This project is based around a collection of cassette tapes I discovered. Recorded by my grandfather before I was born, the tapes contain a mixture of recorded family discussions, radio recordings and music compilations, all recorded in the same council house in South Wales, 66 Montclaire Avenue. The work is split into three pieces (Arkle 64, The Fish and Meat Market & Three Generations), each exploring a separate theme that came out of my excavation of the tape material. 

All three works were originally in multichannel.

66 Montclaire

Recording from a workshop with the Ligeti Quartet of the first 2 movements of my piece The Foundry. Movement - 1 titled: Metal and Movement 2 -Fire

The Foundry Movement 1 & 2

The River Rea, a sonic exploration,  explores the relationship between the composer and their environment. The work explores the gestures of flowing water and the various surrounding sounds of the River Rea in Birmingham, UK.

The River Rea, A Sonic Exploration

The piece explores the resonances and different sounds from an old ship bell.

The Bells Are Coming.

This piece investigates themes of the fish and meat industry and consumption, through a conversation my family had in the 1980s, that was recorded onto cassette tape. Recorded by my granddad before I was born, the tape contains a mixture of secretly recorded family discussions and gatherings, horse races from the radio and music compilations, all recorded in the same council house in South Wales, 66 Montclaire Avenue. This material holds within, a rare snapshot of workings-class social history and an interesting glimpse into the life of my family in the past. The piece itself highlights that even 40 years after this conversation was recorded, the discussion of fish and meat consumption is an even more pressing issue.

The Fish And Meat Market

Arkle 64

Three Generations

Live analogue radio meets bass synth creating live noisey experimental dance music. Recorded Live at Gabba Kebabber 2024

Boomtown 2024 - Live Electronic Set

The piece was originally written for my final Undergraduate Composition project and the recording is from a workshop with the Kreutzer Quartet on June 11th 2017 at Goldsmiths University. The compositions explores the sonorities created through close interlocking string relationships and extended techniques. The work isn’t concerned with individual parts but instead the affect of the combination of all separate parts working as one unit. It is inspired by the spectral influenced work of of Georg Friedrich Haas and Giacinto Scelsi but hopes to disrupt the usual expectations of the practice.

Murmurations for String Quartet

The piece combines multiple interviews with recordings and aims to draw links between the personal qualities of the voice and the concept of home. The piece is originally in 8 channel and is part of wider project on the Home that began as a research project at Goldsmiths University.

Home, a sound exploration.

Music I produced for the film, SAM, a short film that explores non-binary gender. The film and music was produced in 2016 as part of a Westminster Media final undergraduate project.

Opening

Piece in collaboration with Croydon Art Store. Many thanks to all the participants.

This piece combines field recordings and interviews taken during a series of workshops on Sound Art by myself to a group of young people from Croydon. The project focused on how Sound Art can be used to explore and express social and political issues. We focused on, as a group, the affects of the future demolition of the Whitgift Shopping Centre. In our discussion the young people expressed fears of gentrification but also hopes of jobs. The participants interviewed each other with recorders and then we took field recordings and impulse responses of the shopping centre. This material was then used to compose a soundscape piece that was then played within the shopping centre.

When I Come To The Whitgift

This soundscape includes recordings from a series of workshops that aimed to creatively explore the impact of development in Croydon on young people.  This piece aims to bring together the many voices from the workshops, as well field recording taken round Croydon and at the Croydon Youth Art Collective's Takeover Day at Fairfield Hall on 2nd November 2019.

Thank you to Croydon Council's Design Department, The Croydon Art Store and all of the workshop participants.

The piece was installed as part of the  Development Consultation Surgery at the Croydon Art Store between November - December 2022.

Croydon, voices of a city.

Homecoming, written and directed by Ewan Atkinson, is a semi autobiographical short film about PTSD. Stephen, a young Iraq war veteran from a dead-end coastal town. On his return to England Stephen battles with alcoholism, isolation and depression making desperate attempts to feel like himself again despite being burdened with the mental scars of a traumatic war. 

My soundtrack was nominated for best original score at Feel the Reel International Film Festival and also won best student film and best actor.

SamBlandMusic

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