1st Movement – Crucible.

Silica immersed in the crucible of natural forces. The sea as a dynamic, wave-active element, with the destructive forces of rolling, the breaking and grinding of flint and chert stone, wave motion stresses produce sand over millennia – the raw material containing silica from which glass is manufactured. The human presence has metaphoric as well as literal significance in the responsible and sustainable use and management of this and all our natural resources.

2nd Movement – The Milk Round.

Part 1 – The Dairy Crest Depot.. Preparation for delivery, organization, distribution. The constructive and organizational forces of industrial, metal, mechanical motor motion operate together with human activity where silica is integrated as recyclable packaging for a consumable product.

Part 2 – The Milk Round Delivery. Silica embedded as container vessel within human, animal and mineral, intrinsic and extrinsic elements. Human activity takes place within a context of a wider urban ecosystem, with allusions to the co-existence of animal and human social behaviour in conversation.

3rd Movement – The Glass Collection. (Contains very occasional strong language.)

Following usage and consumption, silica disposal now becomes a recycling process as part of local government policy in an urban social context.

Notes.

1st Movement – Recorded on location at Milford on Sea (17/11/16), 2nd Movement – Recorded at Dairy Crest, Nottingham (21/09/09), 3rd Movement – Recorded at Carlton, Nottingham (05/01/17).
The artist would like to thank Dairy Crest and operative Pete for permission to record on their premises and in the electric milk float. All recordings were made in a single take live on location and have been edited for this work using Cockos Reaper software.

Recorded in binaural stereo using custom in-ear binaural techniques. Microphones DPA4060, recorders Tascam DAP1 (2nd Movement), Sound Devices 744T (1st and 3rd Movements). Optimised for headphone listening.

dallas simpson, january, 2017

This sound work was produced based on field recordings performed in the Serra do Açor, namely in the Mata da Margaraça – protected area of the Serra do Açor –and in the villages of Monte Frio, Porto Silvado, Pomares and Gramaça, belonging to the counties of Arganil and Oliveira do Hospital, respectively.
Sound Places: Serra do Açor, Vol. 1, as the name indicates, is the first work of a series dedicated to the Serra do Açor and some of its villages.
The landscapes and sound frames that constitute them, which are part of them and give them identity, are the groundwork for this series, following the artistic work of the archive and the sound documentation that I have been developing since 2008, also appealing to the creative listening of the places which are part of this territory and to a sensitive awareness of them.
Thus, once again, one gets to know Beira Serra through the art of sounds, in its multiplicity and sound dynamics. A Sonorous Rurality that one can feel.

‘Please, listen with headphones’

Luís Antero – field recordings, sound composition, photos and text
Locations – Mata da Margaraça, Monte Frio, Porto Silvado e Pomares (Arganil); Gramaça (Oliveira do Hospital) | Portugal
Date of recordings – october and november 2016