After months of work, Cities and Memory launch their biggest ever global sound project, Sounding Nature.
The project uses artistic responses to sound to reflect on the damage being done to our natural world by human-generated sounds such as shipping, logging, drilling and even everyday traffic.
There’s a global sound map of nature sounds, as well as a bespoke player that allows you to explore the sounds by category, from wild birds to natural phenomena.
From Chile to Japan and from South Africa to Iceland, the project covers incredible sounds like:
- Animals from all over the world including hyenas, baboons, bats, sealions and howler monkeys;
- Natural phenomena including cracking glaciers, crunching salt flats, bubbling geysers and volcanic activity;
- Incredible sonic environments from jungles and savannah to swamps, cliff edges and desert.
- More than 50 bird recordings including fish eagles, whooper swans, cranes, herons and nightingales;
- 50 sounds of water, from roaring ocean waves to underwater shrimp recordings.
I’m delighted to have contributed to the project, especially as one of my submissions has been selected for the highlights album embedded at the top of the post. Thunder in Tanat Valley and Hurricane Harvey were re-imagined specifically for this project whereas Botany Bay – Breaking Waves (Our Lady is Also the Moon) recorded with Kim Reuger and Midnight on a Volcanic Island (Eye of the Storm) were submitted previously.
The Tanat Valley is a stunningly beautiful part of Wales, unspoilt by development. In the middle of a storm it can be a lonely and desolate place and my submission tries to capture some of the feelings and emotions inspired by the landscape and sound recording. I’ve kept a large part of the original recording and used Orb Composer (Hexachords) to create orchestration parts for the British Drama Toolkit (Spitfire Audio) and processed these with a number of effects – RP Verb 2 (Rob Papen); Blackhole, H949 Dual Harmoniser, H3000 Factory, Ultrachannel (Eventide) and Type A (AudioThing).
If you’re feeling inspired to take part. either to submit to a future project or submit your own recordings, full details of how to get involved can be found on the contact page of the Cities and Memory website.
