Workshop 4

18 Mar

In workshop 4 we used audio sampling software to manipulate and play with the field recordings made in previous sessions. Everyday sounds of Whitehawk mixed with the deep resonating percussion and gritty cracking of flint, bend, morph and twist into unique textures under the control of the young artists. Artificial reverberation effects were explored, transporting us to ever deeper sound worlds; cavernous spaces, cave spaces, space spaces.

An additional experiment invited the artists to engage in archaeoacoustics, using library sound effects to imagine the soundscape Neolithic people might have heard on Whitehawk Hill over 5000 years ago.

Finally we practiced simple graphic score performances on synthesizers, working together to translate visual shapes into electronic sound movements. Graphic scores are a brilliant way of connecting with the landscape and archaeology of Whitehawk Neolithic Camp and this will continue throughout the workshops, and as the evenings stay lighter we will be spending more time outdoors engaging with that environment.

We are over half way through the workshop series and we are generating some exciting material that we can’t wait to experience through the 8 speaker surround system at Lighthouse Gallery!!!!

Simon James

Simon James is a self trained sound artist and composer engaging in deep listening to the unheard and hidden - mixing environmental field recordings with electronic sources such as the Buchla Electric Music Box, which over 10 years of exploration and performance has become Simon's main instrument. Simon’s skills with the Buchla have been called upon by Massive Attack, Toy Drum, UNKLE, and Max de Wardener and have featured extensively in Emmy award winning composer Andrew Phillips' soundtracks.

Simon’s compositional approach is exploratory, playful and instinctive, focussed on timbral shaping, finding the sounds in between the sounds and exploring the relationship between these and field recordings.

Sound designs have been created for Heineken, Salesforce, Kaspersky, Dalmore Whiskey, Bushmills, Sheytan Jewellery and The Horror Channel, and in 2023 he produced a multi speaker gallery installation at the RIBA gallery in London. In 2019 Simon visited Shenzhen/Shanghai in China on a British Council residency, exploring the shapes and structures of architecture through sound and music. In 2023 Simon was the recipient of an Arts Council DYCP (Developing Your Creative Practice) award and used it to focus his practice around listening, the environment and community, which culminated in a residency in the Pyrenees with artists Mark Fell and Michael Von Hauswolff, where he created an interactive installation, ‘Can We Echo the Forest?’.

He has also recorded music as The Simonsound (with DJ Format) Black Channels (for cult soundtrack label Death Waltz) and under his own name for Lo Recordings and Castles in Space Records. An album of architectural resonance and Buchla electronics, 'Sounding the Shadows', is due for release on YYAA Records in 2024. He is currently developing an exhibition, 'Neolithic Cannibals', working with young people from the council estate where he grew up, for Brighton Festival, May 2024.

http://www.simonsound.co.uk

Workshop 4

Workshop 5

Workshop 3