AQUEDUCT 1 - Piped Music
the first part of a series of sonic responses derived from an artist residency with the Elan Links project in Wales.

A geopoetic concept piece.
As well as the water that flows through the 70 mile pipeline from the Elan Valley in the Welsh uplands to the English city of Birmingham, this piece expresses an idea of a two-way sharing - or flow - of watery sonic ambiences.
Echoes, voices, field recordings, temporal reverberations. Reciprocities.
Atmospherics and hydrospherics of the counterflows.
Rural and urban, and in-between.
Sound art and acoustic ecology.

Derived from soundtracks to experimental videosonic works presented at the 'Ten Acres of Sound' festival in Stirchley, Birmingham. Sept-Oct 2020
Six connected 5min works formed an installation curated by Artefact Projects.
https://www.tenacresofsound.com/antony-lyons

Sonic material was recorded in Elan Valley (Wales), Cannon Hill Park (Birmingham) & water pipeline locations in-between. Some additional material included from underground water pipelines in Bristol (recorded for a recent project titled 'Hydrocitizenship').

Some original choral contribution is from a live performance of:
'The Valley of Nantgwyllt', 
Sung by Rhayader Young Farmers Club Cast Members
written by Peter Cox
Directed by Peter Cox & Kerena Pugh
Composer & Musical Director, Bob Walters
Piano accompanist, Eleri Davies

AQUEDUCT 1

It Will Come

As part of the Sonic Mmabolela 2017 residency, each sound artist was asked/challenged to create a sound piece from the material we collected during our stay. Cicada, wind, and water proved to be primary sound objects. Mosima is an interpretation of this material.

https://sonicmmabolela.bandcamp.com/album/sonic-mmabolela-2017

mosima

Space becomes “sonified” in this visualization of a cluster of galaxies imaged by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Time flows left to right, and the frequency of sound changes from bottom to top, ranging from 30 to 1,000 hertz. Objects near the bottom of the image produce lower notes, while those near the top produce higher ones. Most of the visible specks are galaxies housing countless stars. A few individual stars shine brightly in the foreground. Stars and compact galaxies create short, clear tones, while sprawling spiral galaxies emit longer notes that change pitch. The higher density of galaxies near the center of the image — the heart of this galaxy cluster, known as RXC J0142.9+4438 — results in a swell of mid-range tones halfway through the video. Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 acquired this image on Aug. 13, 2018. Video: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13061

Credit: NASA/Hubble/SYSTEM Sounds (Matt Russo/Andrew Santaguida)

Sonification of a Hubble Deep Space Image

A minimalist movement created using samples of metallic sounds, each with their own individual pulse and timing, forming a complex rhythm with phasing and modulation combined with fragmented field recordings that get increasingly abstract and noisy. #SoundSculptures

Image Credit: On loan to the University from the Trustees of the Hepworth Estate, Reproduced by kind permission of Research and Cultural Collections, University of Birmingham

Ancestor I - 004 Legs (Full Length)

CREDITS

Rob Morrison: vocals on AFTU1
Sarah Halliday: Vocals on AFTU1 ,AFTU4 ,AFTU5
Danni: other vocals

Rob Morrison wrote his part on AFTU1
Danni wrote and produced AFTU1, AFTU3 and AFTU5
Sarah and Danni co-produced AFTU4, lyrics and vocals written by sarah

Live drums on AFTU5 by Danni and Sam Cooper, recorded by sam
Help recording vocals from Bat Halliday.

AFTU3

From the palm-strewn banks of the Limpopo River to the dark depths of the Hippo Pool, Mmabolela transports the listener through the soundscapes of this remote location in South Africa. A series of interweaving ‘snap-shots’ and constructed realities based upon the many recording locations visited during the 2017 Sonic Mmabolela residency transport the listener to this hyperreal time and place. This work has been composed using ambisonic recordings and is the final piece in a series of three works resulting from the residency.

Mmabolela

This life based on local exchanges did not go on without hitches

A quarantined cooperation by Stijn Demeulenaere (Field Recordings, editing) and Jo Thielemans (synths & electronics, editing)

featuring desperate birds and other animals from the rainforest, the savannah, and colder places.

Thielemans x Demeulenaere -- Slowdown Birds

This piece is a sonic exploration of subterranea. We begin above ground with a recording of a spring emerging from a peat bog next to Kes Tor, on Dartmoor, before plunging beneath the soil into the fizzing spluttering world of plant roots and insect activity. In the foreground are recordings of termites, stridulating ants and the calling song of the Braconid Parasitoid, a parasitic wasp that burrows
deep into tree roots to lay its larvae. In the background there are recordings of mulberry tree roots recorded with a hydrophone buried within its rhizophere. We then travel amid a number of bio-electrical recordings of a Pleurotus ostreatus, or oyster mushrooms, which are accompanied by recordings of tree roots of a Sitka Spruce tree. We come up for air with some geothermal upwelling’s and recordings of a mineral stream, before heading down again into the vaulted subterranean sewer system under the Holborn Viaduct, in London, where the long buried Fleet river roars along. Finally, we emerge out of the spring where we began, and float out onto the high moors.

The piece was commissioned by the Land Lines team at the University of Leeds as part of the Nature Revealed project which aims to make the invisible visible, and hopes to foster a multisensory appreciation of the natural world, to encourage us to care more for nature and our environment.  

For further information or to hear our other commissioned artists, please visit: https://landlinesproject.wordpress.com/

Image Credit: Collin Elder
http://www.collinelder.com

'Subterranea' by Cosmo Sheldrake

As Manchester’s streets and skyline are warped by the ever-accelerating process of urban renewal, the city’s edgelands and green spaces are at risk of being swallowed by waves of property development. Not only does this raise questions about the ecology of the city, as carbon sinks are flattened and wildlife is displaced, but it speaks to broader trends pushing urban residents away from shared space, community and local identity.  

This project shines a light on these spaces and the activists, academics, and local people who have taken up the daunting fight against corporate interests in the city in the name of biodiversity, urban ecology and community wellbeing. As we are faced with crises of both environment and mental health, the role of public green spaces has become ever more crucial in the eyes of those who enjoy, nurture, and maintain them.  

As the tide of urban growth edges closer to the open boundaries of our shared spaces, the trees, wildlife and insects continue their gentle movement, unaware that these spaces are likely reaching the end of their rich lineage. If nothing else, this project documents these final days. 

This work weaves together recorded conversations, composed music and field recordings from a handful of Manchester’s urban wildlife havens. Interviewees include community activists Julie Ryan and Tara Parry from ‘Friends of Ryebank Fields’, award-winning alternative tour guide Hayley Flynn (Skyliner) and Dr Jenna C. Ashton (artist, curator and lecturer at The University of Manchester).

Commissioned by Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2020.

Edgeland

Nikki Sheth is an internationally recognised sound artist and composer. Her practice involves field recording, multichannel soundscape composition, multimedia installations, sound mapping and soundwalking. She uses sound as a medium to bring a voice to the environment and encourage a wider awareness of the natural world. She was awarded a Sound and Music award (2020), nominated for the Phonurgia Nova Awards (2020), received an Honourable Mention for the Sound of the Year Awards (2021), nominated for Ivor Novello Composer Award (2021) and awarded a Sound and Music Seed Award for New Voices (2022). Her work has been presented internationally, most recently at The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology Conference (Florida), Ars Electronica (Austria), A&E Labs (Chatham), The Wellcome Collection (London) and MANTIS (Manchester) and she has been featured on Framework Radio, Clydebuilt Radio, Resonance FM and BBC Radio 3.

Mmabolela

Nikki Sheth

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