recorded early one morning in springtime at buckenham marshes

sharon sanderson - field recordings 
robert sanderson - atmospherics

early morning on the marshes

According to superstition, nightjars are the manifestations of the souls of unbaptised children forever doomed to wander the summer night skies.
Nightjars and muntjacs recorded at Broadland Country Park, near Norwich.

sharon sanderson - field recordings 
robert sanderson - atmospherics

the souls of unbaptised children wander the skies tonight

A winter afternoon on the marshes, with the temperature falling and the light fading, and rooks and jackdaws returning to roost.

Sharon Sanderson - field recordings
Robert Sanderson - samples, atmospherics and voice

all on a winter’s afternoon, just as the light was fading

A summer nocturne, with the strange eldrich churring of a nightjar, and a couple of muntjaks barking into the darkness.
The souls of unbaptised children wander the skies tonight…

Nightjarring

A piece of music inspired by the bleak unstable terrain of the North Norfolk coast, and by the medieval ship graffiti found in some of the churches there.

We navigated by stars,
charted our course by constellations,
carried cargo on the German Ocean from Lubek to Lynn
and fished for herring and cod in the cold north waters.

We lined up with the church towers as we pulled into port
and carved our crude ships on the pillars in the nave -

votive scratchings as we listened to long sermons
for the saints and the hammer-beam angels
to intercede for us,
and grant us safe passage.

And after the harbour has silted up
and after the river has changed its course
and after the town has hollowed out
and long after we have sailed from these shores

our graffiti ships will still be there
safe in the haven
of our souls

northsealand

An audio snapshot of an area of Newcastle down near the Quayside, watched over by the kittiwakes that nest under the Tyne Bridge, and on the balconies of the Baltic contemporary art gallery.

sharon sanderson - field recordings 
robert sanderson - singing, guitar & samples

akenside

A sonic landscape based on the holy North Sea islands of Lindisfarne and the Farne Archipelago, which were the home of Saint Cuthbert and the seat of English Christianity before the Viking invasion.
The title of the piece comes from a large and decorative map of Lindisfarne and the Farne Islands, from the 1645 German edition of the Blaeu Atlas Novus.

Calves slaughtered, vellum prepared, oak apples picked -
without the wasp
the word of god would remain unwritten.

A shooting star cuts the sky in two;
an angel transports a soul to heaven.

This world is the work of the devil
and woman is his willing tool;
the hermit prefers the company
of the donkey and the eider duck
to that of the weaker sex,
and in the life and death
his body is un-corrupted.

Carry him now,
cart his coffin around the country,
establish his church at every station
along the wandering route,
and leave behind a trail of tall tales,
invented legends,
stories of piety
and saintly intervention.

Scribe, sharpen your quill,
scratch your mark upon the page
and record the works of a sky-god’s son
that lived in a hot and distant land.

The wind is whipping over the dunes,
and the tide is turning.
Porpoise and seals sing their songs to the sea.

In the beginning was the word.
So be it.
The end is 
Amen

Insula Sacra, vulgo Holy Iland et Farne

Over the centuries the nightingale has flown in and out of the English national psyche, and its song has been an inspiration for musicians and poets throughout the ages. One of the cultural myths concerning the bird involved it jamming along to a cellist during a series of live recordings broadcast by the BBC, though it now seems likely that the corporation used the skills of a siffleur to impersonate the song.
This track is based on variations of a dance by John Playford, and incorporates samples from the 1943 propaganda film The Demi-Paradise.
The nightingales were recorded on Westleton Heath in Suffolk.

sharon sanderson - field recordings 
robert sanderson - guitar & atmospherics

the myth of the nightingales

echolocation

through the woods

Low tide, and the stunted remains of a Bronze Age timber circle poke through the sand. A herd of curlews take to the air just above the surface of the water, and land a few yards away. A parcel of oystercatchers go about their business among the peat outcrops. Just over there, inside another timber circle, a body lies under the sky in the roots of an inverted oak, waiting for gulls and crows to pluck out the eyes, gouge out the innards and strip the flesh from the bones, to set the spirit free.
Soon the tide will turn, and the shifting sands will cover everything, and everything will be lost…

seahenge

A compline for jackdaws and rooks, recorded at Buckenham in Norfolk.

sharon sanderon - field recordings
robert sanderson - gramophonics & samples

Corvid compline

music for two nightingales and an ersatz cello

sharon sanderson - field recordings
robert sanderson - ersatz cello

f. scott fitzgerald reading the first verse of ode to a nightingale by john keats
nightingales recorded at westleton heath in suffolk

sanderson & sanderson

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