nudists, cyclists, surfers, fishers and summer picnickers.

More from my collaboration with Angus Carlyle at Shoreham Port. Flux and Phantoms is a multi dimensional broadcast experiment for Radiophrenia, a temporary art radio station broadcasting from the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. Field recordings gathered from Shoreham Port will be broadcast at 4PM on Saturday the 26th of August, and listeners are invited to use another device to simultaneously mix in “phantom frequencies” and recreate a phenomena encountered at the site: the appearance of enigmatic drones and tones at the edges of the acoustic atmosphere. These ‘phantom sounds’ can be streamed from Soundcloud via a link below.

The hope is that listeners will experiment by playing this second layer synchronised with the broadcast, using a mobile phone or a computer - possibly a bluetooth speaker - and engaging with the spatial nature of these recordings. We’ve been testing it out and it is a lot of fun to move the second sound source - the phantom sounds - around the listening space, with the potential to collaborate with friends and use more than one  playback device.

Photo by Curtis James

To listen to the ghost frequencies which add an extra dimension to the "Flux and Phantoms" broadcast please tune into Soundcloud with another device and mix the two streams in your own space.

Sharing sounds from South of Shoreham Port.

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Last week Angus Carlyle and I spent the evening with a small group at Blast Theory’s ‘Pot Luck’ sharing our experiences and sounds from around Shoreham Port.

Blast Theory are an artists group specialising in interactive art and their studio overlooks the docks, warehouses and industrial machinery of Shoreham Port. There we shared the background to our project, a selection of recordings and journal entries, facilitated some Deep Listening exercises and an experimental spatial work, ‘Phantom Sounds’.

Thanks to everyone that came along and Blast Theory for inviting us.

We continue to develop this project, considering how we share it publicly and how we work with the community. The ideas and thoughts around all of this shift and change more than the intertidal zone shaped by the sea!

The evening included a group performance of Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Rock Piece’ using pebbles from the beach

Stone Table overlooking Shoreham Port

Sounding the Shadows at RIBA Lates photos

Structural resonances and architectural fantasies at the RIBA Gallery in Portland Place, London. Using Buchla Electric Music Box, Wingie resonator and contact mics and a transducer to interact with airborne sound and structural borne sound from the gallery itself. A custom control surface for spatial movement on the 7.1 speaker system was designed using Touch OSC.

Photo by Jim Stephenson

Photo by Jim Stephenson

Custom control interface for spatial control of electronic sources, field recordings and feedback

The Architect has Left the Building review in Apollo Magazine

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This building-as-camera projection is amplified by the sounds layered over the footage: vibrations to the fabric of the building in the form of footsteps, bangs and knocks, rain and wind, captured by sound artist Simon James using contact mics, like sound through a stethoscope.

A lovely review of The Architect has Left the Building film/exhibition with Jim Stephenson and Sofia Smith at RIBA. Read it here.

The exhibition runs until August 12th. Find out more here.

The buildings start to seem alive, just on a life cycle far slower than that of the people that crawl in and around them. Like the mountains that folklore claims to be sleeping giants, the buildings patiently await the transfiguration that comes with time.

Sounding the Shadows at RIBA

Space as a continuation of certain, wonderous, eerie expectations: we don’t know what it is about. This roar, the slight light and movement.

Keiko Prince on sound artist Maryanne Amacher.

I’ll be channelling that energy at a RIBA Lates performance on the 22nd of June.

Sounding the Shadows, by musician and sound artist Simon James, is an exploration of structural resonances and architectural fantasies; a multi speaker 'sound environment' created for and performed live in RIBA's Portland Place Gallery, mixing Buchla Electronic Synthesizer with field recordings of buildings and spaces from Simon’s archive.

The Architect has Left the Building

I’m really excited to announce this collaboration with Jim Stephenson and Sofia Smith who I’ve worked with on a number of films (see here and here for just two examples). The joy of working with people who appreciate the power of sound in all its subtleties is immense and this commission has seen us work together on our most ambitious project yet. The Architect has Left the Building is a multi screen, multi speaker film commissioned by RIBA and is being shown at their Portland Place gallery from the 3rd of June to the 12th of August.

“Weaving together moments of architectural joy and intimacy drawn from the professional archives of renowned photographer and filmmaker Jim Stephenson”

More details here. I’ll write more about this when I can form more than basic sentences, but I’m so pleased with how this has come together, and really proud to have mixed my first multi speaker work for this RIBA commission and delivered sound captions for the beautiful book designed by Emily Macaulay who has also created all of the exhibition branding and signage. A dream team to work with. Ok now I’m going to play the new Zelda game with my son…….

Dead Shot

Out today on Sky Cinema. Creatively rewarding collaboration with composer Max de Warderner. Highlight was ditching the expensive Buchla synthesizer and turning to kitchen utensils instead.

Whitehawk Dawn Chorus recording.

I got up very early a few weeks ago to record this. Find it on Bandcamp pay what you can afford, all proceeds to Class Divide education.

And please check out the Class Divide podcast series, now in to its 5th episode, deep explorations of education inequality.

Logo design by Stanley James Press

Whitehawk is classed as one of the UK's most deprived communities, but alongside the negative data, inherent stigma, and the tarmac and terraced houses, there are many hidden treasures.

One of those treasures is Whitehawk Hill Nature Reserve, beneath which lie the remains of one of the UK's most important archaeological sites. It is also one of Britain's rarest natural habitats.

Let the sounds of an awakening community and the nature that surrounds it transport you into a realm where time transcends and perceptions are shattered. As the symphony of Whitehawk Hill unfolds, you will discover a community that defies expectations and challenges preconceived notions.

All proceeds from the sale of this soundscape will go to Whitehawk campaign group Class Divide.

Class Divide is a politically independent grassroots campaign fighting to draw attention to the deeply injust educational attainment gap for young people from the communities of Whitehawk, Manor Farm and Bristol Estate in Brighton and Hove.

The campaign is made up of parents, residents, experts and supporters who have experienced these problems or have expertise in education.

Spatial

It has been a really hectic start to the year with some major commercial work needing my focus and the continuing production on the Class Divide audio documentary.

I have managed to stay in touch with sound and developing my practice though, devouring Maryanne Amacher’s Selected Writings and Interviews, experimenting with spatial sound using a new quad monitor set up, taking part in a beautiful Deep Listening workshop, and writing new proposals for residencies, one of which I’m really excited about because it has just been confirmed. Later this year I’ll be working with Max de Wardner creating ‘sound environments’ in some very interesting architectural spaces! More on that later.

I also saw Thomas Willow’s ethereal Eclipse, a ‘solar eclipse smoke machine’. The moment I read the words smoke machine, I was in! Smoke machines and strobes were the only light show I needed in the ‘90s. Situated in an old lock up garage on a Hove back street made this even more magical. Like a portal to another dimension had just appeared.

Eclipse by Studio Thomas Willow

Live performance at Spirit of Gravity

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Looking forward to performing with Ascsoms and Jo Thomas at Spirit of Gravity in Brighton on Thursday 2nd March. It will be the first time I share some early ideas from South of Shoreham Port.

Over two years of listening and recording around Shoreham Port I’ve had many experiences of what I describe as Phantom Sounds. They are fleeting, carried on the wind,  dissipating the moment I turn my attention to them, leaving me to wonder if they were real or imagined.   I’ll share extracts from my collection of field recordings and the Buchla Electric Music Box will provide the phantoms. This is a first public sharing of part of an ambitious large scale project focussed on the area around Shoreham Port, which sits just over the road from my house.

Wave Hello Wave Goodbye

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I’m stood behind a new section of sea defences at Shoreham Port, listening to the power of the waves splash across boulders, then spray across the metal beams that form a secondary line of defence.

Rusted metal, brown, orange, striped and burnt, numbers scrawled on the surface. I’ve positioned my microphone right up against these girders, listening to the sea and wind activate them.

I’ve also attached a geophone to the structure itself, allowing me to listen in directly to the low frequency vibrations as the sea smashes in to it.

The recording begins with the roar of the waves and as it progresses slowly we enter the sound world of the material, until all we are left with are the resonances and vibrations of the structure alone.

I can see across the defences and the sea looks angry and wild, too close for comfort, and I’m certain a wave will come crashing over at any moment.

Nervous, my feet move and I catch myself noticing the sound picked up by the microphone. I’m trying to let go of it. “I’m here! Ok? I made the recording and sometimes I might be in it”. I sniff, my foot scrapes against gravel, the rustle of my jacket.

I don’t want to have to hold myself so tightly when listening. 

Behind me the lamppost beats out a steady rhythm as the wind vibrates the pole and the cable inside oscillates. A person, hood up, arms folded, sits on sea defences near the cars surveying the churned up sea. 

Shards

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My head swivels from left to right.

I’m counting down the minutes. It’s a funny way to listen.

My hood flaps in the wind.

My nose runs.

Amongst all this I’m somehow managing to listen to the sound as the wind blows across this sleeping, weather beaten, decrepit machinery.

It sounds like hundreds of shards of rock falling like hailstones. A wide shower of crumbling shaking movement.

I glimpse a fox in the distance.

A red glow from a building behind me.

This is a binaural recording so best experienced on headphones.

Large industrial machinery behind a brown concrete wall with barbed wire along the top.

I wanted to write more but I was too nervous in this deserted space I could barely think. Aren’t these always the spaces where dark things happen? I did my best to remember some details.

Sound valley

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A recording from an old haunt today. I’m doing post production on the Class Divide audio documentary this week and I needed to gather some ambience recordings from Whitehawk, the area through which the subject of education inequality is explored in the Class Divide series. I grew up here and this recording was made on a spot overlooking my old secondary school, surrounded by the hills of the beautiful valley in which Whitehawk sits.

Children’s voices and cries of excitement can be heard amongst the sounds of the many birds that call this valley their home. The sun was bright and warm but the cold November chill had crept in to my toes. Along the valley to the West a new sound, rattling and plasticky coming from a flock of sheep fleeing an unseen threat. The acoustics of the valley blur all these sounds as they echo off the hill, rebounding and dispersing. A couple in walking gear make their way down a muddy path and one of them slips falling to the ground. Vans and cars come and go reaching the dead end where I’m recording and manoeuvring back the way they came.

As I look over at my old school I’m reminded of two things. First the embarrassment of being forced to duet with my twin brother at the carol concert in our first year, and then possibly the beginnings of something, a tiny seed of a creative future. In the school hall was a very basic lighting controller box with faders for lights hung on bars from the ceiling. It was a glimpse of something different, not academic, the opportunity to play with the environment, to change it. A magical power.. Thank you Mr Hubbard for letting us play. Sorry we used the smoke machine to fill the toilets and school office……

EMS Synthi-VCS3 Ring Tones

Back in 2010 I made a set of ring tones using the legendary EMS VCS3 Synthesiser that Pablo from UNKLE/Toy Drum had lent me. The ring tones were shared to celebrate the release of The Simonsound Reverse Engineering LP, and over the years I often get people asking if I still have them, to which I usually reply, ‘I have no idea where they are!’.

Well yesterday I stumbled upon them whilst digging around an old drive, so I thought I’d share them again in case anyone wants some very strange and interesting ring tones.

Sign up to my mailing list here to get the full set of 12 EMS Synthi-VCS3 Ring Tones

Icosahedral 3d loudspeaker

I’m very excited to get the opportunity to experiment with the IEM/IKO 3d speaker this weekend on a short course at the University of Greenwich.

Unusually, this system uses beamforming, producing phantom sound sources on the surfaces of the performance space. By this, sculptural sound phenomena can be produced and experienced.

Class Divide podcast

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My twin brother Curtis (find him here) is making a podcast series called Class Divide that explores the complex and damaging issues of education inequality. It is based in the area where we grew up - Whitehawk in Brighton, and has been years in the making with deep research and interviews with many experts and the people who have suffered at the hands of the cruel, unfair system that both of us experienced first hand.

As part of that series Curtis has invited me to help young people in the area create some sound art that will form the 10th episode of the series. The aim is to give these young people an opportunity to make their own work and share something of their creation; stories, sound art, field recordings, live performance.

Through a series of workshops held at the brilliant Crew Club, I want to help them explore the rich and fulfilling world of sound and listening.

There is a beautiful cyclic nature to this project as both Curtis and myself were inspired by a group of visiting musicians when we were at school, and although I never got to study music as there weren’t enough places, this intervention changed and shaped the course of my life.

A table full of electronic sound equipment connected by lots of cables.

Photo by Jack Nielsen @ The Crew Club

Session 0

Last week I went and shared my ideas with a handful of young people that attend The Crew Club. I wanted to ask them if they would like to work with me on this collaborative sound art project, as too often young people aren’t given a choice. I was nervous about this session - what if they didn’t like it? What if they thought it was too weird? I shouldn’t have worried. Young people are more open minded than we give them credit for.

We discussed listening, sound art, field recording, John Cage’s 4’33” and then explored the Crew Club with contact microphones and electromagnetic microphones. The latter was a big hit, the young people amazed at the hidden sound world all around them. Finally we ended the evening playing electronic sound sources and mixing them with recordings we’d made around the space. This was my favourite part of the evening and we even attracted people from nearby who were interested in what we were up to. I’m looking forward to helping share some hidden, (neglected) sounds and voices from Whitehawk.

I’m excited about this project, it feels important in ways that are obvious but others that aren’t (yet) and I have ambitious hopes for what it could be. It coincides with a period of intense creative expansion and learning for me and it feels right that these two things should be happening at the same time. I’m excited to share it with young people in Whitehawk, I bet I’ll learn a lot from my young collaborators. Here are some more pictures from that first session, all taken by Jack Nielsen at The Crew Club.

Finally thanks to The Crew Club for their support and all the work they do in Whitehawk.