This piece is part of a larger project (hebrides-suite.co.uk) that attempts to both explore and communicate something about history and memory related to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, through sound. It uses a mixture of monologues, field recordings and interviews collected during a number of trips to the Outer Hebrides as well as material from existing oral history archives.

Crofting life on the islands of the Outer Hebrides has always been intimately connected with the sea – as a source of food, myth and legend.

As you travel north from Tarbert, Harris the road climbs up hugging the coast. Rounding the headland and turning inwards towards the wild interior of the northern part of the island there is a view across the bay to a single chimney overlooking the sea at Bunavoneadar, the last vestige of Harris’s lost whaling industry. It was started by Lord Leverhulme a previous owner of Lewis who envisaged a more prosperous future based on fishing rather than crofting.

The whaling station was successfully run by Norwegians employing local people at various times during the twentieth century and finally closed in 1953.

Today, as Seonag McVicar recounts in an interview with Caitriona Maccuish, the main local fishing catches are lobster, crab and shellfish which are mainly sold to the foreign market. Whales can however be spotted around the coast and occasionally one gets washed up on a deserted Hebridean beach.

In 2006, I sat looking through the misty soft rain towards the ruined chimney and listened to a ship motoring into the sea loch below, almost right up to the whaling station, lifting lobster pots. A little further up the road is the spot where on two separate cycle tours from the south to the north of the Outer Hebrides I was defeated by a mixture of horizontal rain and a ferocious headwind and gratefully turned around and headed back towards Tarbert and the gentler south. On one of those journeys I remember the sound of a weaving loom from inside a shed as we passed it on the road.

Where Once Were  Whales includes the voices of  Donald MacSween of Ness and John Maclean from Berneray recorded by Cathy Lane; Seonag McVicar talking about working on fishing boats as part of the Taigh Chearsabhagh oral history archive in Lochmaddy and Curstaidh Mackay reciting a rhyme about food (particularly shellfish) boiling times which was recorded in 1977 by D.A. MacDonald for the School of Scottish Studies. The waulking song ‘Cha Deid Mi Do Dh’Fhear Gun Bhata’ (I’ll Nor Go to a Man without a Boat) was recorded in Benbecula by Alan Lomax in 1954 and tells of the superiority of the skipper of a fishing boat over other men.

Where Once Were Whales (Extract)

Lois Lelland is a pianist and composer who lives in Highland Perthshire, Scotland. Her solo piano compositions are emotive, often gentle and sometimes pensive.

a curious young woman pursuing her dreams.
YouTube unsigned singer-actress

Post Punk Podge & The Technohippies is a figment of punk and the post's collective imagination in the form of a singer/ranter/musician from Limerick, Ireland.  
 
An accomplished violinist, Podge’s goal is to turn the brown envelope from a symbol of corruption, deception and greed into one of self-expression, defiance and laughter. Accompanied by his sidekicks Dr. Asparagus Montague and DJ Jurassic Park 2, they are stirring things up in their native Ireland with their own sound, a blend of punk, electronic, krautrock, techno, irish traditional music, hip hop and classical.

Cathy Lane is a composer, sound artist and academic. Some of her  work uses spoken word, field recordings and archive material to explore aspects of our listening relationship with each other and the multiverse.

I am overjoyed to partake in sounds beautiful:
https://youtu.be/1TnalFltP_Q?si=VidMVZ9VDKGZiNUm  by Dan and
https://stonerjazz.bandcamp.com/album/up-up-out by Jeff.

Jeff also gifted me a visiting role on his previous album: 
https://stonerjazz.bandcamp.com/album/quintessential

.... and here is my own test account:
https://sonicstructuresandsilentstretches.bandcamp.com/track/eliza

POETRY IS VITAL

This threshold space exists for those who feel like listening to some of my quite professional poetry embedded in rather amateurishly recorded but judiciously arranged sound, a modicum of purely acoustic work notwithstanding.  Fortunately, some other artists have also transformed the symbolic expression of my words into the tangible beauty of real songs and soundscapes - just listen to Sympoetic Ultrasounds: https://soundcloud.com/sonic-textures/sets/sympoetic-ultrasounds !

SOUND, SPACE AND TIME

Tend your listening senses gently. Even though my general approach welcomes and embraces lo-fi concepts like the precision of spontaneously occuring imprecisions, headphones worth their membranes are recommended - unless you like your sounds flat, mangled, battered and helpless. You don't, do you? Be kind to these soundscapes.

STRUCTURING IMPULSE

Due to the nature of "poetry soundscapes", your listening expectations regarding traditionally structured "songs", sonically purified "raw wildlife soundscapes", keyboard-laden "ambient recordings" or voice-centered "readings" might not be met. You will find some of those in my list of /likes/. "Noise" is a recurring structural element like any other. This is what this sounds like - within its own rights, limitations, tangents and interconnections. Sonic structures. Silent stretches. Poetry emerges from the gaps between the ruts, seeps in from the undergrowth, sweeps down.

CARVING, CHISELLING, KNEADING, MORPHING

A quick glance into my toolshed rests on Zoom recorders, Samplitude software and a dizzying array of diverse sonic machinery.

LARGE AND SMALL GIFTS

-----------------------------
Small Gifts

the less to remember, the more to listen
gifts from the ice age reverberate
a simple story, a forest, a coastline
entangled in silence, one starts to relate
---------------------------------------------

In case you have read up to this point, you might be a sonic creator yourself. May I ask you for a helping ear? Above, there is a tiny poem of mine that I do not understand how to translate into sound. If you do - please act on it. It is a matter of common decency, of course, to keep the title (Small Gifts) and to credit the lyrics to me (jo richter). And please do notify me of your version via a soundcloud message. One bewilderingly beautiful version crafted by mono-lux has already gone public, as well as an amazing version by cthonicist.  You'll find both in my playlist Sympoetic Ultrasounds. This is just a small gift, not a challenge - life already has more than enough of those on offer, doesn't it? Treat it this way.

POETRY IS VITAL
sound, space and time
structuring impulse
carving, chiselling, kneading, morphing
large and small gifts
poetry is vital

GENERAL POLICY regarding the use of LIKES, REPOSTS and FOLLOWS:
I like what I like and want to hear again.
I only repost what I've had a hand in creating.
I follow when I see directions or arrivals I like, not when followed (though I might peek in to get an idea of what your sounds are about). I have set myself a limit of accounts I follow not to be all too overwhelmed. Not following does therefore not mean I do not appreciate what you contribute to the enjoyments of soundcloud.
Do not expect other behaviour from me.
(jo richter)

Where Once Were Whales (Extract)

playingwithwords