'European Textures 2024' was a piece I created specially for the framework radio show, and was broadcast as part of episode #920 on 16/02/2025. 

The sounds in this piece were all recorded in Belgium and the Netherlands in August 2024. The original recordings I made have been sliced and equed to emphasise interesting textures, and then layered and rearranged to create new soundscapes.

The sounds include:
Cows, birds and people in a milking barn
A contact mic attached to a wind chime constructed from collected junk
Man whistling in a launderette as his washing machine enters its final spin cycle
The hubbub of breakfast in a passenger ferry restaurant
A young boy magnet fishing in a marina
A Japanese peace bell in Hasselt
Belgian campers playing bingo
Boat moorings creaking as a cargo barge passes by the village of Teroele in the Netherlands
Rain beating against a tent in Belgium
Two young boys playing pétanque in the fading daylight
Voices inside a Dutch cafeteria
Church bells on the Rue du Chêne in Brussels
The rhythms of an old mangle being operated
The drone of a passenger ferry at night whilst the passengers sleep
Contact microphones attached to a metal camping table whilst a family eats
Children screaming with joy whilst swimming
The modulated squeal of a subway train braking system
Tractors clearing goose droppings from a man-made beach

Please do check out the show’s archive and consider supported it through Patreon if you are inspired and able to do so. (https://frameworkradio.net/)

European Textures 2024

Hannah went up to Tromso, Norway [and before that, amazing Svalbard Island (pictured)] in mid-December 2024 to ascertain the evident (or lack thereof) magnetospheric emissions within the auroral-oval zone of the northern hemisphere.  This recording is of lightning-EMP-sferics about 16 Dec. 2024 at nighttime there, at the same time as I made recordings in Nevada, USA. What an amazing Planet earth GAIA we live upon to learn from!

Hannahs WR - 3 In Tromso Norway 16Dec2024 WR - 3 HiPassedEQd NO AC Hum

This episode was recorded live at a symposium titled ‘Listening Together: Practices for Community-Centred Listening’. 

The symposium was hosted by the research centre Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice at London College of Communication in February 2025. 

Our regular host Hannah Kemp-Welch chaired a panel with two artists: Beverley Bennett, who organises ‘gatherings’ to challenge the hierarchies inherent in workshop settings, and Sam Metz, who’s work with non-verbal participants invites listening ‘through the body’. 

The panel considers the question: what can we learn about listening from socially engaged artists? 

Beverley Bennett & Sam Metz: what can we learn about listening from socially engaged artists?

Recorded at Roc de Neret, 905m above sea level on iphone15
Two hours climb following the hydroelectric lines above the town of Tremp, often we're immersed in deep fog unable to see the vast Talarn reservoir below.
No other humans in sight, an eagle glides overhead.
These were the first hydro electric plants built in Catalunya powering 20th century industry in Barcelona. Before the dams rafters transported wood down Noguera river to Lleida and Tortosa. This profession along with many others became extinct as people left agricultural work for employment in the power plants.
A low engine noise close to the summit reveals itself as telecommunications mast. Large electrical pylons stand in the mediterranean scrub, I press my phone against the metal casing, next to the 'Peligro de Muerte' signage. 
With no headphone monitoring I place my left ear against hot metal picking up an electrical hum, my right ear tunes into intense insect activity around flowering rosemary bushes.
I work to maintain this position conscious of a barely perceptible breeze on my face, irritated that it'll be picked up in the recording. My hand slips, a metallic nudge, another audible glitch..
I think about baked earth, cooked herbs and coexisting hums.

Aural Fragment, Roc de Neret, Catalunya

This recording was made in a wooded area in the village of Holbrook between 5:00am and 5:19am on Sunday 4th May 2025 as part of the International Dawn Chorus weekend.

Birds identified by the Merlin app include: pheasant, great tit, garden warbler, blue tit, chiffchaff, rook, wren, blackcap, robin, blackbird, song thrush, woodpigeon and greylag goose. There was also something rustling around in the bushes...

Aural Fragment, Roc de Neret, Catalunya

Jac Campbell

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