Rob Mackay (Sound)
John Wedgewood Clarke (Poetry and Readings)
Lara Goodband (Curation)

Sea Swim Sounds is one of a number of artworks created for the Sea Swim project (co-directed by Lara Goodband and John Wedgewood Clarke).  Sea Swim explores how swimming transforms the way we feel ourselves to be in our bodies and the liberating effects these changes have on the imagination.

Taking a phonographical approach, the sounds of Scarborough’s South Bay and the sea swimmers was captured over a period of 6 months using a range of recording techniques. Hydrophone, binaural, and ambisonic soundfield recordings have been combined to convey different perspectives, from the intimate to the panoramic.  At times, simultaneous recordings were taken, both above and below the waves in order to create an immersive experience. The poet’s voice has been recorded both in the studio and in situ, further exploring notions of internal and external space.

Sea Swim is part of imove: a Cultural Olympiad Programme in Yorkshire – www.imoveand.com/seaswim

Sea Swim Sounds

Red River 4

4. Froggy Skewes Poem

23. Dead Pond At Wheel Seaton

22. Wheal Seton Poem

20. A30 Culvert Tucking Mill Park

2. Holmans Drill

19a. A30 Traffic (quieter For Headphones)

19. A30 Traffic

18. Poem A30 Culvert

12. Under Manhole Cover In Tucking Mill 2

11. Under Manhole Cover In Tucking Mill 1

1. Water Drip In Mine

The multi-channel fixed-media composition Living Waves, was commissioned for the interdisciplinary Ruskin Rocks Project (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ruskinrocks/) led by Prof Bruce Yardley, School of Earth Sciences, University of Leeds. The project brought together musicians (including Dame Evelyn Glennie), artists and scientists to create two new 21st Century lithophones (the Brantwood Musical Stones, designed by Dr Kia Ng (University of Leeds) and Marcus de Mowbray (freelance musical instrument maker) to be housed at Brantwood, the former home of artist, naturalist and social commentator John Ruskin, now a museum situated in the Lake District. The two tuned percussion instruments have been created from ringing rock extracted from several Cumbrian Quarries. 

Living Waves has been inspired by the thoughts, writings and paintings of Ruskin. It is the sub-title he himself gave to Deucalion, his book on geology. It is also the name of a recent exhibition at Brantwood of some of his drawings and watercolours in which he explored the many repeated patterns which occur in nature. Mountains are viewed as fluid and dynamic forms, living waves created by the shifting of the earth’s crust. 

Ruskin himself describes the phenomenon of repeated forms in nature on differing scales: ‘For a stone, when it is examined, will be found and mountain in miniature. The fineness of Nature’s work is so great, that, into a single block, a foot or two in diameter, she can compress as many changes of form and structure, on a small scale, as she needs for her mountains on a large one...’ (Ruskin, Modern Painters IV, 1860, P.311). 

On a conceptual level, Ruskin identified with the medieval scholars’ concept of Musica Mundana, or ‘music of the spheres’. A celestial harmony. The three branches of the medieval concept of music were laid down by Boethius as Musica Mundana, Musica Humana (the internal music of the human body), and Musica Instrumentalis (sounds made by singers and instrumentalists). This sense of inter-connectedness pervades much of his work. 

Through the compositional process I have tried to mirror Ruskin’s visual explorations from a sonic perspective, using a range of transformational techniques to convey repeated patterns in different soundscapes at both the micro and macro level. In the context of this piece I have also interpreted the three medieval divisions of music interpreted as: sounds naturally occurring in nature; speech and the sound of manmade machinery; and instrumental sounds (in this case improvisations, on the new Brantwood Musical Stones, played by percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie).

The Ruskin Rocks project was funded by Natural England through Defra's Aggregated Levy Sustainability Fund and was co-ordinated by Bobbie Millar. 

Living Waves

This recording is of the Brantwood Musical Stones, a lithophone created for the Ruskin Rocks project (www.leeds.ac.uk/ruskinrocks), designed and created by Dr Kia Ng and Marcus de Mowbray. It is made from ringing rock found in Cumbria, and is housed at Brantwood Museum near Coniston. 

The sample is made using a hard beater and demonstrates the timbral characteristics of each of the octaves, which are made from a different rock type (C1 - B1: Slate from High Fell Quarry; C2 - B2: Shap Blue from Shap Quarry; C3 - B3: Hornfels from Skiddaw; C4 - C5: Limestone from Stainton Quarry).

The sample is made up of C1, C2, C3, C4 and C5, each played with three dynamics (f, mf, p). 

Brantwood Musical Stones (Hard Beater)


This recording is of the Brantwood Musical Stones, a lithophone created for the Ruskin Rocks project (www.leeds.ac.uk/ruskinrocks), designed and created by Dr Kia Ng and Marcus de Mowbray. It is made from ringing rock found in Cumbria, and is housed at Brantwood Museum near Coniston.

The sample is made using a soft beater and demonstrates the timbral characteristics of each of the octaves, which are made from a different rock type (C1 - B1: Slate from High Fell Quarry; C2 - B2: Shap Blue from Shap Quarry; C3 - B3: Hornfels from Skiddaw; C4 - C5: Limestone from Stainton Quarry).

The sample is made up of C1, C2, C3, C4 and C5, each played with three dynamics (f, mf, p).


Brantwood Musical Stones (Soft Beater)

Poetry: John Wedgwood Clarke
Field Recordings: Rob Mackay
Featuring 'Longplayer' by Jem Finer

Voice Over Water (VOW) is a poetry soundscape in three sections that explores parallels between human and marine-biological communication systems in the context of the River Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf.  If, through ocean acidification, the pH of the sea falls, as predicted, to 7.7 by 2100, then many aquatic organisms dependent on chemical communication will be effectively rendered blind. This is the central idea that Voices Over Water explores and seeks to communicate to a wider audience through a range of metaphors and procedures. 

Section one, which makes use of hydrophone recordings, and ambisonic recordings made on the bridge over the lock gates at East India Dock, sets up an analogy between the tidal flow of the Thames and human breathing. The text, timed to the lapping of the Thames, is a litany of breaths that forms a transect through the historical and biological significance of this great river. The Thames is heard as London’s aquatic respiratory system.

Section two, recorded on ‘the brow’ or bridge between Trinity Buoy Wharf and the adjacent pontoon, situates the voice of the speaker precariously within the non-human, energetic flow of the river Thames. This section develops VOW’s central analogy between navigation systems related to Trinity Buoy Wharf, human speech, and the chemical communications between the aquatic worms upon which the ecosystem of the Thames Estuary depends.

The final section, recorded at Hungerford Footbridge, enacts the analogy made between the disruption of chemical signals in the sea and disruptions in human communication. It does this by colliding two historic texts: extracts from Michael Faraday’s public science lecture titled ‘Gravitation—Cohesion’ and William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. As this section develops, the mixing of the two texts intensifies. Faraday’s lecture was chosen because of his ground-breaking experiments conducted at Trinity Buoy Wharf, and Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 because of its literary familiarity and to clinch the analogy, set up in section two, that chemical signs are, effectively, the love-songs of aquatic worms. 

After a process of increasing linguistic and sonic disorientation, which involves a sound spatialisation process that replicates the turning of the lighthouse lens, the piece closes with two unmixed quotes from both texts.  This sudden return to clarity reminds us how much we depend on the agreed functions of our linguistic systems of communication, both as a bridge between ourselves, and towards an understanding of the otherness of the ecosystems in which we are the dominant, if precariously positioned, species.

Voice Over Water (VOW)

Equanimity

For Clarinet and Computer (6’50”) - Clarinet performed by F.Gerard Errante

Taking a moonlit night on a beach in Majorca as its inspiration, Equanimity is an attempt to convey a sense of delicate balance between different environmental and sonic factors: a certain stillness in the air; the sound of different nocturnal creatures blending in harmony; the ocean shifting in the darkness.

I have tried to exploit the different elements that make up the sound of the clarinet, at the same time relating these to the natural sounds on the recording. A delicate balance is set-up between stillness and movement, knowing and unknowing. Is the listener hearing the sound of the clarinet or cicadas? Do they hear the performer’s breath or the sound of waves gently lapping against the shore?

Through the use of live electronic processing, the sound of the clarinet is subtly extended to aid this blending of instrument and nature. The through-composed nature of the piece reflects a gradual unveiling of the natural scene, shifting from the different harmonics contained in the clarinet to the sounds of insects and birds communicating on their own narrow bands of frequencies.

Equanimity was composed for clarinettist F.Gerrard Errante in Scarborough and Las Vegas (with support from the University of Hull and the great hospitality of D. Gause and Gerry Errante). A recording is available on the CD Delicate Balance published by Aucourant Records. It can be purchased on-line at http://www.aucourantrecords.com/catalog.php?op=detail&cid=72

Equanimity

I have based this Composition on the following piece of text by Sophocles (from ‘Oedipus at Colonus’), which my father inscribed in the front cover of his World War II diary. I believe this is still as relevant to us today as when it was first written:                                              

                    ‘The Earth’s strength fades, 
                  And manhood’s glory fades. 
                  Faith dies, 
                  And unfaith blossoms like a flower. 
                  But who shall find, 
                  In these open streets of men, 
                  Or in the secret places of his own hearts love, 
                  One wind blow true forever.’ 

In this piece I have tried to mirror the meaning and mood of the text, both in its context within the play it is from, and in the more general relevance it has to people of any generation. A gloomy truth pervades the first four lines, but the second half of the text offers hope in the enormity of time and the universe.

Also the material for the piece (which includes the text itself) relates to the Greek ideals of music, set down by Boethius: Musica Mundana, Musica Humana, and Musica Instrumentalis.  

Within this piece I have pursued my interest in transforming one recognisable sound to another, playing on human auditory perception and also using this to travel from the imaginary to the real and back again.

Voicewind was created in the electroacoustic music studios at Bangor in 1998. It won a special prize in the EAR99 competition of Hungarian Radio in 1999.


Voicewind

This piece is based on the opening of chapter 11 of James Joyce’s Ulysses. I find the chosen text to have a particularly musical quality, which comes as no surprise as Joyce intended it to act as an overture to chapter 11, which is inspired by, and a tribute to, the art of music.

The entire material for the piece has been created solely from recordings of readings from the text. Through different sound transformation techniques I have created a wide range of sonic material which mirrors the literal meaning of the words. I have tried to create a musical structure, as well as providing word-painting for the text and exploiting its innate musical quality. In order to respect the text, I felt it important to maintain coherence of the spoken word throughout the piece as well as using it to create supporting textures and gestures. The piece’s title reflects the way I have interpreted Joyce’s words, which to me evoke a vision-like quality.

The piece was composed in 2002 for the First Otto Joachim Project Studio Residency Competition, Concordia, Montreal. It was a finalist in the ‘1st Electroacoustic Miniatures Competition’, Confluencias, Spain. It is available on the CD of the same name, published with funds from the Junta de Andalucia.


Joyce's Vision

Work on Postcards from the Summer began in the Experimental Music Studio of Radio Bratislava in Slovakia during the summer of 1998. 

The piece is inspired by the various soundscapes of the different places I visited in Europe during that summer. From a farm in North Wales and the sounds of Bangor, to the cities of London, Bratislava, Prague, and Munich. 

In presenting these soundscapes, I have not consciously tried to conjure up the national flavour of the countries I visited (although some sounds inevitably do), but instead the piece represents snippets of my own personal experiences of these places. The aural images are not necessarily in chronological order, but instead weave a tapestry of different sonic landscapes.

Within this piece I have tried to continue my interest in transforming one recognisable sound to another, and using this technique to ‘travel’ from one place to another.       

Postcards from the Summer was composed in the Experimental Music Studio in Radio Bratislava and the Electroacoustic Music Studios at Bangor between mid 1998 and early 1999. It has been published by ‘New Adventures in Sound Art’ on their ‘Deep Wireless 4 – Radio Art Compilation’ CD, with funds from the Arts Council of Canada. 


Postcards from the Summer

'Environs' continues my interest in exploring the musical and structural implications of using recognisable sound sources. Indeed, the piece contains almost exclusively everyday sounds (the unidentifiable sounds being derived from the recognisable). I have used the sounds for their physical connotations as well as for their acoustic properties and musical potential. Thus creating different levels of meaning.

I have created different sound environments. Each environment having its own environs, or perimeter, defined by a door motif. Gradually these perimeters are broken down, as sounds occur in increasingly bizarre contexts. 

During this dialogue, sounds familiar to us are transformed into different material and from one source to another. Eventually even the opening and closing doors themselves are taken out of context and developed upon.  Further sections develop material to create longer sequences, exploiting the ambiguities which can occur when using recognisable sounds, out of context, along side each other.

'Environs' was composed between mid 1996 and early 1997 in the electroacoustic music studios at Bangor University. It is available on the ICMC98 CD (from the International Computer Music Association).

Environs

In many of my compositions I have tried to eplore the way we perceive sounds. Using this to effectively transform one recognisable sound to another, or travel from a ‘real’ space to an imaginary one. So far, this has been done in pieces which are purely for fixed medium alone. In 'Flute Melt', however, I have endeavored to extend the work I have done into a piece which includes a live flute performance. I have tried to make the flute and the tape ‘melt’ into one another. Sometimes a sound made on the flute will transform into a sound on the tape. At other moments the flute will imitate sounds in the tape part. The listener should be taken from the real space of the concert hall into a realm where anything can happen, and back again.

'Flute Melt' was composed in the electroacoustic music studios at Bangor University between 1999 and 2000. 


Flute Melt

'Sea Pictures' was inspired by the sea town ambiance of Bangor, in North Wales, where I lived for six years. Many of the sounds in the piece were recorded on location, including seagulls and folk music (from the Bangor folk festival). In this piece I wished to paint sound images of the sea, and sea town scenes. Some of them ‘real’, others surreal, or even abstract. Recognisable sounds are juxtaposed against ‘constructed’ sounds in order to exploit differences and similarities between them for musical application.

During this voyage through different soundscapes, identifiable sounds are transformed into the unfamiliar and vice versa. Also, transformations occur from one recognisable sound source to another. The listener is taken to far off places as well as parts closer to home.
   
'Sea Pictures' was composed in the electroacoustic music studios at Bangor  between late 1996 and early 1997. It won a Prix Résidence from the Bourges Synthèse festival in 1997. As a result I travelled to Bratislava to compose in the studios of Slovak Radio in 1998.


Sea Pictures

Re-imagining the Jurassic is a miniature created in response to the ArtXClimate call for the creation of miniatures of sound art related to climate change effects and the global environmental crisis.

It has grown out of a soundscape which I created for the 'Scarborough's Lost Dinosaurs' exhibit at the Rotunda Museum (originally created by William Smith, the father of modern Geology). 

The soundscape has been constructed out of separate elements in order to recreate the sounds of the same spot in Scarborough which the Rotunda inhabits, but 165 million years ago, during the Jurassic period. This is based on geological data.

The soundscape contains no birds, as they hadn't yet evolved. It does, however, contain the sounds of mosquitos and dragonflies, as those species haven't changed since Jurassic times. 

It also contains the sound of Archaboilus musicus. A kind of cricket which lived during the Jurassic period, but has since become extinct. This piece uses the call of the Jurassic cricket, re-synthesised by researchers at Bristol university, based on fossil evidence. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16878292.

The presence of herbivorous dinosaurs has been inferred by the sounds of breaking leaves and twigs from their grazing movements. A distant stream can also be heard.

Re-imagining the Jurassic was one of a number of shortlisted Sound Art Miniatures selected by an international jury for the art! ⋈ climate contest related to climate change effects and the global environmental crisis. This was run in collaboration between the ‘Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre’ and CEIArtE (Centro de Experimentación e Investigación en Artes Electrónicas), Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febero.

Re-imagining the Jurassic

I recorded these bees with two DPA4060 mics going into a Sound Devices Mix Pre 6.

The recordings were made as part of 'Garden to Garden', a collaboration with visual artist Fiona MacDonald (Feral Practice), commissioned by Invisible Dust.

https://invisibledust.com/journal/garden-to-garden-with-south-cliff-gardens-scarborough

Rob Mackay was commissioned as sound artist on ‘Garden to Garden’ by Invisible Dust, in partnership with the South Cliff Garden’s National Heritage Lottery Fund Team. Additional support from the Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England

Bees recorded on a Blackberry Bush in Meanwood, Leeds, June 2020

This is a recording from a streambox we installed in the Cerro Pelón UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, as part of the project 'Following the Flight of the Monarchs'. The streambox is a weatherproof box containing a Raspberry Pi processor with audio interface and 2 microphones linked to a 3G cellular network, all powered by solar. The audio is livestreamed to the Locus Sonus Soundmap.

Thanks to ornithologists Jorge Schondube Friedwold, Adrien Ceja Madrigal and Elisa Maya Elizarras of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, who have identified the following birds on the stream from this recording:

Long-tailed Wood-partridge Dendrortyx macroura

Gray-barred Wren Campylorhynchus megalopterus

White-eared Hummingbird Hylocharis leucotis

Mexican Violetear Colibri thalassinus

Stellar's Jay Cyanocitta stelleri

Olive Warbler Peucedramus taeniatus

Mountain Trogon Trogon mexicanus

American Robin Turdus migratorious

Cerro Pelón Stream Sunday 28th Jan 2017

This is a recording from a streambox we installed at Point Pelee National Park in Ontario as part of the project 'Following the Flight of the Monarchs'. The weatherproof box contains a Raspberry Pi processor with an audio interface and 2 microphones. The audio is streamed in real-time onto the Locus Sonus Soundmap.

Point Pelee Stream 7th April 2020, 3pm UK Time (BST)

Rob Mackay is a composer, sound artist and performer. He gained a degree in Geology and Music at the University of Keele, studying composition there with Mike Vaughan, before going on to complete a Master’s and PhD with Andrew Lewis at the University of Wales, Bangor. Currently he is a Reader in Creative Music Technology at the University of Hull.

Recent projects have moved towards a cross-disciplinary approach, including theatre, audio/visual installation work, and human/computer interaction. Prizes and honours include: IMEB Bourges (1997 and 2001); EAR99 from Hungarian Radio (1999); Confluencias (2003); La Muse en Circuit (2004 and 2006). His work has received over 100 performances in 16 countries (including several performances on BBC Radio 3). Currently he is working with percussionist Evelyn Glennie on a composition project as part of Ruskin Rocks (http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ruskinrocks/).

He has held composer residencies at Slovak Radio (Bratislava), La Muse en Circuit (Paris), and the Tyrone Guthre Arts Centre (Ireland).

He is an improvisor working across many genres, and for several years played with the improvisation ensemble 'Imp'. He has also enjoyed improvising with Rhodri Davies and Jez Riley French. He has played, written and produced in a number of bands and ensembles, including the Welsh Hip-Hop collective 'Tystion' with whom he collaborated alongside John Cale on the film ‘A Beautiful Mistake’, as well as recording two John Peel sessions on BBC Radio 1 and supporting PJ Harvey. More recently, he has done session work for Gowel Owen and Euros Childs as well as playing in the Welsh Afrofunk outfit 'Drymbago'.

6 CDs including his compositions are available. More information and pieces at: www.digital-music-archives.com and http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/dramamusicandscreen/ourstaff/musicstaff/robmackay.aspx

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