Soul Folk was created for the The Souling Project organised by Minerva Arts (a youth theatre group), funded by Arts Council England. As the selected artist for this venture, I was involved in the revival, revisiting and reinvigorating of Folk Dramas known as Cheshire Souling. For this project I was commissioned to create a new acousmatic work Soul Folk, which borrowed music from a historical source, the first verse of the Souling Song featured on The Soul Cakers of Cheshire: Field Recordings of Traditional Mummers Songs and Play Text. Borrowing musical material was essential for this project, as the folk legacy focuses on the oral tradition of preserving folk culture, through verbally transmitting and receiving folk material. This project also enabled me to work with the children of Astbury St Mary's Church of England Primary School, who created their own Souling song, which is featured in my Soul Folk composition. The children’s lyrical material featured was created in workshops run by me and composer Melissa Douglas. Soul Folk’s premiere performance was at Congleton Town Hall and was featured twice on BBC’s Merseyside Folkscene programme, once on their Women in Folk week.

Soul Folk

051722002 Venova Sax MDLR Norns HereThere

Unusual creatures

Bumblebells

23 Magam2.wav

Canadian artist Hildegard Westerkamp narrates her walk around Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver, British Columbia. She also delves into the process of how she treats the sounds in the studio to highlight elements, and imagines different sound dreams from them.

Things to think about:

Westerkamp says “I could shock you or fool you by saying the soundscape is this loud…but it is more like this” (1:40–2:00). What does she mean? What is the difference between the two versions of the soundscape she presents and how do you think she created the difference?
Do you see the images she describes in her dreams too? What kind of images or situations do they conjure for you?

Kits Beach Sound Walk (1989) by Hildegard Westerkamp

A sountrack inspired by the documentary, "The One Who Runs Away Is the Ghost." - a mixtape from Hainbach that laid the foundations for his score.

Full interivew: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/hainbach-the-monday-is-ok-mix/

@hainbach

FULL FEATURE AND IVW

Hainbach - The Monday Is OK Tape Mix

This work is an acousmatic single sound source work for water, which explores the transformation and trajectory of water. Using a single sound source creates a strong relationship between the sounds. Contrast is achieved by using both natural and sourced water sounds. By using these two types of water categories enables interesting textures to be created. Natural water sounds come from natural water sources created by nature including; fountains, fish movements, outside rain and dripping. Sourced sounds comes from water that has been tamed and domesticated by humans including; marinas, locks, docks, ponds, bathroom noises, garden fountains, fish tanks and rain on different manmade surfaces. This work experimented with Denis Smalley’s concept of ‘causality’ in a variety of ways, including cause and effect. Smalley’s concept allows the work to experiment with gesture as a formative element. There are moments of buildups, climaxes, attacks, releases, which create intensity and depth. This aids and helps the work transition into different sound worlds and spaces. 

Locks, Docks And Liquid Hydrogen (2013)

a minimalistic improvisation by:
mazen kerbaj / trumpet
the israeli air force / bombs

recorded by mazen kerbaj on the balcony of his flat in beirut,
on the night of 15th to 16th of july 2006.
© mazen kerbaj 2006

STARRY NIGHT (excerpt) 6.31 min

Cycle of Life (2016) is a miniature stereo acousmatic etude, which explores the concept of time. The sound material showcases sounds from time keeping devices, including metronomes, egg timers, analogue and digital clocks. It was a crucial compositional aesthetic to keep the original behaviours and acoustic quality of the sounds, as they maintain the character of time. The individual tiny ticks and tocks of clocks were fascinating sources, due to their short-lived acoustic nature.

The short resonate quality of the ticks and tocks influenced the main compositional technique and methodology utilizing micromontage. Micromontage is the layering of sound defined at its particle level. Composing with very short sounds gave more control over constructing gestural material, as each sound particle could be positioned precisely, into complex multiple sound clusters and groupings. Additionally the arrangement of the gestural material had the most control over the pacing and timing of the work. This occurs as the micro sounds were used to create new rhythms. These rhythms were composed in order to drive the music forward (accelerando), hold the music back (ritardando), or to slow down (rallentando) musical events.

Primarily Cycle of Life grew out of the poet William Butler Yeats’ (1865 –1939) text A Vision (1925), which presents Yeats philosophical beliefs through questioning ‘what is the cycle of life?’. Yeats’ cycle of life ideology explains how time travels in a circular motion. Yeats believed this circular motion created an endless repetitive wheel of living and dying. Cycle of Life represents this theory through its repetitive fragmented gestural nature, by using Denis Smalley’s ‘causality’ concept. This concept enables the listener to predict the musical outcome of the gestural activities, as one musical event causes the onset of another musical event.

Cycle Of Life (2016)

From Perihelion to Aphelion is a miniature stereo acousmatic etude, which explores the concept of space, both sonically and theoretically. This work takes the listener through a sonic space journey, where the listener experiences sounds produced by three different planet's atmospheres in our solar system; Uranus, Earth and Saturn. Each of the planets atmospheres forms their own section, which represents a different destination on the musical space journey.

From Perihelion to Aphelion begins with the high pitch gestural harmonic atmosphere of Uranus. Before traveling to the windy atmospheric atmosphere of Earth, which reveals small glimpses of the familiar, through field recordings of Earth’s environmental sounds including birds and traffic. The work concludes with atmospheric bass noises that develop the character of Saturn.

The initial concept of creating a space journey was inspired by a number of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sound recordings, as each recording has their own personal history, story, voice, life and energy. In particular NASA Voyager Space Sounds CD (2009) was an important influential tool, as each track provided a true insight into the sounds heard in space, which NASA recorded on their space voyages. In particular three tracks were significant to From Perihelion to Aphelion, including Rings of Uranus, Voice of Earth and Saturn's Rings, as they shone light on the different planets atmospheric characters.

From Perihelion To Aphelion

Naviar Haiku 270

snowing
through the blizzard
particles of me

Photo by Caleb George - https://unsplash.com/photos/n1h2kVc549c

Smothered

Smothered (naviarhaiku270)

Layers of piano, tape loops, samples, and noise.

Smothered (naviarhaiku270)

Stray wool