A forest floor thick with fallen leaves. Each one undisturbed, silent and full.

This track explores the theme of Intangible Heritage through our instinct to preserve fleeting moments, and how the act of capturing can transform them and paradoxically create distance.

Created for 20 Years of Freesound open call, awarded 2nd place and presented at Phonos, Barcelona, in October 2025.

Mastered by Robert Soma-Lewis at Ambient Works. https://www.instagram.com/ambientwks/

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Field recordings of slowly walking through leaves are layered with sounds from a copy machine and typewriter, representing an effort to hold onto something. The preservation becomes more chaotic and bureaucratic with the looped office radio sample, a CD being burned, and a damaged tape recording of someone counting trying to align. The warping tone emphasis's a transformation, and the ambient pad sound as the presence still behind it. The piece ends back at the forest floor.

Complete list of Freesound source sounds:
Leaves 1 - https://freesound.org/people/Shain_T/sounds/352963/
Leaves 2 - https://freesound.org/people/arnaud%20coutancier/sounds/48987/
Copy machine - https://freesound.org/people/jewettg/sounds/662715/ 
Typewriter - https://freesound.org/people/jeromeblum/sounds/734000/
Office radio - https://freesound.org/people/AchimEngels/sounds/650997/
Dot-matrix printer - https://freesound.org/people/jewettg/sounds/662715/
Burning CDs - https://freesound.org/people/NikosDemetriou/sounds/720605/
Faulty tape person counting - https://freesound.org/people/salemaudio/sounds/803508/

Our Attempts (Leaves)

Sean Kinnear