Recent works

Village soundings. A series of four 30 minute pieces composed for Resonance FM, and broadcast during 2002, focusing on the soundscapes of a group of villages in rural East Anglia close to where I was living at the time.

i. A14 Features the sounds of a main road, the A14, situated very close to my home, and the reactions of local people to the continuous sound of traffic.

ii. Reach Fair Sounds of one of the oldest village fairs in England, held annually in the village of Reach.

iii. Golden jubilee A sonic insight into how my local community celebrated the Golden jubilee of HRH Queen Elizabeth II.

iv. Community stroll Another jubilee event, designed to encourage people to collectively visit local landmarks (and soundmarks).

Shick shack Features recordings made in Australia and in Cheshire, where my family is from. The piece explores the story of William Buckley, who was transported to Australia from rural Cheshire, as described in the book 'Strandloper' by Alan Garner. Broadcast on Resonance FM in 2002 as part of the Houyhnhnm Tales series produced by the Sonic Arts Network.

Bird hide A short piece featuring recordings made within a bird hide, in Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire, one of the UK's oldest nature reserves. The piece was released on the 'A Call for Silence' CD produced by the Sonic Arts Network in 2004. For more details about the piece, and files for downloading, click here.

Glow worm hunt. Recorded at Badbury Rings, Dorset (10 pm, July 26th, 2003). This short piece was featured on the earshot4 CD produced by UKISC, on architectural soundmarks. It features recordings of around 100 people hunting for glow worms on a warm summer night, in a neolithic hillfort. For more details, click here.

Resonant Cambridge A 30 minute composition composed for the Drift Festival, and broadcast over the web during 2004 as part of their 'Resonant cities' theme. The piece features field recordings made in Cambridge over a two-year period. The piece is structured as a geographical journey through the city along different travel links, which interconnect in both space and time. For more details and soundfiles, click here.

By Hook or by Crook. During the summer of 2004, Wimborne Community Theatre (Dorset) performed a play in a local woodland, Holt Forest, based on local stories and histories about the wood. This composition features sounds recorded as the play was developed and performed, providing both a documentary account of the Holt Forest Project, and an insight into how people relate to a woodland environment close to where they live. Recordings made as part of the project were featured in an installation at Walford Mill, Wimborne, later in the year. Click here for more details.

Notou. Montane rainforest, Mont Koghi, New Caledonia, at dawn, 5th April, 2004. (Binauaral recording). I made this recording while fulfilling a long-held ambition to visit New Caledonia, a place of outstanding conservation importance for its unique flora and fauna. Perhaps nowhere else in the world has the ancient biota of Gondwanaland been so well preserved; most of the species found there are endemic, and many are very ancient forms or 'living fossils'. Yet pressures on remaining forest areas are intense, principally because of mining and fire. I recorded these sounds at dawn, having camped in the rain forest overnight, and was astonished to hear the sonorous, booming sound featured on this recording. I thought at first that it was an enormous frog, but I later found out that it is the call of the notou (Ducula goliath), an endemic pigeon - in fact the largest pigeon in the world. The species is found nowhere else, and is threatened with extinction. Scandalously, it is still legally hunted. I have never heard a bird call such as this; it is clearly a sound designed to carry long distances in dense forest canopies. For me, this extraordinary sound captures the unique and precarious nature of this wonderful place.

Elements. A project funded and supported by the Poole Arts Development Unit, aiming to make art accessible to people accessing various care centres in Poole. A series of visual arts workshops created 16 banners using mixed media, exploring the theme of the four elements. This soundscape composition features recordings made during the workshops, a group 'soundwalk' event along the shore at Sandbanks, Poole, and poetry created and recited by Paula Brown, together with field recordings made in the Poole area during early 2005. The composition was featured in a multi-media exhibition at Longfleet United Reform Church, Poole, at which the banners were presented. Click here for more.

Grist to the Mill. Recordings made during a site-specific work by Wimborne Community Theatre during early summer 2005. Performances took place in White Mill, an old watermill on the river Stour near Sturminster Marshall, Dorset, now owned by the National Trust. Recordings of a working watermill (Alderholt) were performed live, and diffused over a multi-speaker system within White Mill as part of the performance. Local legend has it that a bell stolen from Knowlton church was thrown into the river here by fleeing villagers. Having been cursed by a local 'crone', the bell was thought to have been claimed by the Devil himself. Local children still throw stones into the water in the hope of striking the bell and hearing its supernatural, subaquatic chime. This is referred to in the piece using manipulated recordings of the local village church bell and the sounds of the river Stour in summer.

Against the flow, we prosper. 8:30 mins; featuring sound recordings made by Lynn Davy. Performed at the Sound Cafe event, Jedburgh, November 26 2005. This piece was compiled from sound recordings made in the town of Peebles (Scottish Borders) during 1994. The piece explores the sound environment of the community in which I lived at the time. Peebles, like many other Borders towns, prides itself on its sense of identity. This is most clearly expressed during those events held during the year that are desgined to bring the community together. This includes not only those people dwelling in the town itself, but those making their living in the surrounding farms, who are most in evidence during the annual Agricultural Show. In addition to this event, this composition features recordings of the Beltane Festival and the Rideout, when horseriders from throughout the Borders join in a ride around the town boundaries. Their cries of 'Hooray!' together with the horses fording the river are perhaps the most distinctive local soundmarks. Sounds of Bonfire Night, also included here, are typical of places throughout Britain, but in Peebles this is a genuine community event, with hundreds of people surrounding the bonfire at the end of the evening. The title of the piece is Peebles' motto, referring to the salmon of the river Tweed, which swim upstream to spawn each year.

Reindeer camp. Produced for 'Music, art and climate change' http://www.furthernoise.org/. Click here for more details about the piece.

All of the compositions and soundfiles accessible via this site are copyleft. All rights reversed. Anyone is welcome to use these soundfiles how they wish, towards a continuing creative process.