Category: Contemporary Issues

I’m continuing my research into artists, I’ve done Peter Cusack and Annea Lockwood and this one is KMRU. I’m planning to do a practical, based on Cusack’s work and one around KMRU as well. I will be doing some research into his work and ideas and practice to attempt to do it myself. And then in the end I will either combine all three practices or just make my version of it and polish the practical element I created around the artist.

KMRU is an artist I discovered through these Ableton videos I watched on youtube a year or so ago. I hadn’t really listened to his music but found his ideas and theory of his practice to be engaging. As well as his story of how he came to create his experimental music. Following on from this the visiting practitioner series helped me even more so understand his work and I’ve spent some time researching his practice and listening to his music alongside reading his interviews. I want to discuss them here.

KMRU speaks about his early upbringing in the city, listening to the sounds of his city and it being super loud and overstimulating for himself. When his family moved away to the suburbs with their garden facing a nature reserve. He finds himself leaning toward creating meditative and calming music, maybe because he was exposed to so much noise he needed time to slow things down. His ambient music is that for him. Nature was so close to him that he could hear more, and he purchased a recorder to start recording his environment. He started to focus more on the sound around him and to actually listen, in the city he couldn’t focus on one thing due to the noise in the city. He enjoys minimalism in his production, he uses tools or things that are unexpected or what will happen, and he wants limitations. And embracing what happens with it. His shift from thinking more about field recordings is a recent motive of his since moving into Berlin, he finds sound to be the best way to learn and understand our surroundings, you shouldn’t always record but just be and listen and still amongst yourself. He doesn’t want to always listen, he sketches and writes and explains how the surrounding is. He creates textures and melody through ambient, when it blends well, that is the field recordings and music it can work wonders in not knowing what you are hearing.

In this 42-minute field recording workshop, KMRU shows how he field records and composes pieces which is a great insight for me when I go to record and create a piece like him. I found the process of his collection to be interesting, it’s more about interacting with the environment and making noises banging things, alongside normal recordings as well. It was nice to see his Ableton workflow and the plugins and VST he uses.

I also watched his 1-hour set, blending his ambient music together and found it really powerful and it entranced me into peace and being calm. I often find myself stressed and always working and this reminded me to slow down, breathe and relax.

https://pitchfork.com/features/rising/meet-kmru-the-ambient-musician-with-his-ear-to-the-world/

I read this interview about KMRU his work and other things, he speaks on how he works and other aspects of Field recording practice, recording sound and asking for permission but sometimes being denied. The writer who is interviewing him asks him about his previous work, including PEEL his first album that they say was a shift in his work. I will take a listen. An interesting quote he ends with that made me think. Sometimes I wonder if using my voice is too much of an ego in my own craft, and it feels perhaps confusing when I don’t feel like sharing and introverted or sad and field recordings allow this to not be about the person but about us as a collective consciousness in our society.

“An artist who uses his voice as the main instrument, you’re listening to the lyrics. But with field recordings, you’re listening to the surroundings. There’s so much to learn and understand from our surroundings with these sounds. You need to listen.”

KMRU

I listened to Peel while going through my day and found it really peaceful and an interesting juxtaposition of my vision. I was in busy central London going through public transport and people and found that with my noise cancellation I was immersed in this sonic textural soundscapes he’d created, it was beautiful. I enjoy the length of the pieces and their slow development within the pieces, I find in my own practice that the pieces I create are small and short, all about the loops. Whereas this is more progressive and long, an average song for him is 8-10 minutes. Something I’m excited about doing myself.

I also watched this Ableton video of KMRU recording broken instruments and its own kind of magic that is within them. This made me think of the broken mini piano in my own living room we found on our way home one night. I haven’t sampled it but I have thought about it, as he says focusing on the percussive sounds.

I think I’m now ready to create something along the lines of what KMRU does to help inspire my final practical element.

I’ve listened to the few sounds and photos I’ve taken and I’m keen to actually submit this as my practical element. I was considering creating a PDF makeshift book, combining the photos. Alongside a short text explaining why I did it and what the sounds incur. Heavily inspired by Peter Cusack and his book Sounds From a Dangerous Place. I think it would look really good. As well as this I want to return and record the missing part in the middle. Central London. I won’t be as tired and it might make it more interesting including these busy areas and add contrast to each section east and west that is quiet.

I also want to try two other types of work before I decide if this is the element I want to submit. I want to attempt a compositional piece with field recordings and explore that as well. And a more sonic journalistic piece. Exploring how we can use sounds for issues.

On Saturday the 28th of may I conducted a sound walk based on my plan in my last post. I started by borrowing the new aquarian h2a Hydrophone which also has a contact mic adapter which I’m eager to try, alongside a Korg contact mic, it has a clip which makes it easier to connect. I also took out the Zoom H5 for portability as I didn’t want to lug a big SoundDevices machine around. As well as this I had a regular contact mic and telephone pick up microphone just to see if I needed it.

Here are the mics I took out and the equipment.

So with my bag all packed, I headed out towards Richmond station, I cycled to Waterloo and got a train to Richmond. When I arrived I cycled to the closest section of the river which was a bridge and my recording began. I decided to cycle as walking would have taken forever, but I made sure to not listen to any music or wear headphones apart from recording, and to make a consistent effort to listen at all times. I was listening and not speaking but soaking my environment and cycling slow, and when if found a sound that lured me in, that was interesting I would stop and record. Similar to how Annea Lockwood described, she didn’t record the whole length of the Hudson River it would have taken ages, instead, she recorded parts that felt relevant, and that offered a different contextualization or soundscape than the previous.

The first location was Richmond Bridge as I arrived, it was a busy Saturday lunchtime and as I went under the tunnel, the sounds of the bridge reverberating against the boats waiting to be rented captivated me. I recorded this moment and few times and attempted to use my contact mic on the barrier but it didn’t have enough resonance to capture anything.

After recording under Richmond Bridge I carried on cycling, slowly and listening to my environment. Attempting to see what lured me in, what captures me. Thinking also to Peter Cusack’s work with Sonic Journalism and perhaps if any areas of importance came to me. I started to think about how my own sound map could be? How can I make it my own, well firstly using different mics such as contact mics and hydrophones? And make it about what’s around the river Thames rather than just the river Thames.

I came across Richmond Lock and Weir and there was a sign explaining the importance of this lock. How it operates and when it was built, there was a long history of flooding and protecting the river from low tides and floods from high tides. I believed it had an interesting soundscape. I could hear the water slowly making its way through the barrier and the high structure interested me. I locked my bike and went up towards the top walkway and recorded some sounds of the barrier from above. I did feel perhaps it didn’t offer anything of any considerable amount so I didn’t take any photos. I went further down the path and saw a perfect place to test this new Aquarian hydrophone.

I placed the hydrophone within the river and felt captivated by its clarity, others I have tried have not been as good. I could hear the water trickling and the sounds of boats moving across the barrier. The waves that the boats would leave as well.

After doing this Hydrophone recording I did then decide that a varied sound map of different microphone types would be more interesting than just a conventional XY microphone collection of sounds. I think at this point I understood that perhaps my sound map wouldn’t be as conventional as others and this intrigued me to what it could represent.

After the Richmond Lock and Weir, the Thames path went along behind Kew Gardens. I was excited for this part as I’d never done this cycle before and wasn’t sure what I’d come across. It was quiet and full of nature and trees covering the path, I could hear so many birds and trees swaying in the wind as I was listening. It really captivated me and offered an interesting take on my sounds so far, there were so many points I wanted to stop and record and looking back perhaps I should of. But I considered what artist KMRU spoke about in his visiting practitioner lecture about waiting to record and listening more than just recording. So when I arrived at a specific point with a walkway into the bushes that is the Thames path I pointed my recorder into the forest right next to the Thames and recorded.

The recordings sounded great, but I did feel awake to the aeroplane sounds coming over it. Something I hadn’t really noticed before. I’m not sure if this was my practice evolving and my listening becoming better through doing other things. But I found myself frustrated, there I was cycling on a beautiful day, birds tweeting and I’m field recording and every few minutes or so a really loud plane comes over. The juxtaposition between nature and man-made sounds is a real thing you notice in cities. It feels like a battle of humans taking over and nature fighting back, even in a sanctuary of nature such as Kew Gardens, you could still hear human sounds still taking over the sounds of nature.

Next along the path, a common sonic experience is the Rowers coming by, always with a small boat at the front with a megaphone communicating to them. Now I’ve never rowed by I’ve cycled from my house in southeast London to Richmond park a few times. I’ve always found it a funny and interesting sound, something you don’t hear as you go east of Tower Bridge or even in central London. Only really heard west of Battersea Park. I recorded it and logged it in my notes.

I continued on until I arrived at Barnes Bridge. I hadn’t used a contact microphone at this point and I wanted to attempt this Korg one as it has a clip which makes it easier to actually get a solid connection to achieve resonance. I’ve realised that in order for contact microphones to sound or pick up anything there needs to be resonance and vibration through an object. If you put it on a piece of metal or anything solid and if it is not moving you won’t have any sounds, so I looked for things that vibrated, in my journey to the Thames Tidal Barrier in Greenwich I would tap things and interact with my environment. The train station and bridge that goes over the Thames interested me sonically. I walked up the bridge and found a fence that I could stick my hand through and attach the Korg contact mic to a piece of metal that was attached to the railway. I googled the train times and waited until a train approached, arrived, and then left. And the sound was great! Really interesting and made me want to use the contact mic even more.

I continued cycling along the Thames path, once I left Barnes, I found the soundscape to be continuous and not as interesting or perhaps in my head I had found that it was more of the same. We were getting close to central London and I was aware the soundscape would change heavily. I was approached by a large group of curious swans and geese while attempting to clip a contact mic to a water reed that was swaying in the wind.

I hadn’t recorded any of the wildlife apart from the birds and everywhere along with Richmond and surrounding areas, there was a lot of wildlife. More than central London. It was important to represent these areas with honesty and this is why I recorded these animals.

I continued on and recorded a rower teaching younger rowers and explaining how to make the correct movements with the paddle. Again a very prominent sound across the Thames path so I felt it was relevant.

I decided to get the cd out of this project as it’s based on field recordings combined with other people. When I read about this project from Cusack’s interview from In the Field. I was curious to hear it.

I was interested in the sounds and found I agreed with a lot of them as being great sounds of London but I was also curious as to how this could change in time. This was made in 2001, perhaps we could make an updated version?

Perhaps I could visit these locations and record the same places? instead of getting others to submit their favourite sounds, I can record them myself. To see what has changed in twenty years in our sonic landscapes. These are just more ideas I’m thinking about doing for my practical.

Or perhaps ask people to send me their favourite sounds and do an updated version this way?

I’m finding myself through engaging with this course really interested in possible future career goals in recording/engineering. I’ve always been interested in the more technical sides of recording. Doing field recording for a student film and travelling to wales with the equipment and my sole role was to record field recordings I loved it. As well as this doing the current collaboration module has also made me have an interest in recording sounds and using field recordings in sound design, as well as foley from the previous module.

Outside of university, my practice lies in music, writing, and creative directorship. I’ve been releasing music since 2018. Every release is getting better and receiving more attention, with the last release leaving me on the Bandcamp best selling rap vinyl/cassette for two weeks. I’ve received attention and been asked by some A&R what my next move is. And I find myself with this course taking it slower than perhaps I should? I was going to do the DPS year and spend it doing work within industry, film or music perhaps and then return and finish my third year. But now I really want to graduate and use the skills I’ve learned.

I can see myself either working in music or selling albums. Or working in games design, film, podcast editing or general audio editing jobs. This module’s on contemporary issues and the practical element will help me get better at recording and mixing alongside building a portfolio. Even if it’s not exactly relevant to the job I’m applying for I’m considering the skills I can learn and show through my artistic endeavours. I’m excited for the third year but also the chance for experimenting when I graduate and continuing my sound practice. Embrace the unknown for now and go with the flow. One thing for sure is I won’t be returning to a terrible full-time job in hospitality. No more washing dishes!

After doing research into Annea Lockwood and her practice. Discovering her river sound mapping project of the Danube and the Hudson and her explanation of why she does it. And then furthermore listening I wish to do one myself.

It won’t be as large in scale as I’m looking at the Thames and I want to do it in one or two days maximum. Before I start the trip I decided to look at the river and consider any key places along the river and what the Thames stands for. Decide a route that is possible and what places I should stop to record.

I started thinking about what the Thames offers London. The Thames meant that London was the capital. Its river access brought goods, tobacco and sugar from the Americas. The Thames was a food source, as well as a way of delivering coal and oil. It’s the longest river in England. The Thames also has a lot of issues currently, it has numerous amounts of untreated sewage still entering the river as well as high levels of mercury making it polluted. The Thames is also giving water to everyone in London. This importance made me feel like sound mapping was worthwhile. I considered where to start and end? I did some research and found the source is in Thames Head which is exceptionally far. I thought that Kew Gardens to the Thames barrier is a good distance to do it. Firstly Kew Gardens and Richmond are the border front of London towards the west. and the Thames tidal barrier is an important part of protecting London from high tides and floods.

I’ve checked along with Google maps and found these as locations of interest all on the south side of the river Thames.

Greenwich Powerstation 

Rotherine Tunnel

Tower Bridge

London Bridge

South bank 

Battersea Power station

Battersea park

Kew garden

I’ll be cycling along the river stopping when my ears lead me to interesting sounds, taking it slow. It says it’s a 3-5 hour cycle which isn’t bad at all. I’ll be taking a Hydrophone with me, contact mic, Zoom H5 and telephone pick up. I thought about what I needed and I wanted to bring a recorder that was minimal, I’ve used the sound devices countless times and they offer amazing quiet preamps. But this time portability is key. I did do further research into Sony PCM D100 a discontinued portable field recorder with the quietest preamps available at 1dB louder than sound devices but it costs £500 minimum second hand now.

When I get home I’ll be packing my bag for tomorrow, I’ll take a train to Kew Gardens in the morning and cycle from there to Greenwich.

I’m continuing my artist research into field recording practitioners. I’m attempting to go through their ways of working and create experiments around each practitioner’s practice. Hopefully after doing a few of them consider how I can situate myself within them and choose what I wish to do for the practical element. I already did peter Cusack and his work from Sounds from Dangerous places.

A project I’m interested in is Annea Lockwoods Hudson river sound map. I read about it in the book In the Field The Art of Field Recording. Afterwards, I listened to the album and found it captivating. It’s simple and very little in terms of editing but it intrigued me with what sound can offer us in terms of communicating our environment. I wondered perhaps what the Thames sound like? Annea explains that rivers have different sounds, and her journey along the Hudson River was not just about recording the river but the people that use and live in the river. The different places of interest. I also listened to her other river sound map. A Sound Map of the Danube.

On the video, there was this comment.

Notes by Annea Lockwood: Between the winter of 2001 and the summer of 2004, I made five field-recording trips, moving slowly down the Danube from the sources in the Black Forest through Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania to the great delta on the Black Sea, recording the river’s sounds (at the surface and underwater), aquatic insects, and the various inhabitants of its banks. At 2880 km. (1785 miles) the Danube is Europe’s second-longest river and one of its most historically significant, having long been a trade and cultural conduit between east and west. Its drainage basin encompasses much of Central Europe and it has carved out deep gorges dividing the southern arm of the Carpathians from the Balkan Mountains. I recorded from the banks, finding a great variety of water sounds as the gradient and bank materials changed, often feeling that I was hearing the process of geological change in real-time. Towards the end of the final field trip, while listening to small waves slap into a rounded overhang the river had carved in a mud bank in Rasova, Romania (CD 3 track 2), I realised that the river has agency; it composes itself, shaping its sounds by the way it sculpts its banks. Along the way I spoke with people for whom the Danube is a central influence on their lives, an integral part of their identity, asking them “What does the river mean to you” Could you live without it?” They responded in their native languages and dialects, their voices woven into the river’s sounds, placed as close to the location where I met them as possible. “What is a river?” was the question underlying the whole project for me. Many people helped with every aspect of the project at every stage, and I am deeply grateful for their generosity and interest. The installation, “A Sound Map of the Danube”, was completed in 2005 and first presented during the Donau Festival in Krems, Austria. It was mixed in 5.1 surround sound with audio engineer Paul Geluso at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts in New York, and this version was re-mixed in stereo in 2008. Annea Lockwood

I think this is a really interesting concept and I find it fascinating listening to how much you can really take from the audio. I started thinking about how I could relate this to myself and I started thinking about the river Thames. I was considering doing a sound map of the river somehow? I want to do some research into it.

I recorded the sound walk the following day and the outcomes were different. When recording at first I realised how much the binaural headphones changed my listening. I would say in a bad way, they made it difficult to hear anything at all, to be honest. If the headphone gain was pushed even any sort of audible volume it started feeding back into the microphone part of it. So I had to balance the levels and make sure they were around -12 dBFS.

I found myself less engaged with the environment when recording and more getting worried when something loud would walk past me, and if it was peaking on the recorder. I also walked much faster this time, doing the route in 30 minutes instead of one hour. Perhaps the fact I did the same walk impacted my enjoyment of it as I knew what to expect.

I later then put the recording into Logic and listened through the thirty-minute recording and found it enjoyable, but it didn’t strike me as anything greatly interesting. Perhaps I’m not listening enough?

Following on from this I want to attempt another field recording practice and see. I’ve been doing research into Annea Lockwoods project sound mapping the Hudson River and I had an idea to do the same for the Thames. Perhaps shorter as the length is huge, but a small section. From Richmond park around to where the river opens up. A 3hr or so cycle. I’ve been interested in minimalism when recording as well recently. I feel the last term I was obsessed with recording with 32 bit and very quiet preamps, and now I’m more interested in portability and using what I have. A small zoom H5 and the new Hydrophones we have at LCC.

I’ve loaned out a Zoom H5 alongside the Roland Binaural microphones. I’ve decided to use the Zoom H5 as I felt that the sound devices would be too big to carry. I’m interested in doing the same sound walk as I did last Thursday and recording it to hear things that I heard last time as an experiment.

I will update later with the recording and my experience of it.

I attended a sound walk on Thursday the 19th of May 2022, it was run by Katrinem and she created a route for us to take, I was attending this as Peter Cusack whose work I have been studying and researching was also going to be there alongside Cathy Lane. I wanted to finally do a proper sound walk and potentially have time to discuss this.

We began by meeting upstairs at the Crisap Headquarters and began speaking about the rules of this sound walk. No talking, everyone must remain silent for the entire walk, we follow the leader and walk spread out not in single file. If there is an issue you are to touch the leader.

We began walking around LCC into the garden near Pret, crossing the road into an estate, and crossed the road into Elephant Park. Go around and follow up until near the police station and walk along with the main round back to the building. The walk was around an hour or so and was very interesting to me. I found myself entirely concentrated so much on the sounds around me. At times during the walk, it felt almost set up as if the sounds were put there at a specific time. Now obviously it wasn’t but it did bring a reminder of how much happens sonically around us that we don’t listen to. I also noticed an abundance of nature amongst the noise of the machine that is London city, so many birds and other animals were prominent amongst us in our sound walk. As well as the multicultural aspect of the city, when we changed roads it was different languages being spoken and music from different countries being played in the parks. Also at times I would close my eyes when the road became straight and I felt the stereo and proximity effects of sound be so prominent, I concentrated on the footsteps of my fellow walker and how we engaged with the environment.

When we returned we sat down and had a chat, Katrinem explained she wears different shoes on her sound walks to become part of the environment, she even has shoemakers help tune her heels to fit within the soundscape. Peter Cusack asked an important question that we didn’t have time to discuss as time ran out but it did make me think. He asked if anyone had an opinion about whether or not we should have walked in certain places or out effect on the soundscape. I felt at times we were invasive as a mass mob walking around silently and I did find that our objective to just observe the world silently walking as a group at times did the opposite. When we entered council estates people looked and became silent when they saw us all walking silently, perhaps the opposite of our intentions and us being silent actually disturbed the peace of the environment more than if we walked by speaking.

I want to redo this walk and record it through binaural microphones that I will take out to see if it felt as set up as last time. Perhaps as well on a second listen I can hear different aspects of it that I didn’t the first time. I’m still a tad confused about my piece or practical element. As my essay continues and I read more and more. I notice how wide the field of recording practices is in sound arts and how undocumented some are. It’s an art form or practise that isn’t as well written about. I want to perhaps attempt to copy fellow practitioners and learn from their practice and then from all of them hopefully find something for myself within it.