December 5, 2024 • 49 mins
What if the natural world could compose a symphony? Join us as we explore this captivating question in our latest episode featuring Martyn Stewart and singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer ONR.
Born Robert Shields and hailing from from Dumfriesshire in South Scotland, ONR's distinctive compositions, vocals and exceptional musical capability have captured the imagination of some of the world’s biggest acts and most respected musicians; one of ONR’s breakout moments being his collaboration with legendary guitarist and producer Nile Rodgers, who became a huge fan and supporter after having happened to see ONR recording at Abbey Road Studios. Rodgers said of Shields in a recent Forbes interview, “he reminds me of working with Daft Punk. His sense of composition is just wonderfully chaotic."
Discover how an impromptu Zoom call ignited Martyn's passion for intertwining the audio of Scotland's breathtaking landscapes with music. The magic of Scotland's Western Isles, the Highlands, and the historically rich Culloden Moor and Glencoe are not just backdrops but essential players in this unique musical collaboration.
Listeners will be taken on an emotional journey, particularly through the track "You and I," inspired by the Solway Firth. This piece holds profound emotional significance for Robert, offering a deeply personal narrative woven into the melody. You'll hear about the challenges and rewards of composing music driven solely by the rhythms and sounds of nature, from the daunting cries of Peregrine Falcons in Dalbeattie to the serene ambiance of Scotland's untouched wilderness.
The episode culminates in a heartfelt reflection on the transformative power of this artistic endeavor. Martyn and Robert share their gratitude for the creative freedom and inspiration this project has brought into their lives. We invite our listeners to continue exploring the world of natural sounds and music through our online platforms, ensuring the journey into nature's symphony is just the beginning.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is Martin Stewart with A Life in Sound
from the Listening Planet, inpartnership with Biophonica
Beats.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Martin, thanks for making the time to speak to me.
First and foremost, it's beennice speaking to you on every
occasion that I have so far.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And likewise too, mate.
I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So I guess we should probably start by talking about
how this all came togetherreally, which seems a kind of
distant memory to me now.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I'm trying to think how we started this.
I think most roads run toplatoon right.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I got involved.
So my my manager, steven, was,had sort of said something about
working with someone who'sdoing audio recordings, natural
environments and things, and Ihadn't really, to be totally
honest, it caught me off guard.
I was, I was in the I think Iwas on holiday at the time um,
and there was a zoom meeting andit was the first time that I'd
(01:08):
met you, um on that call, and itwas the first thing that I'd
known anything really about theproject.
I had been sort of like Ihadn't been given any sort of
knowledge or like sort of notesbefore or anything, um, and I
just loved it, what you wasgetting into.
I genuinely had no idea, and Ihonestly think that's I like I
don't know.
(01:28):
I enjoyed it far more becauseof that, because it was just you
telling me what it was about.
You were the person who wasdoing it.
You were the person who had allthis incredible stuff and I was
hearing it straight from you.
I don't think I said a word theentire time.
I think I was just busylistening to.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That's right, it was Stephen.
And what was his name?
Latroyd.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh yeah, dennis, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Dennis.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Those two can talk it up, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And you were as quiet as a mouse sitting there and I
thought I wonder he's probablythinking this is a bunch of
shite.
No, the exact opposite.
What am I getting dragged into?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
no, I loved listening to it because, again, it's
something that's quite you know,working in music and production
and stuff like that.
This is very different to thekind of normal conversations.
I have about how people dothings, to hear something, just
being totally honest with you,to hear of something that was so
pure and came from such a Idon't know, just such a really
(02:27):
genuine place to begin with.
Uh, I find it fascinating thatI really did.
I was super keen to getinvolved in it, and that was
before I even knew of thescottish angle, so I had no idea
that you had an affinity withscotland at that point.
Um, that was a happy kind ofcoincidence.
So how did the Scottish thingcome about?
How did you fall in love withScotland?
Speaker 1 (02:49):
well, I have no idea.
I had this intuition basicallythat there was this draw to
Scotland ever since I wasprobably 10, 11 years of age and
a lot of the family holidaysyou go up north, you know it's
the best place to go.
Most of the people who boughtup in birmingham went west to
(03:14):
wales and all that and rill andon the beach it was the easiest
to get to.
But when I got um, when I gotmarried, I spent so much time up
there.
When I was 27 I found out mydad was scottish.
I'd never met him so maybe thatwas, you know, the connection
for stuff.
(03:34):
But I loved scottish history andbecause I go out and record a
lot, the, the places, thedestinations you head for, the
places where there's not a lotof people and, of course, the
highlands.
It's just a dream.
You just drop a mic out andthere's hardly any roads and
(03:54):
you've got glens and you've gotbeautiful hills and rolling, you
know forest, woodland and justincredible water.
You know, know, like locks andstuff and each corner you go
around was just, you know, arecordist's dream.
I just loved it.
And then when I got the anglethat you were a musician and
(04:17):
we'd only just in the start,combining musicians with natural
sound, because I've always keptit away from that and I didn't
really want and I thought theangle of having someone Scottish
doing Scottish soundscapes wasjust brilliant.
For me it's like standing thebroadsword, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah you get but, it was great for me as well,
because when I was hearing aboutwhat you guys were doing and
stuff and the people that youwere working with amazing
musicians there was definitely abit of me that thought I'm not
really sure what I can bring tothis, because the people that
were involved were alreadyincredible.
(04:57):
But when it became obvious thatyou had the same kind of love
for Scotland that I did, thatkind of opened up Scotland, that
I did that kind of opened upeverything to me.
It became a lot easier to kindof understand what it was going
to be about at that point.
You know, because I grew up inrural Scotland and several kind
of locations in rural Scotlandactually, and I've always been
(05:18):
incredibly close with nature andloved the natural world as well
.
So being able to marry thosesort of two or three things
together, it was a bit of adream, to be honest with you.
I've really, really enjoyeddoing it.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Well, when you came along with the first track,
after I'd dumped all thosesounds into a Dropbox and you
just went in there and startedharvesting stuff out.
I didn't know what to expect.
To be honest with you, no me,neither the first track that
came out blew my mind,absolutely blew my mind.
It was it was everything thatI'd hoped for and something I
(05:56):
didn't expect, but it went pastexpectations.
It was just fantastic and Ithank you.
The the thing, the thing aboutme my love for Scotland and I've
recorded all over the place,from lowlands to highlands to
outer Hebrides and Orkneys andstuff like that.
(06:16):
There's a beautiful connectionbetween having natural sounds
and Scottish-influenced musicand it's that audience that you
always want to attract, you know.
And then the stuff that youcame out the first thing I
thought it was the signaturetune for something like Rob Roy
(06:41):
or Highlander or you know, getin there.
And it was just a fantasticcombination.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, that track was so, yeah, I guess we'll start by
talking about that trackbecause that was the first one
that I wrote.
It's a track called Breathe andit was from Lochgarry and it
was the first Because, yeah, yousent me over a Dropbox with a
bunch of files in them anddifferent locations and things,
and I started listening to themand Lock Gary was one of the
(07:09):
first ones I listened to and Ijust thought it was absolutely
beautiful, martin, like theactual audio itself was.
You know, there's somethingreally special about all your
audio recordings.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Thank you, mate.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
You're very gifted at doing, obviously, but that one
in particular, when I firstheard it it was almost like it
was, it was already musical.
You know what I'm saying.
It was kind of I already hadlike a rhythm and a melody to it
, um, and I think for thatreason it's particularly in the
kind of earlier tracks that Iwrote um with you that I wanted
to leave an awful lot of spacein the kind of earlier tracks
(07:45):
that I wrote with you that Iwanted to leave an awful lot of
space in the earlier onesbecause I just felt the audio
was so important.
You know I had to be right atthe sort of apex of this track,
sort of leading, everything youknow, but I just really really
enjoyed doing it.
And trying to find where thatspace was was like the kind of
that was the challenge to me.
You know, instead of trying tofill that space, it was trying
(08:09):
to be very selective as to howto do that I was curious to find
out what type of message youwas going to do through the
music.
You know, through natural sounds, how you were going to convey
that through and define it, andyou know how do you do that well
, the one thing I've reallytried to do more than anything
(08:31):
for this entire process is, um,there's two things really.
The biggest, the biggest thingI've tried to avoid is to use
your audio as background audiofor a song to sit on top of that
.
That has been my biggest kind offear, because I think it's the
most, it's the easiest thing todo for a writer and musician
coming in just to kind of set asong over the top and it sounds
(08:53):
nice and that.
But for me the whole point ofdoing this is that it's a
collaboration with the naturalworld audio.
So if you're not writing to itand you're not writing with it,
it kind of defeats the purposeof doing it in the first place.
Um, and secondly, I've justtried not to overthink anything.
(09:14):
I think particularly lyrically,I've just kind of gone with
what your audio has inspiredwithin me, for whatever reason,
wherever that comes from.
I've tried not to overthink ittoo much and just kind of run
with it.
Um, and by and large that'sbeen.
It's actually been quitedifficult because particularly
in locations that have a very um, like defined meaning, like
(09:37):
culloden, battlefield orglencore, that you know, the
temptation is to write aboutthose things something very dark
dark, Exactly, yeah, and Ithink there's definitely
leanings in there towards thatkind of stuff.
But I've tried to avoid beingsort of too on the nose with it
and really just let the audioand the sort of natural world
recordings which will have beenthere long before any kind of
(09:58):
human history.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well, your connection to Scotland kind of influences
your musical style and theatmosphere of the compositions.
It's just, you know, to me I'mbiased.
It's perfect, it's beautiful.
Oh, thank you, and you know youweren't just an overlay, you
did let the natural sound speakfor itself.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I appreciate it.
Thank you, I mean.
So.
That was one of two songs thatI wrote to the camera.
The other one was a trackcalled I Will Wait, and that was
from Rannoch Moor, which wasanother one that, when I heard
it, I just thought it was justan amazing.
I haven't spent a lot of timein Rannoch Moor, but I know,
(10:40):
having been there a couple oftimes, that it's enormous.
To begin with, it's absolutelyhuge.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
It's huge you try walking it um, and it's, I'm all
right and say it's kind of,it's almost desolate in terms of
so it's quite, it is just where, where I went from there I was,
I was staying it's probablyabout 19, 1975, I was about 20
(11:08):
and I was lugging around an agra5 recorder, you know, with the
tape and a big battery and stuff.
And I was staying in Kinloch,rannoch um, at the Bun Rannoch
Hotel, which is burnt down nowapparently.
And I made my way out to RanachMoor Station, which was right
(11:30):
at the end of the Loch, and Ithought I'm going to walk this
bit.
You could see these telephonewires, these telegraph wires
going, you know, forever in thedistance, and then the rolling
hills in the background and themist, and then the rain and I
thought what a bloody idiot.
You know it's so far.
(11:50):
But I could drop my mic, youknow, down into the glen and
record it.
And it was just you don't haveto have a lot of sounds to make
the atmosphere.
But you got that wind and therustle of the heather, you know,
and everything, and then justthese plaintive sounds chirping
(12:12):
away in the back, and then youknow crossbills and crested tits
and all kinds of birds thatcome into it.
Ranak, more kind of lives withits name, you know, you've got.
You say Rannoch Moor and yousay, oh, I'm dreaming about
going to Rannoch Moor.
It's just beautiful, it's likeyou say, it just goes on forever
(12:34):
.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
When I first heard the audiofrom it, I mean, the first thing
that really obviously grabs youis just the ferocity of the
wind and the howl it can reallyfeel it.
It's kind of visceral, but Iloved it as well.
I think that the patterns ofthe whistles and the sort of the
(12:59):
elements that you can hearagain, I tried to kind of like
turn that into basicallytranslate that into rhythmically
what I tried to kind of liketurn that into.
You know, kind of basicallytranslate that into kind of
rhythmically what I felt it kindof and you did it.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
That was thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, I kind of went for a waltz.
I went for like a three, fourtime thing.
It felt right to me to kind oflike just the circular patterns
that I was hearing.
Um, can I ask you?
Can I ask you?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
how, what, what initially inspired you to create
music and how did your journeygo as a musician?
How did that work?
because it's not it's it'salmost like you're a gift to
something you know you.
You just do it so bloody well,I suppose I suppose from someone
(13:43):
who's not you know.
I can't really play anything.
I can strum a guitar and dostuff, but when you come out
with something, I give the audioto you and you come back with
this amazing composition.
How do you do that?
How, the bloody hell, do you doit?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I think that's very kind, mate.
Just a lifetime of having doneit.
To be honest, it's all I'vebeen interested in since I was a
kid.
I've just had a love of music.
It's wrong terminology, it'sway way beyond that.
It's just inherently part ofwho I am it's like an arm to you
(14:22):
yeah, and again, it's like, youknow, I don't always love it as
well.
It can be difficult as well.
It's a blessing and a curse.
Sometimes, you know, I could beso obsessed with something all
the time, but I'm guessing itmight be a similar thing for you
.
But yeah, I just absolutelyadore it and it's all I've ever
(14:45):
been interested in doing and andfortunately, I've been lucky
enough to be able to do it, youknow but for something,
something like ranak more yeahhow?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
how do you address that?
What you're gonna, you know,write, compose.
How do you?
How do you start yourself?
Do you put yourself in thatframe of mind?
Is it the natural sounds thatgive you that, or is it already
an idea in your head?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
So again, I really try to avoid having any ideas
going into.
I really wanted everything tocome from your audio.
So for the first two songs Isat at a piano and just played
your audio over the top over andover again until something felt
like it was right.
(15:31):
And I think, particularly giventhe sparsity of the song as
well, sometimes I would just beholding chords for, you know,
minutes at a time, just tryingto kind of gauge what was kind
of right.
It's not always like that, youknow, when I'm writing
commercially or writing for myown stuff, it's a lot, you know,
the pace is a lot higher andsometimes you have preloaded
ideas of lyric or stories youwant to create or whatever.
(15:53):
But this was totally different.
This was something that Ireally wanted to be inspired
from your audio, which isdifficult.
Sometimes it's really difficultto keep outside kind of
influences away sometimes.
Sometimes it's really difficultto keep outside kind of
influences away.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Sometimes it's amazing because you do it so
natural.
Thank you, no, I've reallyenjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
It's been amazing to be asked to do it and it's kind
of made me kind of hopefully,sort of build muscles that I've
neglected, you know, over theyears, which has been really
nice as well.
One of the tracks that I wantedto's been really nice as well.
Um, I was one of the the tracksthat I wanted to speak to you
about as well, after that kindof first batch of tracks that I
sent, was a track I sent youover, a song called you and I,
(16:34):
which was from the solway farm.
I love that, um, and that waswhen I was really.
It was a really important oneto me because that's where I
live.
Now I'm right, I can see solwayfroth right now at my window
it's.
It's a place, important one tome, because that's where I live.
Now.
I can see Solway Firth rightnow out my window.
It's a place that's, in recentyears, become really, really
important to me.
How did you first come to visitthere?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I went up.
I was probably newly marriedwith an American wife at the
time when we went up toCumbertrees and I was all around
that area around the SaltwayFirth and I dropped a recorder
out there and I thought I wantto do.
I was fascinated with theborders I loved.
(17:16):
I eventually got a chance towalk Adrian's Wall, you know, go
from Carlisle toBerwick-on-Tweed, so all the
borders are special to me andthere's difference in signatures
, sound signatures, fromlowlands to highlands and
there's a different kind ofarray of bird song and different
(17:37):
reflections of, you know, oftrees and stone walls and places
like that, and water is alwayssomething that attracts a lot of
bird life.
Waterfowl and, you know, aroundthe solway firth is just, it's
just a given.
You know the.
The atmosphere of that isfantastic.
And again, that song you youbought.
(18:00):
The atmosphere is incrediblethat the chorus in in um is that
is that the one with thechoruses, you and I, yeah yeah
yeah, as it builds up to thatbeautiful chorus, it's.
It's almost like you know thethe curtains are just gonna open
and there's this fantasticproduction ready to start.
(18:21):
It's amazing, mate, you ate iton the head no, it was a really
important one to me.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
This one, um, yeah, it's like a home game, you know,
I felt like I couldn't reallymess this one up, uh, and it's,
uh it was.
It was special for a few reasonsbecause I'm I'm really bad, um,
so I'm not very good at writinglove songs.
I tend to kind of write themfrom different angles or kind of
do I don't just try to do stuffthat's a bit different, because
(18:47):
I'm just very sort of myembarrassment threshold tends to
be quite low for things likethat.
Um, but the ability for for meto kind of write a song about me
and my wife, nicola, who welive, like I say, just five
miles from the soul way forth Ididn't have any relationship to
it before I met her as well, Ididn't know this part of the
world at all.
Now we live here, and theability to be given the chance
(19:13):
to write a song about that andabout us living here and being
part of that sort of environmentand a place that's really
really special to us, that was areal gift.
So thank you very much for that, thank you I really loved
writing the song.
It made it easier to legitimisebeing a bit sorry when these
(19:38):
tracks come out what what kindof challenges?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
what do you think the listeners will engage in?
How will they engage in thatalbum as a whole?
How do you think it's going tobe the musical elements, and how
are people going to receivethat?
Do you feel?
What do you hope for?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I guess, I feel I mean, it's not for me to tell
how people tell us the music, Iguess, but I think for something
, for something like this, thatis, it's very different from
like commercial music that youwould normally kind of write.
For me it's I've really tried toretain um, the.
(20:24):
The artistry has been sort ofnumber one sort of priority for
me throughout, which has beenreally, really great, because
most of the time with writing,even when it's for yourself as
an artist, you do a certainamount of sacrificing in order
to fit into, you know, the kindof current accepted standards of
popular music.
(20:45):
So to be able to completelyshed all of that and just write
exactly what I felt suited thesong was really, really freeing,
and so I guess I hope that thatis the same inverted.
I would like to think that theywould listen to it, completely
sort of stripped of the ideathat they would be listening to
(21:08):
a normal record.
That's something completelydifferent, and I love the fact
that they're releasing youraudio alongside it, without the
music.
I think that's really, reallyimportant.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I think it's important so that you can kind
of hear where it comes from.
Yeah, I love that.
I really love that.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I think it's brilliant, but yeah, it's been a
.
I think it's brilliant, butyeah, it's been a total pleasure
, it's been brilliant.
So the the Solway Firth one wasa big one for me.
I really enjoyed doing that oneand I guess the other one down
from from this neck of the woodsas well we'll stick it in the
lowlands, I guess was the wasBrace, the, the Peregrine
Falcons and the Rooks andDalbeattie and I really wanted
(21:48):
for a while when I was writingthis I really wanted something
quite upbeat.
I was conscious of the factthat there was a lot of more, a
lot of space and a lot of sortof slower tempo stuff, and so
when I was looking for somethingfaster and you sent over
Peregrine Falcon audio, I waslike, well, that'll do that's
pretty fast, way much fasterthan that.
(22:08):
And this was a great fun one towrite.
I really really enjoyed writingthis one.
I have to say I went to schoolabout 5 or 6 miles from
Dalbeattie and I had no ideathere were Perrigan Falcons in
that area at all.
I was looking up.
I became a little bit obsessedwith it.
Actually I looked deeply intoit.
(22:29):
How did you come across them?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
They um, it started off with joining the RSPB and
getting to know what birds werewhere, and peregrine falcons
were not really apparent downsouth, not to a point.
There were some city dwellersthat you know stayed on building
(22:55):
blocks and used the height todive down at pigeons and things
like that.
But I found a breeding pair thatwas introduced Same guy who
introduced me to the ospreysthat came back to Lochore in
Argyle, and so it was great, itwas that fabulous connection and
(23:17):
it was just an ideal place tobe able to point a dish up and
get those vocalizations.
I just loved it.
You know, like I say,scotland's a given Every time
you want to go and get those,those vocalizations.
Yeah, I just loved it.
You know, and, like I say,scotland's a given every time
you want to go and get something.
You, you don't have theintrusion of man-made noises as
much as you do down in thebigger cities yeah, so can I ask
(23:37):
what was the?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
what was the environment you recorded that in
, was it?
It sounds like there'sreflections against some kind of
is it a wall or a cliff, or acastle or something.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
It's the way the dish was.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Is that what it is?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
When you're using a parabolic dish, it's almost like
if you're using a camera to dofast racing cars and things and
you follow the car thebackground becomes blurred.
If you're doing a yeah, thebackground becomes blurred, you
know.
If you're doing a depth offield, yeah.
So if you open up the, theaperture, you get everything
(24:12):
that's in focus.
So with a parabolic dish, whenthese birds are flying 100 odd
miles an hour, you're moving thedish, so the background becomes
reflective and you try, you trybit of EQ in some ways to get
rid of it, but then you bring ina mix and overlay that so that
(24:33):
you give the atmosphere aroundit.
It's so difficult the art ofusing a parabolic dish recording
birds.
I learned later on that let thebird fly through the dish,
don't follow the bird not reallybecause if you move that,
you're recording 180 degrees youknow in its atmosphere, in its
(24:56):
environment.
So then you get certain phasesthat you don't really want to
have.
So it's.
It's okay if you're recordingspecies-specific and you want
one particular bird to vocaliseand record its song, but it's
not good when you're using thedish and you're dropping it.
You'd rather have a microphonewhere the bird flies past, but
(25:17):
that's the ideal scenario You'renever going to get a bird
that's going to do that for you.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Take one, take two, fly past.
I really loved the audio inthis one.
I think, again, I'd beendealing with a lot of more
gentle audio to that point, andwhat I loved about this
particular one was just themania of it.
It's so intense.
(25:45):
You've, you've, you've got thefalcon cry obviously, which is
just an amazing sound, but it'sit's permeated constantly by
this chattering.
You know it's the relentlesssort of alarm chattering all the
time, and it was totallydifferent from anything I worked
with and I kind of I reallywanted to work with it but I
wasn't really sure how tobecause it was so I don't know,
(26:09):
it was just so intense Icouldn't really figure out how
to fit anything else kind ofaround it.
But eventually I felt like justby trying to, basically trying
to copy what was already inthere and do something that was
equally as choppy and equally assort of manic and capture all
the elements again, you hit itout the park mate.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
It was brilliant.
I loved that rhythmic yeah,it's cool.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I really enjoyed working on this one as well and
I went down.
It's probably one of the biggerproduction tracks on the record
and I really, really enjoyed it.
And again, it's funny you'resaying that that's the dish that
captured that sort ofreflective sound, because I
loved that and I tried to usethat same style of like slap
back delay reverb thing on a lotof the instrumentation in the
(26:57):
track as well, to kind of likealmost copy that environment,
because I loved that.
I loved it so much.
That was brilliant.
So, yeah, really really enjoyedworking on that one.
It was definitely one of myfavourites.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
It was brilliant it's fantastic when you get a text
at night time and you go listento this, I've done this, it's
raw and you're setting the scene.
And then you click it on andyou listen to it and you go oh
my god, it's amazing, it'sterrifying to send it.
To be honest with you listen toit and you go oh my God, this
is amazing.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
It's terrifying to send it.
To be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
How is it terrifying like that.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I know you're a deeply polite gentleman and
you'd never offend.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Not at all, not at all.
I tell you if I don't likesomething.
But it's definitely a part ofthe way I'm really honest about
this because most of my liferecording sounds and stuff.
It's definitely a part of theway I'm really honest about this
because there's most of my liferecording sounds and stuff has
gone into pictures, gone intodocumentaries, gone into films.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
And you get some narration.
You get music thrown over thetop of it and just get hidden
behind everything.
So I was always very scepticalabout having something
overlaying beautiful naturalsound, and if I didn't like what
you sent me in the first place,I'd have told you.
You knocked me over, mate.
(28:14):
You absolutely knocked me overwith it, it's just fantastic to
be able to hear something from adifferent perspective ok, thank
you, mate.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
What I loved, what I loved about this song actually,
there was a few songs like this,because I worried about it as
well I mentioned the last thingI wanted to do was use it as
background audio and I felt thatit was important.
At times throughout the recordI felt it was important that the
music overpowered the audiosometimes, because that felt
(28:43):
like a natural balance to me.
I felt if it just constantlysat at a kind of sort of you
know, a generic sort of level ofvolume against the audio at the
time, then it would then itwould feel like background.
So I felt it was important thatit kind of ebbed and flowed and
what was really useful for doingthat was these individual sort
of bird calls.
(29:04):
The peregrine falcon was one umwhere it would just pierce out
over the audio and it didn'tmatter what I did.
It would just because of theshrillness of them, because of
the frequencies it had.
It would just kind of like fireout of nowhere anyway, and it
didn't.
It wouldn't matter howoverpowering the music was, it
would still kind of find thespace um, which I really quite I
found quite beautiful.
I really really enjoyed it.
(29:24):
The other track actually thatwas very much like that was the,
the.
I'm just trying to find it here.
Let me have a look.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
The Snipe.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, that was it absolutely.
Oh, I love the Snipe.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Because you were saying you should give him
credits for the music.
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I think it was.
What was the name of that song?
Oh it's.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Was it Small Mercies, not Small Mercies.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Was it Small Mercies?
It was Small Mercies, Not SmallMercs it was.
Was it Small Mercs?
It was Small Mercs.
Yes, Sorry, I've got my noteshere.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
See, that's the same thing, but with the Snipe I let
the microphone just record theambient sound and let it have,
you know, 360 degrees of sound,instead of just picking out one
solitary species and thenisolating that.
Yeah, absolutely, because whatI really liked about the snipe
(30:27):
was it reached these heights andit's not calling.
It's the wing movement that'smaking that sound.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Oh, is it really.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, it's not going.
Oi, mate, come over here andrecord this bit.
No way, it's just that, no way.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
So it's purely going, Oi mate, come over here and
record this bit.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
It's just that.
So it's purely sound from thewings.
So as it reaches heights andcomes down and swoops around,
you get that kind of depth offield in the sound.
You never know where it'scoming from.
If you're sitting thererecording it and you're sitting
on a stool with your headphoneson, you have no idea where the
(31:02):
hell it is.
All it is is just you know itspresence.
Seriously, and again, youcomplimented that.
I love that.
I love small muscles, Thank you.
It's very hard for me to saythere's one that's better than
the other.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
The thing that I love most about that and that kicked
off the whole song.
I had no idea it was a snipe I'mincredibly close with all that
stuff but when I heard it itsounded to me like those sort of
90 record skip effects thatthey would use to sort of do
these transitions and things.
(31:38):
I just love the idea of usingit like that, that sort of like
do these kind of transitions andthings.
I just love the idea of usingit like that, that sort of like,
really kind of like slothy kindof like.
And so the rest of the song isbasically the whole style of the
song built itself around theidea that that would be used as
that sort of sound for thattransition, which I thought was
really, really cool.
I really enjoyed working onthat one as well.
(32:01):
And again, I think you canmaybe tell listening to the
songs that come later, the songsthat were written later, they
have a bit more kind ofproduction in them, because I'm
kind of working with that'sundermining the first track, I
think, if you stick it into oneand working with them.
That's undermining the firsttrack.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I think if you stick it into one and do a shuffle
play, you're going to get abonus, whatever comes up first.
They're just so brilliant andthey're so different and, like I
say, you complement the naturalsounds itself.
Going forward with everything,you're hoping to continue to
(32:47):
explore that kind of fusion ofmusic in nature with projects?
Because I'd love, I'd love it.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
There's been a real, genuinely the moment.
It's been a real kind of um, areal eye-opener for me.
I think every writer, everymusician who finds themselves
writing commercially or doingartist stuff or whatever it is,
you do end up doing things.
(33:14):
Just because you do them andbecause you're working with
other co-writers or other bandsor things, you get into these
formulated patterns of writingand putting things together.
I think everybody does that.
The difference with working on aproject like this is that
you're stripped of all sort ofexpectancy with regard to
anything like that.
So it's really just you andyour artistic interpretation of
(33:37):
what you feel it should be andthe freedom of doing that has
just been really, reallyenjoyable and quite um, I don't
know, for want of a betterexpression artistically healing.
I think you know just like it'sreally nice to just go back to
sort of feeling like you're akid and just sort of write music
for the love of doing it,without really caring about
(34:00):
where it goes or what kind ofpurpose it has.
It's just to make it the best.
Well, I'll definitely keepdoing it.
I've really, really enjoyed it.
And again, like um, like I,since I was a kid, I've always
been around in nature.
I walk miles and miles.
I walk everywhere.
You know, oh it, I can sort ofgreenery and stuff like that
(34:21):
very, very regularly, and myfamily are all like that as well
.
So it's been a marriage of twothings that are really important
to me.
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
So going forward with all that, do you have any
favourite locations, say forScotland?
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, I think the Western Isles would be one.
I would love to spend a bitmore time getting into.
It's a part of the world that Ihaven't spent a lot of time in,
but the time that I have spentthere has been deeply, deeply
special to me.
I think it's just an amazingpart.
You could spend years justdoing the Western Isles.
(34:58):
It's just an incredible place.
Yeah, I would love to do it.
I would certainly love to domore.
I lived in the Highlands as wellfor years.
I lived on the Black Isle justoff the Moray Firth for a long
time when I was a kid, so thatpart of the world has got a
really special meaning to me aswell.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I would certainly love to do more Highlands and
the beauty of that is itinspires you to write.
You know, it seems like you cangive you the sound, tell you
where it's from and you justpours air to you, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
I know how to do it.
You're not getting stagnant inany way, you just produce it.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, that, in any way.
You just produce it.
Yeah, that that's.
That's a huge fucking talent,mate.
Well, thank you.
No, it's well the enjoyment ofdoing it, as as uh, as I weighed
everything else, it's reallybeen, it's been a tonic.
I've really really yeah, it's.
I can't thank you enough forinvolving me.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It's been amazing, mate it's my honor mate my my
final destination, where I, you,I want to end up when I get
burnt and chocked and scatter myashes is just the other side of
Skye.
I love it around there.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
I absolutely love it and Lollapalooza and all these
places very special.
And just the recordings fromthere.
There I can chuck it into myarchive, listen to the stuff and
I'm jettisoned right back tothat and time stands still.
You know, it's untouched, it'sbeautiful and you can.
(36:33):
Basically it's one of thoseplaces on earth that you can go
back to 20 years later and itstill stays the same and I hope
it stays that way, you know youcan go back to 20 years later
and it still stays the same.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And I hope it stays that way, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, Icompletely agree.
I spent a lot of time,especially up the sort of up,
the real, real north of Scotland.
You start getting towards sortof Ullapool and Wick and all
these kind of places.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I love it up there.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
There is something really, really special about
that part of the world.
But on that note, actually oneof the tracks the lows that I
wrote was on Culloden Moor,which so when I grew up on the
Black Isle we looked out overthe Moray Firth and you could
see Culloden Moor from thewindow.
(37:18):
So it was again a place thathas been a part of my sort of
history, and it was when yousaid you had recordings from
there.
It was one that was really keyon doing.
But what was your time likethere?
Speaker 1 (37:31):
On Culloden.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
It's that sense of being there, you know, just
being surrounded by theincredible darkness of it it's.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
That's what I was really hoping you were going to
say, because I I I thinkeveryone feels the same on cold
in there.
There's just an eeriness to,isn't there like a weight and a
sort of yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:54):
when you think of the clans, who who dropped you the
fighting and the battle, I couldprobably still find shot and I
think today you could stillprobably do that and it's that
untouched yeah but it, it's.
It's just that when you'restanding there on the moor
itself and the wind's justblowing through you and you,
(38:15):
just you could almost go back.
You know 300 years and say lookat this, it's beautiful, it's
very atmospheric, it's veryeerie, it's very dark.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And it's a place of utter respect.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
You don't get many of that.
There's a kind of feeling onCulloden Moor that I get when I
go down into Glencoe.
Yeah absolutely.
When you're riding from RannochMoor and you go down into
Glencoe and you've got thosebeautiful hills just either side
of you and the clouds, the mistin the mountains and those
(38:56):
reflective sounds, you know,when there's no cars going
through the glen and you get theplaintive sounds of eagles
coming from the top and thecalls of willets and stuff, it's
just fantastic.
There's a few places like thatin Scotland.
I'd like to be able to createthe atmosphere of Bannachburn as
(39:20):
well, but I've never succeededin being able to do that
atmosphere of um bannockburn aswell.
But I've never succeeded inbeing able to do that because
it's too noisy yeah yeah, yeah,you know, you got sterling
bridge and you've got all thereand I've dropped a mic down
there and I thought, well, Icould be in bloody london really
yeah, it's just just not rightit's funny because I would love
to know similar with Glencoe,but I think particularly for
(39:43):
Culloden.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I would love to know if it is the knowledge of
history that gives it thatdarkness and weight for the
beholder, because I kind of get.
I've also got this weirdfeeling that if you just plonked
somebody there without anyknowledge of where they were, I
think they would probably stillget a feeling of it, for
whatever reason.
(40:05):
Maybe that's not true, but Idon't know.
For me, there's a presence tobeing there that is unlike
anywhere.
I've really been elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I find that about Scotland as well, though I find
there was a thing.
There's a ritual that I alwaysdid.
I'd go up to Scotland probablythree, four times a year, and
when I got to Gretna I was thefirst one diving out the car to
go and kiss the Scotland sign.
It's just stupid, and a mate ofmine is from Ireland.
(40:38):
He used to try and race me tothe sign and trip me up.
You know it was that.
And then you, on the way backdown, you know the m6, when the
74 went to the m6, he'd stickhis finger up.
You know, you see, england,it's just that crazy crap that
that you just have, and it'salmost like time stands still,
(41:02):
and you know the music and thesounds are there bottled up
forever absolutely.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yeah, I agree.
I think it's similar if wespeak about the Glencoe track as
well, actually, which I've yetto send you.
I'm working on it.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I can't wait for that one.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
It's called Than Water, as in thicker than water,
and very similar to theCulloden one I spoke about this
earlier to you, actually where Ireally didn't want the lyrics
to reflect the human history ofthe places that you recorded in,
but it's really hard not to aswell.
(41:47):
Do you know what I mean, becauseyou're just very aware of why
these places are the places theyare, and there is similarly
like a real eeriness to Glencoe,I find, but it's also one of
the most spectacularly beautifulplaces I've ever been in my
entire life.
It's absolutely astonishing.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
It's wonderful, it's wonderful mate what was?
Speaker 2 (42:11):
do you remember your time there?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
all the time.
I think if it wasn't and,seriously speaking, if it wasn't
for my illness at the moment, Iwould pack my bags and I'd go
and find a place a Weedcroft orwhatever up there.
But the cold.
I look at you sitting in afleece and I'm thinking it's
(42:36):
still there.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
A fleece and shorts man.
Do you know what I mean?
Oh my God, there you go.
That's proper Scottish for you.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
It's 18 Celsius here in Florida and it's bloody
freezing for me.
And then when I think of I'vegot a guy, a mate of mine who
lives up in Blair Athol and youknow I talk to him once a week
and so on, I said what's thetemperature?
And he'll tell me like it's 3Celsius and I didn't say
(43:08):
anything about you know it's 17here, I'm freezing.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
And he said you wee lollipop he's not doing too bad
in Blair Athol, to be fair.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
I mean to be honest but I just love it there's.
There's just something, as I'vesaid, I, you know, keep on
saying it's like time stoodstill.
They, they bought out a a soapopera thing up there in 89 90
(43:39):
and I think it was called StrathBlair, which was filmed with
Ian Carmichael and it was set inBlair Athol and it was up in
the glens and the reason why wasit, no it wasn't that?
no, it wasn't as bad as my ownway of scoring it was bad, but I
(44:00):
think the director of the BBCscrapped it after two seasons.
But the reason they picked thatarea was because you, you could
be in 1950, you could be in1870, you could be wherever you
know, and it's it's justuntouched yeah, not totally and
that the the stories behindsound.
(44:22):
You know, I always say apicture tells a thousand words,
but sound tells a thousandpictures yeah and every time I
listen to stuff I get that urgeto want to go back.
I haven't been back to scotlandsince uh, for three years and I
gotta, like a tes Tesla car,you've got to plug in, get your
(44:42):
charge up and I need.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
I need to do that as soon as I can it's funny because
I mean, I'm obviously I'm stillhere and I do a lot of
travelling while working thingswhich you know can be testing,
but I love, I love learning andI've always as well, because
working on this project, youknow, I am lucky.
Do you know what I mean?
The walks that I go on on adaily basis and the weekends
(45:07):
that I have and the places thatI see and the things that are
within I absolutely envy you.
It is amazing.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I really do envy you.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Thank you, yes, and you know don't get me wrong if
you'd asked me this four weeksago, in the depths of January,
and it's pissing down every day,and it may have been slightly
different, but See, that's,that's the reality check.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
That's what stops me from packing up my bags and
going.
I actually I looked at a placein Inverness.
I thought, well, what would Ilike to do?
I'd love to go out and recordthe Highlands again and just do
the stuff that I'd you know.
Go and record the places that Idid 20 years ago, 30, 40 years
(45:43):
ago and see how much change, youknow, has happened in there,
which I doubt very much.
But I looked at a bed andbreakfast in Inverness and the
guy was wanting to retire and Ithought, could I do?
Speaker 2 (45:59):
that.
And then that weather thingcome in again you know, it gets
cold up there, it's bloody cold.
It's cold up there, mate.
Yeah, it really does.
Yeah, it's a funny thing thoughas well, because I think, being
Scottish, there's a certainlyfor me.
Anyway, I love the elements aswell.
There's something about walkingface first into a driving wind
(46:23):
that I don't know.
There's a life to it.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
A lot of people call that craziness.
Yes, probably.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
But I don't know, there's a weird I don't know
sort of energy from it as well.
It gets the barbarian in mehumming.
Whatever it is, but no, I guessjust to sum up the album from
my point of view I had no ideawhat it was going to sound like
(46:51):
before I started writing it,which, again, is not normally
the case.
Normally there's some kind ofloose concept.
So to start from scratch andand write something purely just
off of your collaboration and I,I really think it's important
that it's stressed that itreally has been a collaboration
as well.
(47:11):
You know, it really has beenwork, working in tandem between
both sets of audio.
Um, it's just been, it's been amassive pleasure.
I've really, really enjoyed it.
It's been absolutely humongous.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
For me, it's been very humbling, it's a fabulous
experience.
And then, of course, I got tomeet you in London, so that was
cool.
That's the cherry on the cake.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
I get it.
It's maybe just me being softy,but it's funny, because we met
at Abbey Road Studios, which initself was ridiculous.
But I was kind of just walkingdown the hall looking for you
and then you came out with theglow and it felt like I'd known
you for years.
You know what I mean just goinginto that session and stuff.
(47:55):
It's been a great experience.
I can't thank you enough forinvolving me in it.
It's been brilliant.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
I thank you, mate.
Thank you enough for involvingme in it.
It's been brilliant.
Thank you, mate, thank you, andI'm looking forward to putting
this thing out there and lettingpeople see and listen to how
brilliant you are.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
It's an absolute pleasure.
Like I say, I'm really pleasedboth sets of audio are going out
and people can hopefully beinspired themselves as well to
go and be part of of what you'redoing and you know what, what
is out there in terms of theirown environments and things as
well, because it's just like Isay it's been, it's been
transformative for me creativelyand uh, yeah, it's been
(48:33):
brilliant really Wrap up now.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
You've just experienced another journey on
the Listening Planet podcast.
Dive deeper into the world ofnatural sounds by connecting
with us online.
Visit our website or follow uson social media.
Let the symphony of naturesurround you wherever you go.
(49:03):
Happy listening.
This is Martin Stewart with A Life in Sound
from the Listening Planet, inpartnership with Biophonica
Beats.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Martin, thanks for making the time to speak to me.
First and foremost, it's beennice speaking to you on every
occasion that I have so far.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And likewise too, mate.
I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So I guess we should probably start by talking about
how this all came togetherreally, which seems a kind of
distant memory to me now.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I'm trying to think how we started this.
I think most roads run toplatoon right.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I got involved.
So my my manager, steven, was,had sort of said something about
working with someone who'sdoing audio recordings, natural
environments and things, and Ihadn't really, to be totally
honest, it caught me off guard.
I was, I was in the I think Iwas on holiday at the time um,
and there was a zoom meeting andit was the first time that I'd
(01:08):
met you, um on that call, and itwas the first thing that I'd
known anything really about theproject.
I had been sort of like Ihadn't been given any sort of
knowledge or like sort of notesbefore or anything, um, and I
just loved it, what you wasgetting into.
I genuinely had no idea, and Ihonestly think that's I like I
don't know.
(01:28):
I enjoyed it far more becauseof that, because it was just you
telling me what it was about.
You were the person who wasdoing it.
You were the person who had allthis incredible stuff and I was
hearing it straight from you.
I don't think I said a word theentire time.
I think I was just busylistening to.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
That's right, it was Stephen.
And what was his name?
Latroyd.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Oh yeah, dennis, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Dennis.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Those two can talk it up, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And you were as quiet as a mouse sitting there and I
thought I wonder he's probablythinking this is a bunch of
shite.
No, the exact opposite.
What am I getting dragged into?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
no, I loved listening to it because, again, it's
something that's quite you know,working in music and production
and stuff like that.
This is very different to thekind of normal conversations.
I have about how people dothings, to hear something, just
being totally honest with you,to hear of something that was so
pure and came from such a Idon't know, just such a really
(02:27):
genuine place to begin with.
Uh, I find it fascinating thatI really did.
I was super keen to getinvolved in it, and that was
before I even knew of thescottish angle, so I had no idea
that you had an affinity withscotland at that point.
Um, that was a happy kind ofcoincidence.
So how did the Scottish thingcome about?
How did you fall in love withScotland?
Speaker 1 (02:49):
well, I have no idea.
I had this intuition basicallythat there was this draw to
Scotland ever since I wasprobably 10, 11 years of age and
a lot of the family holidaysyou go up north, you know it's
the best place to go.
Most of the people who boughtup in birmingham went west to
(03:14):
wales and all that and rill andon the beach it was the easiest
to get to.
But when I got um, when I gotmarried, I spent so much time up
there.
When I was 27 I found out mydad was scottish.
I'd never met him so maybe thatwas, you know, the connection
for stuff.
(03:34):
But I loved scottish history andbecause I go out and record a
lot, the, the places, thedestinations you head for, the
places where there's not a lotof people and, of course, the
highlands.
It's just a dream.
You just drop a mic out andthere's hardly any roads and
(03:54):
you've got glens and you've gotbeautiful hills and rolling, you
know forest, woodland and justincredible water.
You know, know, like locks andstuff and each corner you go
around was just, you know, arecordist's dream.
I just loved it.
And then when I got the anglethat you were a musician and
(04:17):
we'd only just in the start,combining musicians with natural
sound, because I've always keptit away from that and I didn't
really want and I thought theangle of having someone Scottish
doing Scottish soundscapes wasjust brilliant.
For me it's like standing thebroadsword, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah you get but, it was great for me as well,
because when I was hearing aboutwhat you guys were doing and
stuff and the people that youwere working with amazing
musicians there was definitely abit of me that thought I'm not
really sure what I can bring tothis, because the people that
were involved were alreadyincredible.
(04:57):
But when it became obvious thatyou had the same kind of love
for Scotland that I did, thatkind of opened up Scotland, that
I did that kind of opened upeverything to me.
It became a lot easier to kindof understand what it was going
to be about at that point.
You know, because I grew up inrural Scotland and several kind
of locations in rural Scotlandactually, and I've always been
(05:18):
incredibly close with nature andloved the natural world as well
.
So being able to marry thosesort of two or three things
together, it was a bit of adream, to be honest with you.
I've really, really enjoyeddoing it.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Well, when you came along with the first track,
after I'd dumped all thosesounds into a Dropbox and you
just went in there and startedharvesting stuff out.
I didn't know what to expect.
To be honest with you, no me,neither the first track that
came out blew my mind,absolutely blew my mind.
It was it was everything thatI'd hoped for and something I
(05:56):
didn't expect, but it went pastexpectations.
It was just fantastic and Ithank you.
The the thing, the thing aboutme my love for Scotland and I've
recorded all over the place,from lowlands to highlands to
outer Hebrides and Orkneys andstuff like that.
(06:16):
There's a beautiful connectionbetween having natural sounds
and Scottish-influenced musicand it's that audience that you
always want to attract, you know.
And then the stuff that youcame out the first thing I
thought it was the signaturetune for something like Rob Roy
(06:41):
or Highlander or you know, getin there.
And it was just a fantasticcombination.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, that track was so, yeah, I guess we'll start by
talking about that trackbecause that was the first one
that I wrote.
It's a track called Breathe andit was from Lochgarry and it
was the first Because, yeah, yousent me over a Dropbox with a
bunch of files in them anddifferent locations and things,
and I started listening to themand Lock Gary was one of the
(07:09):
first ones I listened to and Ijust thought it was absolutely
beautiful, martin, like theactual audio itself was.
You know, there's somethingreally special about all your
audio recordings.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Thank you, mate.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
You're very gifted at doing, obviously, but that one
in particular, when I firstheard it it was almost like it
was, it was already musical.
You know what I'm saying.
It was kind of I already hadlike a rhythm and a melody to it
, um, and I think for thatreason it's particularly in the
kind of earlier tracks that Iwrote um with you that I wanted
to leave an awful lot of spacein the kind of earlier tracks
(07:45):
that I wrote with you that Iwanted to leave an awful lot of
space in the earlier onesbecause I just felt the audio
was so important.
You know I had to be right atthe sort of apex of this track,
sort of leading, everything youknow, but I just really really
enjoyed doing it.
And trying to find where thatspace was was like the kind of
that was the challenge to me.
You know, instead of trying tofill that space, it was trying
(08:09):
to be very selective as to howto do that I was curious to find
out what type of message youwas going to do through the
music.
You know, through natural sounds, how you were going to convey
that through and define it, andyou know how do you do that well
, the one thing I've reallytried to do more than anything
(08:31):
for this entire process is, um,there's two things really.
The biggest, the biggest thingI've tried to avoid is to use
your audio as background audiofor a song to sit on top of that
.
That has been my biggest kind offear, because I think it's the
most, it's the easiest thing todo for a writer and musician
coming in just to kind of set asong over the top and it sounds
(08:53):
nice and that.
But for me the whole point ofdoing this is that it's a
collaboration with the naturalworld audio.
So if you're not writing to itand you're not writing with it,
it kind of defeats the purposeof doing it in the first place.
Um, and secondly, I've justtried not to overthink anything.
(09:14):
I think particularly lyrically,I've just kind of gone with
what your audio has inspiredwithin me, for whatever reason,
wherever that comes from.
I've tried not to overthink ittoo much and just kind of run
with it.
Um, and by and large that'sbeen.
It's actually been quitedifficult because particularly
in locations that have a very um, like defined meaning, like
(09:37):
culloden, battlefield orglencore, that you know, the
temptation is to write aboutthose things something very dark
dark, Exactly, yeah, and Ithink there's definitely
leanings in there towards thatkind of stuff.
But I've tried to avoid beingsort of too on the nose with it
and really just let the audioand the sort of natural world
recordings which will have beenthere long before any kind of
(09:58):
human history.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well, your connection to Scotland kind of influences
your musical style and theatmosphere of the compositions.
It's just, you know, to me I'mbiased.
It's perfect, it's beautiful.
Oh, thank you, and you know youweren't just an overlay, you
did let the natural sound speakfor itself.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I appreciate it.
Thank you, I mean.
So.
That was one of two songs thatI wrote to the camera.
The other one was a trackcalled I Will Wait, and that was
from Rannoch Moor, which wasanother one that, when I heard
it, I just thought it was justan amazing.
I haven't spent a lot of timein Rannoch Moor, but I know,
(10:40):
having been there a couple oftimes, that it's enormous.
To begin with, it's absolutelyhuge.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
It's huge you try walking it um, and it's, I'm all
right and say it's kind of,it's almost desolate in terms of
so it's quite, it is just where, where I went from there I was,
I was staying it's probablyabout 19, 1975, I was about 20
(11:08):
and I was lugging around an agra5 recorder, you know, with the
tape and a big battery and stuff.
And I was staying in Kinloch,rannoch um, at the Bun Rannoch
Hotel, which is burnt down nowapparently.
And I made my way out to RanachMoor Station, which was right
(11:30):
at the end of the Loch, and Ithought I'm going to walk this
bit.
You could see these telephonewires, these telegraph wires
going, you know, forever in thedistance, and then the rolling
hills in the background and themist, and then the rain and I
thought what a bloody idiot.
You know it's so far.
(11:50):
But I could drop my mic, youknow, down into the glen and
record it.
And it was just you don't haveto have a lot of sounds to make
the atmosphere.
But you got that wind and therustle of the heather, you know,
and everything, and then justthese plaintive sounds chirping
(12:12):
away in the back, and then youknow crossbills and crested tits
and all kinds of birds thatcome into it.
Ranak, more kind of lives withits name, you know, you've got.
You say Rannoch Moor and yousay, oh, I'm dreaming about
going to Rannoch Moor.
It's just beautiful, it's likeyou say, it just goes on forever
(12:34):
.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
When I first heard the audiofrom it, I mean, the first thing
that really obviously grabs youis just the ferocity of the
wind and the howl it can reallyfeel it.
It's kind of visceral, but Iloved it as well.
I think that the patterns ofthe whistles and the sort of the
(12:59):
elements that you can hearagain, I tried to kind of like
turn that into basicallytranslate that into rhythmically
what I tried to kind of liketurn that into.
You know, kind of basicallytranslate that into kind of
rhythmically what I felt it kindof and you did it.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
That was thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, I kind of went for a waltz.
I went for like a three, fourtime thing.
It felt right to me to kind oflike just the circular patterns
that I was hearing.
Um, can I ask you?
Can I ask you?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
how, what, what initially inspired you to create
music and how did your journeygo as a musician?
How did that work?
because it's not it's it'salmost like you're a gift to
something you know you.
You just do it so bloody well,I suppose I suppose from someone
(13:43):
who's not you know.
I can't really play anything.
I can strum a guitar and dostuff, but when you come out
with something, I give the audioto you and you come back with
this amazing composition.
How do you do that?
How, the bloody hell, do you doit?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I think that's very kind, mate.
Just a lifetime of having doneit.
To be honest, it's all I'vebeen interested in since I was a
kid.
I've just had a love of music.
It's wrong terminology, it'sway way beyond that.
It's just inherently part ofwho I am it's like an arm to you
(14:22):
yeah, and again, it's like, youknow, I don't always love it as
well.
It can be difficult as well.
It's a blessing and a curse.
Sometimes, you know, I could beso obsessed with something all
the time, but I'm guessing itmight be a similar thing for you
.
But yeah, I just absolutelyadore it and it's all I've ever
(14:45):
been interested in doing and andfortunately, I've been lucky
enough to be able to do it, youknow but for something,
something like ranak more yeahhow?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
how do you address that?
What you're gonna, you know,write, compose.
How do you?
How do you start yourself?
Do you put yourself in thatframe of mind?
Is it the natural sounds thatgive you that, or is it already
an idea in your head?
Speaker 2 (15:11):
So again, I really try to avoid having any ideas
going into.
I really wanted everything tocome from your audio.
So for the first two songs Isat at a piano and just played
your audio over the top over andover again until something felt
like it was right.
(15:31):
And I think, particularly giventhe sparsity of the song as
well, sometimes I would just beholding chords for, you know,
minutes at a time, just tryingto kind of gauge what was kind
of right.
It's not always like that, youknow, when I'm writing
commercially or writing for myown stuff, it's a lot, you know,
the pace is a lot higher andsometimes you have preloaded
ideas of lyric or stories youwant to create or whatever.
(15:53):
But this was totally different.
This was something that Ireally wanted to be inspired
from your audio, which isdifficult.
Sometimes it's really difficultto keep outside kind of
influences away sometimes.
Sometimes it's really difficultto keep outside kind of
influences away.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Sometimes it's amazing because you do it so
natural.
Thank you, no, I've reallyenjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
It's been amazing to be asked to do it and it's kind
of made me kind of hopefully,sort of build muscles that I've
neglected, you know, over theyears, which has been really
nice as well.
One of the tracks that I wantedto's been really nice as well.
Um, I was one of the the tracksthat I wanted to speak to you
about as well, after that kindof first batch of tracks that I
sent, was a track I sent youover, a song called you and I,
(16:34):
which was from the solway farm.
I love that, um, and that waswhen I was really.
It was a really important oneto me because that's where I
live.
Now I'm right, I can see solwayfroth right now at my window
it's.
It's a place, important one tome, because that's where I live.
Now.
I can see Solway Firth rightnow out my window.
It's a place that's, in recentyears, become really, really
important to me.
How did you first come to visitthere?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I went up.
I was probably newly marriedwith an American wife at the
time when we went up toCumbertrees and I was all around
that area around the SaltwayFirth and I dropped a recorder
out there and I thought I wantto do.
I was fascinated with theborders I loved.
(17:16):
I eventually got a chance towalk Adrian's Wall, you know, go
from Carlisle toBerwick-on-Tweed, so all the
borders are special to me andthere's difference in signatures
, sound signatures, fromlowlands to highlands and
there's a different kind ofarray of bird song and different
(17:37):
reflections of, you know, oftrees and stone walls and places
like that, and water is alwayssomething that attracts a lot of
bird life.
Waterfowl and, you know, aroundthe solway firth is just, it's
just a given.
You know the.
The atmosphere of that isfantastic.
And again, that song you youbought.
(18:00):
The atmosphere is incrediblethat the chorus in in um is that
is that the one with thechoruses, you and I, yeah yeah
yeah, as it builds up to thatbeautiful chorus, it's.
It's almost like you know thethe curtains are just gonna open
and there's this fantasticproduction ready to start.
(18:21):
It's amazing, mate, you ate iton the head no, it was a really
important one to me.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
This one, um, yeah, it's like a home game, you know,
I felt like I couldn't reallymess this one up, uh, and it's,
uh it was.
It was special for a few reasonsbecause I'm I'm really bad, um,
so I'm not very good at writinglove songs.
I tend to kind of write themfrom different angles or kind of
do I don't just try to do stuffthat's a bit different, because
(18:47):
I'm just very sort of myembarrassment threshold tends to
be quite low for things likethat.
Um, but the ability for for meto kind of write a song about me
and my wife, nicola, who welive, like I say, just five
miles from the soul way forth Ididn't have any relationship to
it before I met her as well, Ididn't know this part of the
world at all.
Now we live here, and theability to be given the chance
(19:13):
to write a song about that andabout us living here and being
part of that sort of environmentand a place that's really
really special to us, that was areal gift.
So thank you very much for that, thank you I really loved
writing the song.
It made it easier to legitimisebeing a bit sorry when these
(19:38):
tracks come out what what kindof challenges?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
what do you think the listeners will engage in?
How will they engage in thatalbum as a whole?
How do you think it's going tobe the musical elements, and how
are people going to receivethat?
Do you feel?
What do you hope for?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I guess, I feel I mean, it's not for me to tell
how people tell us the music, Iguess, but I think for something
, for something like this, thatis, it's very different from
like commercial music that youwould normally kind of write.
For me it's I've really tried toretain um, the.
(20:24):
The artistry has been sort ofnumber one sort of priority for
me throughout, which has beenreally, really great, because
most of the time with writing,even when it's for yourself as
an artist, you do a certainamount of sacrificing in order
to fit into, you know, the kindof current accepted standards of
popular music.
(20:45):
So to be able to completelyshed all of that and just write
exactly what I felt suited thesong was really, really freeing,
and so I guess I hope that thatis the same inverted.
I would like to think that theywould listen to it, completely
sort of stripped of the ideathat they would be listening to
(21:08):
a normal record.
That's something completelydifferent, and I love the fact
that they're releasing youraudio alongside it, without the
music.
I think that's really, reallyimportant.
I love that.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I think it's important so that you can kind
of hear where it comes from.
Yeah, I love that.
I really love that.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
I think it's brilliant, but yeah, it's been a
.
I think it's brilliant, butyeah, it's been a total pleasure
, it's been brilliant.
So the the Solway Firth one wasa big one for me.
I really enjoyed doing that oneand I guess the other one down
from from this neck of the woodsas well we'll stick it in the
lowlands, I guess was the wasBrace, the, the Peregrine
Falcons and the Rooks andDalbeattie and I really wanted
(21:48):
for a while when I was writingthis I really wanted something
quite upbeat.
I was conscious of the factthat there was a lot of more, a
lot of space and a lot of sortof slower tempo stuff, and so
when I was looking for somethingfaster and you sent over
Peregrine Falcon audio, I waslike, well, that'll do that's
pretty fast, way much fasterthan that.
(22:08):
And this was a great fun one towrite.
I really really enjoyed writingthis one.
I have to say I went to schoolabout 5 or 6 miles from
Dalbeattie and I had no ideathere were Perrigan Falcons in
that area at all.
I was looking up.
I became a little bit obsessedwith it.
Actually I looked deeply intoit.
(22:29):
How did you come across them?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
They um, it started off with joining the RSPB and
getting to know what birds werewhere, and peregrine falcons
were not really apparent downsouth, not to a point.
There were some city dwellersthat you know stayed on building
(22:55):
blocks and used the height todive down at pigeons and things
like that.
But I found a breeding pair thatwas introduced Same guy who
introduced me to the ospreysthat came back to Lochore in
Argyle, and so it was great, itwas that fabulous connection and
(23:17):
it was just an ideal place tobe able to point a dish up and
get those vocalizations.
I just loved it.
You know, like I say,scotland's a given Every time
you want to go and get those,those vocalizations.
Yeah, I just loved it.
You know, and, like I say,scotland's a given every time
you want to go and get something.
You, you don't have theintrusion of man-made noises as
much as you do down in thebigger cities yeah, so can I ask
(23:37):
what was the?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
what was the environment you recorded that in
, was it?
It sounds like there'sreflections against some kind of
is it a wall or a cliff, or acastle or something.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
It's the way the dish was.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Is that what it is?
Speaker 1 (23:52):
When you're using a parabolic dish, it's almost like
if you're using a camera to dofast racing cars and things and
you follow the car thebackground becomes blurred.
If you're doing a yeah, thebackground becomes blurred, you
know.
If you're doing a depth offield, yeah.
So if you open up the, theaperture, you get everything
(24:12):
that's in focus.
So with a parabolic dish, whenthese birds are flying 100 odd
miles an hour, you're moving thedish, so the background becomes
reflective and you try, you trybit of EQ in some ways to get
rid of it, but then you bring ina mix and overlay that so that
(24:33):
you give the atmosphere aroundit.
It's so difficult the art ofusing a parabolic dish recording
birds.
I learned later on that let thebird fly through the dish,
don't follow the bird not reallybecause if you move that,
you're recording 180 degrees youknow in its atmosphere, in its
(24:56):
environment.
So then you get certain phasesthat you don't really want to
have.
So it's.
It's okay if you're recordingspecies-specific and you want
one particular bird to vocaliseand record its song, but it's
not good when you're using thedish and you're dropping it.
You'd rather have a microphonewhere the bird flies past, but
(25:17):
that's the ideal scenario You'renever going to get a bird
that's going to do that for you.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Take one, take two, fly past.
I really loved the audio inthis one.
I think, again, I'd beendealing with a lot of more
gentle audio to that point, andwhat I loved about this
particular one was just themania of it.
It's so intense.
(25:45):
You've, you've, you've got thefalcon cry obviously, which is
just an amazing sound, but it'sit's permeated constantly by
this chattering.
You know it's the relentlesssort of alarm chattering all the
time, and it was totallydifferent from anything I worked
with and I kind of I reallywanted to work with it but I
wasn't really sure how tobecause it was so I don't know,
(26:09):
it was just so intense Icouldn't really figure out how
to fit anything else kind ofaround it.
But eventually I felt like justby trying to, basically trying
to copy what was already inthere and do something that was
equally as choppy and equally assort of manic and capture all
the elements again, you hit itout the park mate.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
It was brilliant.
I loved that rhythmic yeah,it's cool.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I really enjoyed working on this one as well and
I went down.
It's probably one of the biggerproduction tracks on the record
and I really, really enjoyed it.
And again, it's funny you'resaying that that's the dish that
captured that sort ofreflective sound, because I
loved that and I tried to usethat same style of like slap
back delay reverb thing on a lotof the instrumentation in the
(26:57):
track as well, to kind of likealmost copy that environment,
because I loved that.
I loved it so much.
That was brilliant.
So, yeah, really really enjoyedworking on that one.
It was definitely one of myfavourites.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
It was brilliant it's fantastic when you get a text
at night time and you go listento this, I've done this, it's
raw and you're setting the scene.
And then you click it on andyou listen to it and you go oh
my god, it's amazing, it'sterrifying to send it.
To be honest with you listen toit and you go oh my God, this
is amazing.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
It's terrifying to send it.
To be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
How is it terrifying like that.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I know you're a deeply polite gentleman and
you'd never offend.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Not at all, not at all.
I tell you if I don't likesomething.
But it's definitely a part ofthe way I'm really honest about
this because most of my liferecording sounds and stuff.
It's definitely a part of theway I'm really honest about this
because there's most of my liferecording sounds and stuff has
gone into pictures, gone intodocumentaries, gone into films.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
And you get some narration.
You get music thrown over thetop of it and just get hidden
behind everything.
So I was always very scepticalabout having something
overlaying beautiful naturalsound, and if I didn't like what
you sent me in the first place,I'd have told you.
You knocked me over, mate.
(28:14):
You absolutely knocked me overwith it, it's just fantastic to
be able to hear something from adifferent perspective ok, thank
you, mate.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
What I loved, what I loved about this song actually,
there was a few songs like this,because I worried about it as
well I mentioned the last thingI wanted to do was use it as
background audio and I felt thatit was important.
At times throughout the recordI felt it was important that the
music overpowered the audiosometimes, because that felt
(28:43):
like a natural balance to me.
I felt if it just constantlysat at a kind of sort of you
know, a generic sort of level ofvolume against the audio at the
time, then it would then itwould feel like background.
So I felt it was important thatit kind of ebbed and flowed and
what was really useful for doingthat was these individual sort
of bird calls.
(29:04):
The peregrine falcon was one umwhere it would just pierce out
over the audio and it didn'tmatter what I did.
It would just because of theshrillness of them, because of
the frequencies it had.
It would just kind of like fireout of nowhere anyway, and it
didn't.
It wouldn't matter howoverpowering the music was, it
would still kind of find thespace um, which I really quite I
found quite beautiful.
I really really enjoyed it.
(29:24):
The other track actually thatwas very much like that was the,
the.
I'm just trying to find it here.
Let me have a look.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
The Snipe.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, that was it absolutely.
Oh, I love the Snipe.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Because you were saying you should give him
credits for the music.
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I think it was.
What was the name of that song?
Oh it's.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Was it Small Mercies, not Small Mercies.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Was it Small Mercies?
It was Small Mercies, Not SmallMercs it was.
Was it Small Mercs?
It was Small Mercs.
Yes, Sorry, I've got my noteshere.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
See, that's the same thing, but with the Snipe I let
the microphone just record theambient sound and let it have,
you know, 360 degrees of sound,instead of just picking out one
solitary species and thenisolating that.
Yeah, absolutely, because whatI really liked about the snipe
(30:27):
was it reached these heights andit's not calling.
It's the wing movement that'smaking that sound.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Oh, is it really.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, it's not going.
Oi, mate, come over here andrecord this bit.
No way, it's just that, no way.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
So it's purely going, Oi mate, come over here and
record this bit.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
It's just that.
So it's purely sound from thewings.
So as it reaches heights andcomes down and swoops around,
you get that kind of depth offield in the sound.
You never know where it'scoming from.
If you're sitting thererecording it and you're sitting
on a stool with your headphoneson, you have no idea where the
(31:02):
hell it is.
All it is is just you know itspresence.
Seriously, and again, youcomplimented that.
I love that.
I love small muscles, Thank you.
It's very hard for me to saythere's one that's better than
the other.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
The thing that I love most about that and that kicked
off the whole song.
I had no idea it was a snipe I'mincredibly close with all that
stuff but when I heard it itsounded to me like those sort of
90 record skip effects thatthey would use to sort of do
these transitions and things.
(31:38):
I just love the idea of usingit like that, that sort of like
do these kind of transitions andthings.
I just love the idea of usingit like that, that sort of like,
really kind of like slothy kindof like.
And so the rest of the song isbasically the whole style of the
song built itself around theidea that that would be used as
that sort of sound for thattransition, which I thought was
really, really cool.
I really enjoyed working onthat one as well.
(32:01):
And again, I think you canmaybe tell listening to the
songs that come later, the songsthat were written later, they
have a bit more kind ofproduction in them, because I'm
kind of working with that'sundermining the first track, I
think, if you stick it into oneand working with them.
That's undermining the firsttrack.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I think if you stick it into one and do a shuffle
play, you're going to get abonus, whatever comes up first.
They're just so brilliant andthey're so different and, like I
say, you complement the naturalsounds itself.
Going forward with everything,you're hoping to continue to
(32:47):
explore that kind of fusion ofmusic in nature with projects?
Because I'd love, I'd love it.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
There's been a real, genuinely the moment.
It's been a real kind of um, areal eye-opener for me.
I think every writer, everymusician who finds themselves
writing commercially or doingartist stuff or whatever it is,
you do end up doing things.
(33:14):
Just because you do them andbecause you're working with
other co-writers or other bandsor things, you get into these
formulated patterns of writingand putting things together.
I think everybody does that.
The difference with working on aproject like this is that
you're stripped of all sort ofexpectancy with regard to
anything like that.
So it's really just you andyour artistic interpretation of
(33:37):
what you feel it should be andthe freedom of doing that has
just been really, reallyenjoyable and quite um, I don't
know, for want of a betterexpression artistically healing.
I think you know just like it'sreally nice to just go back to
sort of feeling like you're akid and just sort of write music
for the love of doing it,without really caring about
(34:00):
where it goes or what kind ofpurpose it has.
It's just to make it the best.
Well, I'll definitely keepdoing it.
I've really, really enjoyed it.
And again, like um, like I,since I was a kid, I've always
been around in nature.
I walk miles and miles.
I walk everywhere.
You know, oh it, I can sort ofgreenery and stuff like that
(34:21):
very, very regularly, and myfamily are all like that as well
.
So it's been a marriage of twothings that are really important
to me.
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
So going forward with all that, do you have any
favourite locations, say forScotland?
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, I think the Western Isles would be one.
I would love to spend a bitmore time getting into.
It's a part of the world that Ihaven't spent a lot of time in,
but the time that I have spentthere has been deeply, deeply
special to me.
I think it's just an amazingpart.
You could spend years justdoing the Western Isles.
(34:58):
It's just an incredible place.
Yeah, I would love to do it.
I would certainly love to domore.
I lived in the Highlands as wellfor years.
I lived on the Black Isle justoff the Moray Firth for a long
time when I was a kid, so thatpart of the world has got a
really special meaning to me aswell.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I would certainly love to do more Highlands and
the beauty of that is itinspires you to write.
You know, it seems like you cangive you the sound, tell you
where it's from and you justpours air to you, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
I know how to do it.
You're not getting stagnant inany way, you just produce it.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, that, in any way.
You just produce it.
Yeah, that that's.
That's a huge fucking talent,mate.
Well, thank you.
No, it's well the enjoyment ofdoing it, as as uh, as I weighed
everything else, it's reallybeen, it's been a tonic.
I've really really yeah, it's.
I can't thank you enough forinvolving me.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It's been amazing, mate it's my honor mate my my
final destination, where I, you,I want to end up when I get
burnt and chocked and scatter myashes is just the other side of
Skye.
I love it around there.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
I absolutely love it and Lollapalooza and all these
places very special.
And just the recordings fromthere.
There I can chuck it into myarchive, listen to the stuff and
I'm jettisoned right back tothat and time stands still.
You know, it's untouched, it'sbeautiful and you can.
(36:33):
Basically it's one of thoseplaces on earth that you can go
back to 20 years later and itstill stays the same and I hope
it stays that way, you know youcan go back to 20 years later
and it still stays the same.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And I hope it stays that way, you know.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, Icompletely agree.
I spent a lot of time,especially up the sort of up,
the real, real north of Scotland.
You start getting towards sortof Ullapool and Wick and all
these kind of places.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
I love it up there.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
There is something really, really special about
that part of the world.
But on that note, actually oneof the tracks the lows that I
wrote was on Culloden Moor,which so when I grew up on the
Black Isle we looked out overthe Moray Firth and you could
see Culloden Moor from thewindow.
(37:18):
So it was again a place thathas been a part of my sort of
history, and it was when yousaid you had recordings from
there.
It was one that was really keyon doing.
But what was your time likethere?
Speaker 1 (37:31):
On Culloden.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
It's that sense of being there, you know, just
being surrounded by theincredible darkness of it it's.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
That's what I was really hoping you were going to
say, because I I I thinkeveryone feels the same on cold
in there.
There's just an eeriness to,isn't there like a weight and a
sort of yeah?
Speaker 1 (37:54):
when you think of the clans, who who dropped you the
fighting and the battle, I couldprobably still find shot and I
think today you could stillprobably do that and it's that
untouched yeah but it, it's.
It's just that when you'restanding there on the moor
itself and the wind's justblowing through you and you,
(38:15):
just you could almost go back.
You know 300 years and say lookat this, it's beautiful, it's
very atmospheric, it's veryeerie, it's very dark.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And it's a place of utter respect.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
You don't get many of that.
There's a kind of feeling onCulloden Moor that I get when I
go down into Glencoe.
Yeah absolutely.
When you're riding from RannochMoor and you go down into
Glencoe and you've got thosebeautiful hills just either side
of you and the clouds, the mistin the mountains and those
(38:56):
reflective sounds, you know,when there's no cars going
through the glen and you get theplaintive sounds of eagles
coming from the top and thecalls of willets and stuff, it's
just fantastic.
There's a few places like thatin Scotland.
I'd like to be able to createthe atmosphere of Bannachburn as
(39:20):
well, but I've never succeededin being able to do that
atmosphere of um bannockburn aswell.
But I've never succeeded inbeing able to do that because
it's too noisy yeah yeah, yeah,you know, you got sterling
bridge and you've got all thereand I've dropped a mic down
there and I thought, well, Icould be in bloody london really
yeah, it's just just not rightit's funny because I would love
to know similar with Glencoe,but I think particularly for
(39:43):
Culloden.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
I would love to know if it is the knowledge of
history that gives it thatdarkness and weight for the
beholder, because I kind of get.
I've also got this weirdfeeling that if you just plonked
somebody there without anyknowledge of where they were, I
think they would probably stillget a feeling of it, for
whatever reason.
(40:05):
Maybe that's not true, but Idon't know.
For me, there's a presence tobeing there that is unlike
anywhere.
I've really been elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I find that about Scotland as well, though I find
there was a thing.
There's a ritual that I alwaysdid.
I'd go up to Scotland probablythree, four times a year, and
when I got to Gretna I was thefirst one diving out the car to
go and kiss the Scotland sign.
It's just stupid, and a mate ofmine is from Ireland.
(40:38):
He used to try and race me tothe sign and trip me up.
You know it was that.
And then you, on the way backdown, you know the m6, when the
74 went to the m6, he'd stickhis finger up.
You know, you see, england,it's just that crazy crap that
that you just have, and it'salmost like time stands still,
(41:02):
and you know the music and thesounds are there bottled up
forever absolutely.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yeah, I agree.
I think it's similar if wespeak about the Glencoe track as
well, actually, which I've yetto send you.
I'm working on it.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I can't wait for that one.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
It's called Than Water, as in thicker than water,
and very similar to theCulloden one I spoke about this
earlier to you, actually where Ireally didn't want the lyrics
to reflect the human history ofthe places that you recorded in,
but it's really hard not to aswell.
(41:47):
Do you know what I mean, becauseyou're just very aware of why
these places are the places theyare, and there is similarly
like a real eeriness to Glencoe,I find, but it's also one of
the most spectacularly beautifulplaces I've ever been in my
entire life.
It's absolutely astonishing.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
It's wonderful, it's wonderful mate what was?
Speaker 2 (42:11):
do you remember your time there?
Speaker 1 (42:15):
all the time.
I think if it wasn't and,seriously speaking, if it wasn't
for my illness at the moment, Iwould pack my bags and I'd go
and find a place a Weedcroft orwhatever up there.
But the cold.
I look at you sitting in afleece and I'm thinking it's
(42:36):
still there.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
A fleece and shorts man.
Do you know what I mean?
Oh my God, there you go.
That's proper Scottish for you.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
It's 18 Celsius here in Florida and it's bloody
freezing for me.
And then when I think of I'vegot a guy, a mate of mine who
lives up in Blair Athol and youknow I talk to him once a week
and so on, I said what's thetemperature?
And he'll tell me like it's 3Celsius and I didn't say
(43:08):
anything about you know it's 17here, I'm freezing.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
And he said you wee lollipop he's not doing too bad
in Blair Athol, to be fair.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
I mean to be honest but I just love it there's.
There's just something, as I'vesaid, I, you know, keep on
saying it's like time stoodstill.
They, they bought out a a soapopera thing up there in 89 90
(43:39):
and I think it was called StrathBlair, which was filmed with
Ian Carmichael and it was set inBlair Athol and it was up in
the glens and the reason why wasit, no it wasn't that?
no, it wasn't as bad as my ownway of scoring it was bad, but I
(44:00):
think the director of the BBCscrapped it after two seasons.
But the reason they picked thatarea was because you, you could
be in 1950, you could be in1870, you could be wherever you
know, and it's it's justuntouched yeah, not totally and
that the the stories behindsound.
(44:22):
You know, I always say apicture tells a thousand words,
but sound tells a thousandpictures yeah and every time I
listen to stuff I get that urgeto want to go back.
I haven't been back to scotlandsince uh, for three years and I
gotta, like a tes Tesla car,you've got to plug in, get your
(44:42):
charge up and I need.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
I need to do that as soon as I can it's funny because
I mean, I'm obviously I'm stillhere and I do a lot of
travelling while working thingswhich you know can be testing,
but I love, I love learning andI've always as well, because
working on this project, youknow, I am lucky.
Do you know what I mean?
The walks that I go on on adaily basis and the weekends
(45:07):
that I have and the places thatI see and the things that are
within I absolutely envy you.
It is amazing.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
I really do envy you.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Thank you, yes, and you know don't get me wrong if
you'd asked me this four weeksago, in the depths of January,
and it's pissing down every day,and it may have been slightly
different, but See, that's,that's the reality check.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
That's what stops me from packing up my bags and
going.
I actually I looked at a placein Inverness.
I thought, well, what would Ilike to do?
I'd love to go out and recordthe Highlands again and just do
the stuff that I'd you know.
Go and record the places that Idid 20 years ago, 30, 40 years
(45:43):
ago and see how much change, youknow, has happened in there,
which I doubt very much.
But I looked at a bed andbreakfast in Inverness and the
guy was wanting to retire and Ithought, could I do?
Speaker 2 (45:59):
that.
And then that weather thingcome in again you know, it gets
cold up there, it's bloody cold.
It's cold up there, mate.
Yeah, it really does.
Yeah, it's a funny thing thoughas well, because I think, being
Scottish, there's a certainlyfor me.
Anyway, I love the elements aswell.
There's something about walkingface first into a driving wind
(46:23):
that I don't know.
There's a life to it.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
A lot of people call that craziness.
Yes, probably.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
But I don't know, there's a weird I don't know
sort of energy from it as well.
It gets the barbarian in mehumming.
Whatever it is, but no, I guessjust to sum up the album from
my point of view I had no ideawhat it was going to sound like
(46:51):
before I started writing it,which, again, is not normally
the case.
Normally there's some kind ofloose concept.
So to start from scratch andand write something purely just
off of your collaboration and I,I really think it's important
that it's stressed that itreally has been a collaboration
as well.
(47:11):
You know, it really has beenwork, working in tandem between
both sets of audio.
Um, it's just been, it's been amassive pleasure.
I've really, really enjoyed it.
It's been absolutely humongous.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
For me, it's been very humbling, it's a fabulous
experience.
And then, of course, I got tomeet you in London, so that was
cool.
That's the cherry on the cake.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
I get it.
It's maybe just me being softy,but it's funny, because we met
at Abbey Road Studios, which initself was ridiculous.
But I was kind of just walkingdown the hall looking for you
and then you came out with theglow and it felt like I'd known
you for years.
You know what I mean just goinginto that session and stuff.
(47:55):
It's been a great experience.
I can't thank you enough forinvolving me in it.
It's been brilliant.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
I thank you, mate.
Thank you enough for involvingme in it.
It's been brilliant.
Thank you, mate, thank you, andI'm looking forward to putting
this thing out there and lettingpeople see and listen to how
brilliant you are.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
It's an absolute pleasure.
Like I say, I'm really pleasedboth sets of audio are going out
and people can hopefully beinspired themselves as well to
go and be part of of what you'redoing and you know what, what
is out there in terms of theirown environments and things as
well, because it's just like Isay it's been, it's been
transformative for me creativelyand uh, yeah, it's been
(48:33):
brilliant really Wrap up now.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
You've just experienced another journey on
the Listening Planet podcast.
Dive deeper into the world ofnatural sounds by connecting
with us online.
Visit our website or follow uson social media.
Let the symphony of naturesurround you wherever you go.
(49:03):
Happy listening.
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