Video: Recording 'The Past Has a Life in the Forest'
Recording with cellist Jo Quail in Epping Forest’s Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge
Below is a short video of me recording ‘The Past Has a Life in the Forest’ in Epping Forest’s Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge. This work is track 6 on the album/sound installation and is inspired by the Iron Age hillfort Loughton Camp. (See my blog post about the history of Loughton Camp).
You can order the album and the graphic score that we are performing from on my Bandcamp page.
Many thanks to cellist Jo Quail for helping me bring this work to life, and to Ryan Pearce (videographer) and Thom Ashworth (recording engineer).
The Loughton Camp map, drawn by BH Cowper in the late 19th century was a graphic score waiting to happen, and the forest location is perfect for a bit of psychogeographic pondering. The hillfort has distinct archaeological features; the earthwork ditches and banks are still prominent, as are the entrances. Silt can be found in the soil where a spring used to be. Then there’s the folklore: the supposed location of Turpin’s cave and the strange form of old pollarded trees, lopped by the billhooks of 19th century ‘commoners’. All these layers of the past add to the spirit of the place today.
There’s a magical, hazy light that appears through the trees on the east side of the camp, and long shadows of branches that stretch claw-like along the forest floor. The colour palette is silver, bronze, brown and green, and the sounds are of aeroplanes, birds, children playing on their bikes and the distant hum of the M25. All of these things have been absorbed into Part II Ancient Earthworks. The graphic score is split into eight sections (From the ground – Shadow claws – Hazy light – Streamlet – Pollarded trees – Forest floor – Turpin – Into the ground) each with a different sound world that relates to a particular area of the camp.
There are two song extracts, no. 5 ‘Pollarded trees’ is a fragment taken from The Lopper and the Landgrabber and for Turpin’s Cave I’ve used the melody from folk song Turpin Hero. The work is written for electric violin and electric cello plus effects, and was recorded live in Epping Forest’s Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge in 2019.
Sound Installation: Echoes
The sound installation runs from 12.11.2019 – 05.01.2020 The View Visitor Centre, Chingford, Epping Forest
(FREE - just turn up!) Open 10am-5pm Tuesdays-Sundays
EXTENDED RUN
Moves to High Beach Visitor Centre, Loughton from 16.01.2020 - 01.03.2020
The sound installation runs from 12.11.2019 – 05.01.2020
The View Visitor Centre, Chingford, Epping Forest
(FREE - just turn up!) Open 10am-5pm Tuesdays-Sundays
CDs and posters available to purchase in The View gift shop.
Come and experience my new work Echoes: Unearthing Stories of the Forest as a sound installation in Epping Forest. Just pick up a some headphones and a leaflet from The View Visitor Centre. There’s no correct way to experience this sound installation. You can wander around the museum and stop off at the displays that relate to the tracks, you can take the headphones to the Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting Lodge (opposite The View) or, if you’d prefer, go outside and listen to the music on Chingford Plain.
This collection of new compositions is inspired by the human impact on Epping Forest through the centuries: Iron-Age hillforts, WWII bomb craters that are now ponds, and her ancestor Thomas Willingale – a local labourer who helped save the forest during the 19th century enclosure movement.
A mixture of contemporary classical, folk, and electronica, creating a haunting, textural soundworld that explores themes of lost and fragmented memories, lingering traces of the past and the spirit of place. Echoes includes a self-penned folk song, field recordings, and a graphic score based on a map of Iron-Age Loughton Camp.
This project is linked to the Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture season The People’s Forest, curated by Luke Turner and Kirsteen McNish, and will be a sound installation in Epping Forest.
Guest musicians: Thom Ashworth, Jo Quail (MONO, Poppy Ackroyd), Jay Chakravorty (Bryde, Emma McGrath), Fran Foote (Belinda Kempster & Fran Foote, Stick In the Wheel), and members of The Middlesex Yeomanry Concert Band.
Guest Presenter for ResonanceFM
My show focused on new releases from the folk and contemporary classical worlds.
This year I’ve been guest presenter for The Nest Collective Hour on Resonance 104.4FM. It’s been a lot of fun building playlists for the show, which have focused on new releases from the traditional folk and contemporary classical worlds.
I’ve had some great live guests too, including Moore Moss Rutter, You Are Wolf, Jo Quail, Santiago Quartet and Cunning Folk.
My Top 5 favourite new releases played this year:
Maarja Nuut & Ruum: Haned Kadunud (Muunduja)
Anna & Elizabeth: Ripest of Apples (The Invisible Comes to Us)
Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet: Dreams (Landfall)
Missy Mazzoli & Olivia De Prato: Vespers for Violin (Streya)
Richard Thompson: The Rattle Within (13 Rivers)
You can listen to all my shows on mixcloud. Here’s some of my favourites:
