Field Recordings

“From October 2023 to May this year, the Government issued over 100 new licences allowing UK companies to sell arms to Israel. On the 2nd September David Lammy revoked just 30 licences of the 350 currently granted. The licences revoked did not include the continued supply of spare parts for F-35 fighter jets, a key part of Israel’s military operations.

On Saturday afternoon 300,000 people marched on the streets of central London against our Government’s continued support of this violence.

Three days prior to this march, a group of 99 healthcare workers who had served in Gaza since 7th October 2023 released an open letter to US President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, ‘This letter and the appendix show probative evidence that the human toll in Gaza since October is far higher than is understood in the United States. It is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population… Children are universally considered innocents in armed conflict. However, every single signatory to this letter saw children in Gaza who suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them. Specifically, every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities… We cannot fathom why you continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children en masse.'”

Read the open letter – https://www.gazahealthcareletters.org/usa-letter-oct-2-2024

“An early morning wander through RSPB Lakenheath Fen, Suffolk, on a bright May morning. According to my bird identification app, throughout the recording, you’ll hear sedge warblers, blackbirds, a pheasant, a great tit, rooks, chiffchaffs, a wren, and the unmistakable call of the cuckoo.  A little bit of sonic sunshine for these grey afternoons.”

“Please find attached a recording and image of an amateur men’s football match in Sheffield on a very wet and gloomy Sunday. If the date in the calendar said 22nd September, everything else said that British Summertime had unceremoniously ground to a halt.”

“The autumn equinox fell on Sunday 22nd of Sept 2024 at exactly 1:43 pm. In the northern hemisphere, this is the moment when the sun is exactly above the equator; when day and night are of equal length. This moment marks the beginning of autumn, when the nights begin to draw in and daylight hours diminish.”

“At the top of a hill in North London, as the Harvest Supermoon rises, the sound of an orchestra rehearsing pours into the night through an open door. Buses, children playing in the distance and wind noise on a bad phone microphone flow in and out of the melody as the conductor stops and starts the musicians.”

“We stayed on the shore of Loch Scridain and the night air brought with it a slightly disconcerting sound. I eventually established that it was not babies being murdered in the woods but a lively heronry.”

“I was travelling with my family on the island of Sardinia. We turned off the highway near Telti, a mountain town outside of Olbia, heading to an Agritourismo for dinner.

At first I couldn’t make out what the clamorous sound was…it was both noisy and beautiful in the same moment. The sun was setting over the mountain, so I had to squint to see what was making all that sound. And then I could see an entire flock of sheep, hundreds of them, walking through the field, each with a different bell hanging around their necks. They were clanging at different intervals and pitches; a completely accidental symphony.

I climbed over the fence and stuck my recorder out…after I first insisted that my family stay quiet, so I didn’t also have the recording of protesting kids yelling: “What are you doing, Mom?!”

It’s a simple, unmodified sound that completely transports me to a whole new place when I listen to it.”