Name: Radio interview 'The Ancestors' on RTÉ Lyric FM by artofnoises
Duration: 8 min 20 s
Description: Interview by Vanessa Noonan on the official opening of 'The Ancestors' on the Killruddery estate. Broadcast 23rd April 2024

From the LP sleeve notes: “We wanted to create a work that would somehow propel the immediate and futurological aspects of life on a damaged planet. There is a sense of environmental toxicity, debris, heat and movements of the human or more-than-human. Every sound was produced through experimental Foley (post-production) techniques, which seemed apt given the post-natural context we were working within; we were questioning notions of authenticity and the real within the framing and capturing of place".

Decoys with Mark Peter Wright (2018), excerpt

From "Some Memories of Bamboo" (Gruenrekorder)https://www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=658

The liner notes for this track read:

"I had been told that the monks at the Jyoujyuji Temple greeted the dawn with a gongyo - daily devotional exercise - of drums and bells. The temple stood 30 metres from the upper floor of a friend's house where I was sleeping separated by a small yard, a hedge and the temple gardens. I laid out my recording equipment in preparation and set the alarm clock for 3 a.m.

On the evidence of the audio file that remains, I must have woken, climbed out of bed, switched on the equipment and promptly fallen asleep where I stood, snoring in gentle rhythmic rasps. Perhaps woken by a soft breeze of cool air, I came to, pulling the window fully open. I held the microphone out at arm's length in time to hear the first chimes, beats and chants, muffled by remoteness, the intervening foliage and the batteries fading on the microphone.

Eisuke once told me that what he was interested in were the sounds he heard after he pressed stop. I like that and I like the murky quality of "4 A.M. Jyoujyuji," the result of the recording having been dredged up from the depths of failing technology and having some of the noisy sludge digitally sluiced off. It is as if an acoustic fog has descended to blur outlines and make distance unfathomable, a cloudiness that shadows the fortunes of meaning and memory".

4 A.M. Jyoujyuji (2009)

"Air Pressure" was a long-term collaboration between anthropologist Rupert Cox and myself. It draws on our experiences of recording the activities of the last farming family living within the concrete and steel infrastructure of Japan's largest airport, where noise - of taxiing and of take-offs and landings - exerts a constant pressure from before dawn until well after dusk. The work has also been informed by an extended collaboration with Professor Kozo Hiramatsu (formerly the UK President of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science), who participated in the second period of fieldwork and who has provided us with the perspective of acoustic science.

"Air Pressure" has been many things. It started life as a single-screen film at the Royal Anthropological Institute's Ethnographic Film Festival, became an installation at the Whitworth Art Gallery as part of the Manchester Asia Triennale, a CD and booklet for the record label Gruenrekorder and then became a film that has continued to tour galleries and festivals.

At The Kitchen Table (2011)

Chives! Onions! Negi! (2011)

In The Forest Clearing (Totoro) (2011)

Part of the "Clouds and Tracks" project initiated by John Hughes, Volker Eichelmann and Jenna Collins.

"Air Stream: Ether" (5.41) was prompted by another place than the garden that had become important during lockdown: the broadband router and the stability of its connection. Using an 'electro sniffer' I followed the buried cable from my house to the nearest junction box (located from a conversation with an engineer on one of the many occasions when they were sent to fix our connection). Uncharacteristically for me, this track involves some looping and layering of material.

Air Stream (Ether)

Geofon Fan

A small collection of field recordings made with magnetic coil microphones. Specifically the LOM Elektrouši  mics. 
These are basically made from coils of magnetic wire connected to unbalanced leads. When the mic is inserted into a magnetic field, it induces a current through the leads picking up the fluctuating patterns within the field.

Placing the mics by the speakers while my kid plays minecraft, or something...

Interview by Vanessa Noonan on the official opening of 'The Ancestors' on the Killruddery estate. Broadcast 23rd April 2024

Radio interview 'The Ancestors' on RTÉ Lyric FM

“Air Pressure” is a collaboration between Rupert Cox and Angus Carlyle. “Air Pressure” is primarily based around two periods of field work in Japan, one scheduled to coincide with the harvest in 2010 and one coinciding with the sowing season of 2011. All the recordings were made on the site of the last farming family – of the estimated 360 who arrived after WWII – who continue to make their livelihood from an organic small-holding with fields of fruit and vegetables, pens of pigs and a barn with egg-laying hens. The farmers had spent 20 years turning cedar forest and scrub into productive arable land, the fertility of the soil derived from the weathering of volcanic ash sent up by the eruptions of Mt. Fuji.

And then, in 1966, the Japanese Government set about securing farming land in the village of Sanrizuka and the hamlet of Toho in order to build what was then called the New Tokyo International Airport. A bitter struggle played its violent way out over the next 12 years until the airport opened in May 1978 (with repercussions simmering well beyond that date). Farmers and their supporters built tunnel complexes, ‘fortress towers’ and chained themselves to trees; the police used water cannon, baton charges and, at one point, more than 200 construction vehicles in an effort to clear the site.

There were deaths on both sides. The farm where we lived and worked is almost completely engulfed by the architecture of the airport. More than this, the environment is frequently submerged beneath the swirling, blurring din of taxiing jets, a din that is punctuated by the roaring descent of planes shuddering their shiny bulk through the sky some 80 metres above ground.

Amidst all this, the farmers – Shimamura-San, Fujiko-San and their two sons – continue to grow their 50 varieties of vegetables, supported by feelings of solidarity and committed to making things o-shi (“delicious”).

“Air Pressure” has been a single-screen film (shown at the 2011 Ethnographic Film Festival), an installation at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester and is now this book and CD.

The acoustic scientist Professor Kozo Hiramatsu was a close collaborator throughout the project, with us at the farm in 2011. In 2010 we also worked with Associate Professor Toshihito Matsui (Kyoto University). Our fieldwork was coordinated on the ground with Project Manager Naoki Hayashi. Asako Murakami provided invaluable translation support and Kaori Inomata produced the incredible illustrations for the installation structure. David Morris at the Whitworth Gallery was a clever and insightful curator.

Our work was generously funded by a grant from The Wellcome Trust.

We dedicate this CD to the Shimamura family in our appreciation for the warm, inspiring welcome they offered us.

airpressure.posterous.com
http://www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=8437

AIR PRESSURE | Angus Carlyle & Rupert Cox

Prélude à l'Après Midi d'un Faune
Flute and Piano version by Gustave Samazeuilh
Tommaso Bisiak, flute
Aurora Sabia, piano
recorded by Dario Caroli
Photo by Tommaso Lizzul

Prélude à l'Après Midi d'un Faune

Sonic artist, specialist in binaural field recording, geo-located hauntological soundtrail ‘The Ancestors’ now on show at Killruddery House & Gardens in Ireland. Award-winning sound designer for theatre, TV and radio.

New album upcoming on Farpoint Recordings - ‘Sonic Hauntings in a Big House’. Pre-order from Nov 6th for limited edition vinyl edition.

Radio interview 'The Ancestors' on RTÉ Lyric FM

artofnoises

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