New album of altered field recordings: Something About Still Trying

Out now on Kate Carr’s excellent Flaming Pines label, a new tape and download of three altered field recordings. Visit the label page here to preview or buy a copy.

Something About Still Trying is based around a mobile phone recording taken on a coach to London from Sheffield, which was waiting to start the journey in the terminal. There are two repetitive beeping noises happening in the coach, like a prosaic loop or a skipping record, which I augmented digitally to make the piece.

A Tracing of a Single Tide was recorded at Walton on the Naze, North Essex, when I spent the day collecting audio, photos and objects with Sally Child as part of her Groyne Gallery project. I used a stick and some rope I found on the beach to make a large stylus, amplified with contact mics, which I recorded dragging along the high-water mark on the beach. I also recorded some reed organ and the water lapping at the end of the pier. These sounds were put on tape then combined with some synth in a live take to create the recording.

Windchange is a recording taken inside the top of a 100 year old windmill in Harplinge, Sweden, during a rainstorm and a change in the wind direction. The windmill, which has been adapted into an artspace by Mikael and Julie Ericsson, still works to tell the wind direction as it mechanically tracks the wind, turning its large sails towards it. I enhanced the recording to try to approximate the feeling of being inside the strange, creaky dome as it turned.