head think

SOUNDwalk (Still Walking Festival, 20-09-2013)

Library of Birmingham rooftop

An edited mix of sounds encountered on a SOUNDwalk in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores.

SOUNDwalk: Ponta Delgada

A composition for the Sounding Images 2017 exhibition at the Barber Instutue, Birmingham UK. 

Programme notes:
A sonic depiction of the memories Wright drew upon to create the painting Vesuvius in Eruption. The piece makes use of both digitally processed and unprocessed field recordings and studio recordings to guide the listener through Wright's memories of the journey to Vesuvius, representing the beauty of the natural world, followed by the volcanic eruption present in the painting. The listener is finally presented with the depiction of the aftermath of the eruption, mirroring the serenity of the first section but warped by the chaos and destruction of Vesuvius. The piece ends with the aftermath fading and the texture is reduced to sounds of nature, representing the idea of continuation of life and the natural world post-aftermath.

Vesuvius In Eruption (Sounding Images, April 2017)

A piece created to accompany Arp's sculpture "Homme vu par une Fleur", on display at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, as part of the 2017 "Sounding Images" exhibit.

Homme Vu Par Une Fleur (Sounding Images 2017)

This recording is an excerpt from the Biosphere Soundscapes live stream for Reveil 2017 - a 24 hour broadcast that tracks the sounds of daybreak, travelling west from microphone to microphone on sounds transmitted live by audio streamers around the globe for International Dawn Chorus Day. Starting on the morning of May 6, just before daybreak in London near the Greenwich Meridian, the Reveil broadcast follows the sun and the wave of sound that loops the earth every 24 hours. 

The Australian stream took place at dawn in the Noosa Biosphere Reserve in Queensland. Designated by UNESCO in 2007, Noosa and was the first biosphere reserve recognised in the state of Queensland. The biosphere reserve is home to over 44% of Australia's bird species, 1,365 species of plants, 711 species of native fauna and 60 distinct ecosystems. It is located in the Macpherson-Macleay overlap, where tropical and temperate zones overlap. The landscape has an extensive composition of rainforests, beaches, woodlands, wetlands, lakes, rivers, forests, and mountains. 

#Reveil2017 is an initiative of Sound Camp, a platform for artistic and transdisciplinary work in the emerging field of live streaming audio based in London. Visit www.soundtent.org for further information.   

Listen live online at the Locustream Sound Map, a worldwide network of open microphones streaming in realtime: http://locusonus.org/soundmap/040/ 

Binaural recording (headphones listening recommended)

Dawn in the Noosa Biosphere Reserve // excerpt from #REVEIL2017 live stream

Arches is a composition created through the use various sounds produced through the manipulation and digital processing of manmade items consisting of metal, plastic and glass materials. The piece focuses on using these manmade objects to explore the musical structure of the arch, each section of music becoming tenser than that which preceded it. The formal structure of the piece presents itself as the largest arch in the piece through the use of a palindrome; the piece ends as it begins as though the listener is guided as they ascend to the top of the metaphorical arch before descending to the other side. Within the structural arch, there are various other arches created through use of pitch and gesture. The climax of the piece is presented as an amalgamation of the preceding material layered on top of parallel harmonies. Each harmony or chord is assigned a sound object that has been sounded in previous sections of the music to create blocks of sounds that are heard consecutively before the palindromic structure begins to unfold as the material from previous sections returns in full. 

Composed during the 2016/17 Academic year for my Third Year Composition module at University of Birmingham.

Arches (May 2017)

Five Panels - no.5

Unfurling Streams - Pt.5

A stroll around Aulus Les Bains.
Sounds best listened to on headphones to get the most effect of the binaural recording.

Aulus Les Bains

Trails

Sound recordist, composer, listener, etc.
he/him

head think

Olli Smith