Derivations
A guide to the musical collaboration and samples used track by track from
'THE NATURE OF THINGS' album.
1. A HEAD IN MY CHOSEN FIELD.
Bees feeding on a tall Echium plant by the side of our barn which is creaking as the wood expands in the hot sun. The distant sound of a tractor across the valley.
2. Libération de Poulet!
This is meadow sound of our chickens being let out in the morning. Some main samples are from a shake of the corn bucket, a sliding bolt being opened, the thump of a chicken landing on the shed floor, plus the many squawks and shrieks that are part of being a chicken.
3. ESSENTIAL FLY.
I was amazed by the efficiency of this band of brothers doing natures clean up after the chickens sloppy bomb hit town. Sucked up in about an hour. So it's the sound of them doing their thing. The beat is sampled from the sound of my own heart beat on my first lockdown walk to the coast down the Penberth valley.
4. EVENSONG.
A record of the conversation of the inhabitants of the meadow about 8pm captured by the orchard gate. Greenwood pecker, wood pigeons, corvids, distant dog and sheep across the valley, greater spotted woodpecker drilling and more.
5. FREQUENCY.
Green woodpecker, wood pigeon, a very loud carrion crow, chickens, greater spotted wood pecker, bees, the sound of my breath, caught as I walked up a steep path out of Penberth. At the top I was immersed into a woodland soundscape full of conversations. The title alludes to busyness of the place but also the range of frequencies to be heard there.
6. GREEN IS THE WOODPECKER.
Green woodpecker, corvids, woodpigeon. These are ever present in and over the meadow but the elusive woodpecker has set a very distinctive presence in what is very obviously his territory. The bpm is formed from the sound of my heart beat caught accidentally as I was recording the woodpecker with the mic tight to my chest to avoid the rumble of the wind.
7. MEADOW SOUND.
The sound of the cherry orchard where we keep our bantam chickens. It's early spring and the blossom is out in full. The trees are covered in bumble and honey bees of numerous varieties. Plus the sound of the Penberth river, my heart and breath as I climb out of the valley with our dog towards Treen.
8. THE POLYTUNNEL ENSEMBLE PART 1 AND 2.
It's evening and I am in the polytunnel. We have some large, (too large) Echiums, that have muscled in on the scene. I won't let anyone pull them up or rather chop them down because they attract so many bees. I was looking for a wind-free field recording of bees so here was the place to go. Also it was raining and that was something else I wanted capture. Observing the bees I watched as they flew into the skin of the polytunnel and made sounds similar to the rumble of a timpani drum. Bees on percussion with the general sound of the meadow in the evening rain.
9. GRASSMEN.
Late evening the sound of grassmen cutting the silage across the valley dominates the meadow.
10. TOY BIRD FIELD FUNK.
I came across three RSPB toy birds that sang their call when you squeezed them. Absent mindedly jamming with them like instruments in the meadow, I recorded them for fun. Chaffinch, Blue tit, Robin. Plus bees and a percussive beat provided by a chicken captured as it jumped down from the perch while I cleaned them out in the morning.
11. UNIDENTIFIED TALK OF THE FEATHERED KIND.
The sound of the Runnel stone, a tummy rumble, wood pecker, a dog, the valley river, bees, wood pigeon and dominating it, the sound of human like chatter from our chickens as they talked to each other prior to being fed.
12. WHENÂ GOOD THINGS COME TO PASS.
This is the sound of my heart beat at the very beginning of lockdown cutting up my Hammond organ with a saw in the barn in the meadow. Sadly no longer functional, I decided to perform a chop on it and re purpose it as a guitar amplifier.  This action and the song that grew out it became a kind of metaphor for my experience of lockdown.