Man-Made Sound

Field Recordings and Soundscapes of Man Made Sounds

It is not only natural sounds that I am interested in – I enjoy many of the day to day sounds around us. Along with smell, sound is one of the strongest memory triggers and I find that listening to field recordings of many different places provide me with some of the best pictures in my imagination. They are almost unique at enabling us to put ourselves in the place of the sound heard and it is this quality that prompts my use of environmental field recordings in my StillWalks® videos.

I find travel sounds are particularly interesting and have recorded train journeys and buss trips. The first recording below was made on my iPhone after getting on a local bus for the first time in years and rediscovering the rattles and shakes, bumps and squeaks that are so often a marker of a journey like this. More sound clips can be heard on SoundCloud and you can follow me on bandcamp.

Sound for me is always accompanied by visuals, whether in actual images or in my imagination. The video below, Metalscape, is an example of sound and images I have put together where both have been used raw as well as  manipulated.

Metalscape
Metal Gates at Pontlliw
An old mechanical slide projector
The foyer of the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
M4 motorway traffic at Castell Ddu
This is perhaps the most challenging of these few sound clips. It is an unavoidable sound in many local environments but still has its nuances when listened to carefully.

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