The Fog Horn's Echo and Other Things I Noticed
About 6 years ago I started listening to a stretch of coast near my house, and what started as aesthetic interest in recording sounds developed in to something much deeper. Walking there daily and sitting for extended periods I felt a growing connection that went beyond the sounds I was listening out for. During lockdown I did my therapy sessions there; two sonic worlds blurring across the phone line. The familiar but digitised and compressed seagulls and birdsong from the other side of Brighton meeting the salty white noise wash of the sea where I sat on damp pebbles. These sessions opened up new ways of connecting, inviting my inner voice and feelings in to the listening practice I was beginning to expand.
I’d spent a lot of time telling people how much I enjoyed exploring this area but I’d not really reflected on why. I think it’s ok to not explain everything. I know I sometimes struggle to describe how sound makes me feel - to put in to words something I can barely grasp, but resonates through me in waves of fantastical energy.
I’d been reading Island Zombies, in which Roni Horn writes about her time in Iceland. Somewhere near the start of the book she writes a list of all the things she notices and it inspired me to do the same about my space on the coast. I’ve included some footage and sound recordings so you can hear and see for yourself.
The hidden
The exposed
The jagged
The jutting
The glimpses of other worlds
The shifts
The movement
The fear
The connection
The space
The scenery changes
The dangerous
The comforting
The wildness
The growing
The mass of white noise
The noticing
The depth
The crackle of pebbles
The boom of water
The durational knowing
The power of it
The scent that follows me home
The forests from…
The sounds I feel
The filling
The emptying
The foxes at night
The wind activating
The structural vibrations
The phantom sounds
The way it can hold me
The inner space
The rhythm of it
The grey dullness of it
The taste
The machines
The loneliness
The sadness and melancholy
The brief glimpses of Dolphins
The discoveries
The spatial dynamics
The singing silo
The fleeting
The proximity
The damp salt air on my lips
The microscopic
The wind resonances
The unseen but heard
The listening in
The hanging in the air
The feathered skies
The heavy skies
The fluffy venting
The within and without
The creaking pipe (now fixed)
The curve of the sea wall
The vibrations of the lorries through the sea wall
The feeling like an artist here
The width
The appearances that take me by surprise
The shifting beneath my feet
The wind
The wind
The wind
The absence of people
Getting to the end
Bubbly pools
The things I can’t get to
The fog horn’s echo
The fog muffled sound
The warmth of vibration
The turbine’s insides
The sequence out at sea
The night blasted to day
The clangs and metal chain rhythms of the old water pump
The alien but musical harmonics
The deep cycling whoosh of the turbines
The small shifts reveal
The looming dark, heavy clouds.
Videos filmed on Harinezumi Camera.