Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on a Sunday Morning
Sound from a Town
The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, designed by Thomas Telford is the highest canal aqueduct in the world. If you're not sure if you're scared of heights or susceptible to height vertigo, it's a good place to find out. I got speaking to a lovely man walking his dog whilst recording this. He told me that the arches were built around bales of sheep wool to keep the weight of the 38 metre high arches down as well as hold the structure while building them. He also mentioned that lanolin, the waxy substance that keeps sheeps wool waterproof, was used to seal the canal. Doing some reading online,...
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Solstice Sunrise in Dibbinsdale Ancient Woodland
Sound from a Town
Dibbinsdale is a site of special scientific interest near Bromborough on the Wirral, cradling the river Dibbin passing through. I arrived at around 4am and set up, having never been before. With it being ancient woodland, I was expecting to hear weird and wonderful birds for this dawn chorus – almost as if stepping into a time machine. This was most likely ignorance on my part, as I was instead met with a familiar burble of suburban birds. With the woodland truncated to the east and west by a trainline and the M53 respectively, and surrounded by houses, this is probably no surprise. I aim to...
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A cemetary next to a motorway junction
Sound from a Town
There's a Pentecostal Church on the Westminster - one of Ellesmere Port's suburbs - that backs onto a motorway sliproad. The sliproad was opened in 1972 to join up with the M53, a motorway that ran right through the middle of the Westminster and cut the community in two. I'm not sure what this cemetary would have sounded like on a Sunday before the M53 was built, but I imagine the low drone of errand-laden traffic wouldn't have dominated the soundscape as much as it does today. Recorded Suynday 8th March.
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An iron bridge over a train track
Sound from a Town
This recording is bookended and criss-crossed by two different journeys. At the start, a train passes directly under the bridge, and at the end, a person walks a bike across it. Listening with headphones gives the latter a very eery quality - listening back the first time I had to look over my shoulder. The iron bridge in question is between Overpool and Little Sutton train stations on the Merseyrail Network. Recorded with a Lom Geofon magnetised to the bridge itself, and two Clippy EM272s (A-B position) for a nice stereo image. www.soundfromatown.com
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An allotment on the first warm day of the year
Sound from a Town
We're in Stamford Street allotments in Ellesmere Port again, this time on the first warm Saturday of the year. Before heading out I saw a bubmlebee out of the window, which I saw as a good omen and sign that everything's coming back to life after winter. The allotment was quiet, though, so perhaps everyone needs a couple more weeks to fully resurface. You do get to listen to activity on two plots, with one person trundling around clearing space for re-planting, and ducks, chickens and a bin fire on the second plot. Thank you to Andrea and Ann who let me record them pootling about. ...
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Hebden Bridge: Hebden Friends of Palestine
Sound from a Town
Here we meet Christine, who spends most weekends protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza from Hebden Bridge town centre. Christine was also one of the Greenham Women, who protested the arrival of nuclear cruise missiles to Berkshire from 1981 - 2000.
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Joe Massey at The Bull
Sound from a Town
Before paying keyboard and harminica for the brilliant Ellesmere Port band Oranj Son, Joe Massey took to the stage at The Bull's Head, a flat-roof institution, to perform renditions of Bach's Prelude in C Minor and Mozart's Sonata in F Major. Recorded on 14th September 2024 with a Zoom H6.
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Hebden Bridge: Valley Organics Workers' Co-op
Sound from a Town
The first part of a series of recordings around Hebden Bridge. In this episode you can hear from Chris, who helps run a workers' co-op in the town. Recorded on the 27th January 2024.
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Suburban dawn snow melt
Sound from a Town
Due to the weather being too trecherous to go anywhere else, here is a recording from a back garden of a subdued dawn chorus smattered with clumps of thawing snow falling from trees. The sound was captured from Meols, on the Wirral. Meaning 'sand dunes' in Nordic, Meols was once a settlement for Vikings and Romans. These days, the sleepy little coastal village is little more than somewhere to return home to after work - either at 5pm or at the end of your three score and ten. Captured at 7:30am on Sunday 5th January using two Clippy EM272 in an AB array, recorded into a...
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An Allotment Chicken Coop
Sound from a Town
Spend some time with some chill chickens from Stamford Street allotments in Ellesmere Port. Clipped the mics to the chicken wire roof and left them for 30 mins. There may be standard background chat, the sound of planes, strimmers, cars, doors and windows closing or other suburban sounds, but the occasional cluck, trill, wing flap or the sound of the feeder helps to position you properly amongst the allotment plots. Recorded on 31st July at around 7pm.
info_outlineThis episode was recorded just outside BAE systems in Govan, Glasgow, on a quiet, unassuming - but slightly windy - residential street.
The day before I recorded, people protested outside to try and stop the manufacture and sale of weapons and other military technology by the British Company. BAE make Machines, bombs, and computerised hardware and software built with the aim of surveilling or killing people. This technology earned BAE around £23bn of revenue in 2023.
As I walked past, I could hear whirring and buzzing and clattering from inside the incredibly secure complex. In Glasgow, BAE mainly build Royal Navy Warships, some of which circle the Mediterranean outside Palestine. The sounds in the recording, then, are created by the processes of building fleets of floating, weaponised assets of war. A low-key ambience of state violence, the rumblings of which are indistinguishable, for me, from their intended outcome - death and destruction.