This is a recording from my live performance for the Sluice Biennial in Colchester June 2024 at Two Brews, in collaboration with Basement Arts Project. 

The piece originates from a participatory drawing and sound mapping project that I facilitated as part of a virtual artist residency at Basement Arts Project. Participants were invited to make drawings of their sonic environment, closing eyes, tuning into the textures and rhythms of everyday sound, and translating that into marks on paper. They also made audio recordings in the same location they made the drawing.

I made a digital collage (map) with the drawings, and used the audio clips as samples to make an accompanying audio collage, designed to navigate an imaginary sonic journey using the map. (You can see this via the link to my website below)

Subsequently, I have created this live version as a reworking of the original piece. The piece is made entirely from the audio clips submitted by participants in the project.  It's a non-linear narrative about a place that exists in your own imagination. 

For more information about this project please visit
https://www.kimbalbumstead.com/projects/soniclandscapes

Thanks to Sluice Art, Stuart Bowditch, Bruce Davies and all the participants who contributed drawings and sounds.

Sonic Landscapes. Live at Sluice 2024

Featuring: West Hook
Written by: Archer., West Hook

© Archer Music
℗ Archer Music

Geographical

Geographical (ft. West Hook)

Binario 2 is part of the Cities and Memory “Migration Sounds” project. It features 120 field recordings from around the world relating to migration in its broadest sense, and 120 remixes of those recordings interpreted in various ways.

My track is based on Simon Serc and Martina Testen’s (Pharmafabrik) recording of Trenitalia 20984 arriving at Sagrado station in Northern Italy. In the original recording, as the train comes to a stop, voices of Italians and migrants are audible, suggesting a diverse mix of individuals disembarking. The migrants, predominantly from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, among other nationalities, are intercepted on the train, likely en route to seek asylum in Italy.

My track is composed entirely from samples taken from the original recording. I have worked with the textures, resonances and naturally occurring rhythms in the recording. The sounds of the train moving along the tracks, the mechanical sounds of doors opening and closing, and the movements and voices of people on and off the train, as well as the white noise in the recording are the main components of the track. I filtered rhythmic sections to their transients and enhanced them with resonators. Percussive sounds were used for drum patterns and the train whistle forms the patch for the mysterious melody.

We arrive in the story whilst it is in full swing, on the road to somewhere, the anticipation of starting something, a new life perhaps. We arrive and are greeted with confusion, there is movement in all directions, yet we are staying still. We hear sounds of people on the platform, people get off, people get on. Tensions are high, but we calmly observe the scene unfold around us. The energy gradually builds up and the train departs the station, continuing once again on its journey. Who is still with us? Who has joined? What have we left behind? Where are we going anyway?

The full project can be heard here: https://citiesandmemory.com/migration/

Scroll to Trenitalia: Voices of Migration to hear the original recording

Free download - https://kimbalbumstead.bandcamp.com/track/binario-2

Composition: Kimbal Bumstead 
Original Field Recording and Photo Credit: Simon Serc and Martina Testen (Pharmafabrik)   
Mastering: Alex Pinkerton
Image credit: Googlemaps

Migration Sounds

Binario 2

This track is composed for Cities and Memory: Heritage Sounds project (2025), and is based on a recording made by Rafael Diogo of an ancient door in Ushguli Village in the Upper Svaneti region of Northern Georgia - a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I love a creaky door sound anytime, but this one was particularly special - the slow movement of this ancient door as it groaned and rumbled on its rusty hinges. The sound was evocative of the remote mountain landscape it came from. You could almost smell the freshness of the air and feel the solidity of the village’s decadent medieval stone Svan towers. I had never heard of this place until this recording prompted me to explore it via Googlemaps, and it has certainly captivated me to go and visit one day.

My track is a journey of possibilities with echoes of a time gone by. I created the pulsing distorted rhythms using granular synthesis of time stretched samples of the door recording. I imagined the glitchy grains of sound bouncing between the walls, up through the rafters and out into the valley. There are moments of energy and moments of calm, as if we are eagerly walking the stony paths of the village, peering through the wooden doorframes of abandoned buildings, and stopping to smell the mountains. 

The full Cities and Memory: Heritage Sounds project can be heard here
https://citiesandmemory.com/heritage/

New tracks tagged #Geographical