Neolithic Cannibals

Deep Listening to the Unheard

A socially engaged sound art project and exhibition at Brighton Festival 2024 from the young people of Whitehawk and East Brighton, and artist Simon James, who was born and raised in Whitehawk and education campaign group Class Divide.

Explored through the deep time history of the Neolithic in East Brighton and the contemporary soundscape of Whitehawk, the Neolithic Cannibals exhibition mixes archaeology, psycho-geography, sound art, and activism to transport audiences to a place where imaginative and fantastical sounds will invite deep listening to an area that can often be considered hidden and unheard.

Through a series of workshops the young people of Whitehawk will listen to and sound the contemporary environment of East Brighton using the Whitehawk Hill Neolithic Camp, discovered in 1929 through a geophysical listening technique known as Bosing,  as a symbolic focal point and inspiration for their sonic explorations. 

The Neolithic Cannibals exhibition at Lighthouse will recreate the Neolithic Camp - a place of communion, celebration and ritual, as a compassionate listening space inviting audiences to discover Whitehawk's richness, joy, playfulness and hope, empowering local voices through rarely explored sonic expressions. Audiences will leave with a deeper appreciation for empathetic listening, and consider the power of collective effort and the part we all play in addressing complex and current social issues.

She Had Kept all Her Illusions

I’m doing some early research on a series of short personal radio features and one of them is about a painting that I’d locked away in my loft. I enjoyed reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and soaking up the atmosphere and exploration of duality and paintings as mirrors.

As a person from a working class background it has taken me a long time to find the confidence to consider telling stories with my own voice, using my own words, accepting my own self percieved lack of vocabulary and inteligence. But I’m excited about the stories I can tell and the creative ways I can shape them, welcoming space and placing deep listening at the center.

I owe a lot to my twin brother leading the way with his podcast series about education inequality which also features some of our childhood experiences. Listen here.

“There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through them if one sought to understand their nature. ”
— Oscar Wilde

Sheytan

Sound design and music for Mia Khalifa and Sara Burn’s new jewellery brand Sheytan. A really fun project to work on mixing field recordings and intricate sounds of jewellery and body movements. Direction (from Dom Goodman at Tin Drum, one of my oldest friends from ‘90s streetwear shop The One40Five Store) fitted really nicely with where my head is at right now around subtle, half heard shifts to reality, magical breath, smoke air. The key though was getting the foley sounds of the jewellery and body movements, general atmos and then working out where to shift that scenery.

PHOTOGRAPHER
@Fabienmontique

MOVMENT DIRECTOR
@Harpersletters

ART DIRECTOR
@rupertsmythstudio

CREATIVE DIRECTORS
@saraburnstudio @miakhalifa

PHOTO ASSIST + DOP VIDEO
@skoczkowski

BTS PHOTOGRAPHY
@coralilliana

MODEL
@Aissa.seck

CAMERA ASSISTANT
@thomdfr

PHOTO LIGHT ASSISTANT
@prod109film
@edward_wendt

MAKEUP
@aurelia.liansberg

HAIR
@jacobkajruphair

STYLING ASSISTANT
@cocoblossomdawson

PRODUCER
@montiqueandco
@Jonas_prod

ASSIST PROD
@It_sangie

MUSIC SUPERVISION
@Dominic.goodman for @tindrummusicuk

SOUND DESIGN
@thesimonsound

LOCATION
@Studio.labriquerouge

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……