The Ice Mountain | King’s Place, London 2020

“Our Artist in Residence for Nature Unwrapped, Chris Watson, has created a sound calendar of environments from the northern hemisphere. In November and December you will be hearing sounds from the Tunabreen glacier on the island of Svalbard. Come early to enjoy the installation beginning half an hour before the performances in Hall One.”

Chris writes: “At latitude 78 degrees north, the progress of the Tunabreen glacier on the island of Svalbard towards the Arctic Ocean is fractional in winter. The movement of this massive river of ice is imperceptible but not silent. The sheer weight of freshwater ice at the head of the glacier shifts and grinds everything in its path and my hydrophones, fixed deep into a narrow crevasse, reveal an uncanny heartbeat-like pulse.

Further towards the ocean, house-sized blocks of ‘pressure ridges’ fracture, and their subsequent vibrations seem reminiscent of 1960s pioneering electronic music.

Finally, the freshwater shards mix and merge with the frozen slush of coastal sea ice and create a waveless coastline, below which bearded seals sing their haunting songs in the blackness”

This sound installation can be heard from 13 November until the end of December 2020 ahead of all Nature Unwrapped concerts taking place in Hall One. Access to the installation requires a concert ticket for the relevant main event in Hall One.

Ears to the Ground

www.kingsplace.co.uk/magazine/features/the-ice-mountain-sound-installation-by-chris-watson/

organ reframed, London | 27-28th March 2020

On the 27th March 2020 the fourth annual organ reframed returns to Union Chapel with a programme packed full of innovative music. Alongside headline performances, the two-day international festival will also feature talks, masterclasses, an interactive soundscape and family-friendly workshops.

organ reframed launches with three new works composed and performed by artists known for redefining their fields: Anna von Hausswolff renowned for her gothic organ creations, enigma Abul Mogard a synth visionary, and Ipek Gorgun a composer of energetic, textural masterpieces. All three works for organ, electronics and the London Contemporary Orchestra will push Union Chapel’s sonic possibilities to the extreme.

The Saturday afternoon will see the chapel transformed by sounds and rhythms echoing the seasonal shift of the Highland year. This free installation by Chris Watson and Claire M Singer will feature the wind, weather and animals of Scotland. These sounds will interact with the organ played by James McVinnie, Katherine Tinker and Jacob Lekkerkerker.

The festival concludes on Saturday evening with the world premiere of Voci del Vento by Chris Watson and Claire M Singer. This collaborative work will combine organ, field recordings, modular synths, the London Contemporary Orchestra and Choir to transport audiences on an epic journey from pole to pole.

Chris Watson, is a founding member of the influential experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire. He is famously known for his recording of wildlife sound for David Attenborough’s documentaries and his ground-breaking work on Grammy nominated Chernobyl, with Hildur Gudnadottir. His 2003 release Weather Report was voted as one of the 100 best albums to hear before you die by The Guardian.

Speaking about the festival Chris Watson said, “I’m thrilled by the prospect of bringing the natural world into the musically inspiring environment of Union Chapel and collaborating with Claire M Singer for the next Organ Reframed”. Claire M Singer is known for her experimental approach to the organ and for her critically acclaimed releases on the prolific label Touch.

organ reframed is brought to you by Union Chapel Project, in partnership with the London Contemporary Orchestra and Spitfire Audio with generous support from Arts Council England and the Institute of Physics.

Tickets and full line up information are now available from Union Chapel

Chris Watson In-Conversation, The Serpentine Gallery | 25th November 2019

The Field Recording Show #3 – Kate Carr with Chris Watson

Tree’s a Crowd; Chris Watson Podcasts with David Oakes

Part One: The winds catching the conifers – and the secrets of the dawn chorus, Aug 26 2019. Chris Watson, president of the Wildlife Sound Recording Society, joins David Oakes in this episode of Trees A Crowd

Part Two: If a podcast is recorded in a forest, and no one is around to hear it… Sept 9 2019. Chris Watson, president of the Wildlife Sound Recording Society, joins David Oakes in this episode of Trees A Crowd

 

Caught by the River @ Port Eliot | 25-28th July 2019

Caught by the River at Port Eliot Festival 2019

Chris Watson – “Glastonbury Ocean Soundscape” [Touch # Tone 73]

DL Download – 1 track – 5:28

Release date: 1st July 2019

Photo by Chris Watson

Track listing:

1. Glastonbury Ocean Soundscape 5:28

Now available on Bandcamp

Ocean Soundscape, as played on the main stage at The Glastonbury Festival on 30th June 2019 immediately prior to Sir David Attenborough’s address, describes a journey from the Antactic to the Arctic…

Songs of marine mammals, including bearded and weddell seals, recorded and composed by Chris Watson.

Between the Ears: The Signal-Man, BBC Radio 3 | 30th June 2019

A signalman on a remote stretch of East Yorkshire railway is visited by a lone traveller in this drama-documentary written by poet Ross Sutherland. Inspired by a Charles Dickens ghost story, and featuring nature recordings by renowned wildlife recordist Chris Watson.

The Oxmardyke Gate Box is one of the last in the UK to use antiquated mechanical bells to carry semaphore-style messages up and down the line. Soon this system of “absolute block signalling” will pass into history, as computers take over. The bells, like the humans who listen for them, will no longer be needed.

In this feature fusing fact and fiction, the poet Ross Sutherland visits Oxmardyke to meet Dave Beckett, one of the last operators to use the bells. From their elevated position, the pair gaze out over the hinterland near the muddy Humber estuary. It’s an area of villages with Anglo-Saxon names: Gilberdyke, Broomfleet and Saxfleet, with remains of the monastery where the Knights Templar would return after international travel. The flat, reclaimed land has an eerie quality, accentuated by a strange local phenomenon known as a temperature inversion (where high density cold air becomes trapped by warm wetter air) causing sound to carry further, meaning passing trains loom larger and echo further than they ordinarily would.

Writer: Ross Sutherland
Contributor: Dave Beckett
Producers: Jack Howson and Joby Waldman
Sound Design: Chris Watson and Steve Bond

A Reduced Listening Production for BBC Radio 3

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006fk7

Project X: Tasmania | June 6th – 23rd 2019

Venture south and explore large-scale public art in Tasmania’s Huon Valley. Project X will present a series of major artworks in the Huon, with the aim of bringing visitors back to the south in the wake of the bushfires that recently ravaged the island.

Project X will open at Dark Mofo 2019 with Hrafn: Conversations with Odinby Chris Watson and The Wired Lab. More info about Project X artworks will be announced soon.

A DarkLab project, supported by the Australian government and the Tasmanian government through Tourism Tasmania, and Mona. DarkLab acknowledges the support of Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service, and Events Tasmania.

project-x.net.au

EartH Hackney, London | Sunday 19th May

The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish with Plants: A Festival on Plant Intelligence
EartH Hackney
11-17 Stoke Newington Road London N16 8BH
Sunday 19th May 1-11pm

Chris Watson, Salmo salar – The Three Realms, on location Croquet Head, commissioned by Serpentine Galleries and L-Acoustics on the occasion of The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish, 2019.

“Most people who bother to think about plants at all tend to regard them as the mute, immobile furniture of our world—useful enough, and generally attractive, but obviously second-class citizens in the republic of life on Earth.” (Stefano Mancuso)

The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish with Plants is a multidisciplinary festival that brings together artists, scientists, writers, anthropologists and musicians for talks, performances, screenings and listening sessions that raise and address some of the most urgent questions facing all of us.

www.serpentinegalleries.org/files/press-releases/gen_eco_-_press_release_final.pdf

Oceans of Noise: Science Weekly podcast

Wildlife recordist Chris Watson begins a three-part journey into the sonic environment of the ocean, celebrating the sounds and songs of marine life and investigating the threat of noise pollution

www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2019/may/03/oceans-of-noise-episode-one-science-weekly-podcast

A Sense of Time, BBC Radio 4 | 2nd April 2019

Does a second feel the same for a fly, a bird, or a swordfish, as it does for me? Geoff Marsh drills into the science of time perception within and between species.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0003qxf

“Sanctuary” Carlos Casas, Chris Watson, and Tony Myatt, EMPAC, Troy, USA | 22nd March 2019

After a devastating earthquake, Nga, an old elephant and probably the last of his kind, and Sanra, his mahout, embark on a journey to find the mythical elephant’s graveyard. A story of discovery and mourning in which the spectator becomes the protagonist, the film follows the duo as they are stalked closely by a group of poachers, who begin to die one after another under mysterious circumstances.

Carlos Casas’s Sanctuary offers a mesmerizing sonic and visual cinematic environment that immerses the audience in the sounds, textures, and hues of the jungle. Projected on the mega-screen in EMPAC’s Concert Hall, and featuring live Ambisonics, Wavefield Synthesis, and infrasound to induce a deep sense of physical closeness with the elephant, Sanctuary presents a unique sensorial experience that collapses the boundaries between art, nature documentary, and adventure film.

Chris Watson collaborated with the bioacoustician and elephant communication expert Joyce Poole to record the acoustic sphere of elephants. Tony Myatt developed the infrasound speaker and implemented the spatial audio. Both will perform live on the speaker systems installed throughout the hall. This is the US premiere of the project, which was previously presented at the Fondation Cartier, Paris; the Tate Modern, London; and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels.

empac.rpi.edu/events/2019/sanctuary

“Okeanos” Chris Watson and Tony Myatt – EMPAC, Troy, USA | 20th March 2019

Okeanos takes the audience on an auditory underwater journey around the globe. Years of recordings from pole to pole will be performed with three audio systems in the Concert Hall: a dome of 64 loudspeakers used to project sounds around the audience in an Ambisonic environment, a Wave Field Synthesis array, consisting of hundreds of small speakers placed above the audience, and a custom-built infrasound speaker used to create the lowest frequencies, which can be more felt than heard. The composition will include songs, signals, and vibrations from the smallest crustaceans to the loudest and largest animals ever to have existed.

Chris Watson and Tony Myatt will perform a version of the work specifically developed for EMPAC’s Concert Hall and its audio systems. This new version will also integrate sound materials recorded on the Northeastern coast of the US and humpback whale recordings from the Silver Banks (Dominican Republic).

empac.rpi.edu/events/2019/okeanos

Shadows & Reflections

Shadows and Reflections: the annual collection of postings in which our contributors and friends consider the events that’ve shaped the past twelve months. As we begin the new year, Chris Watson looks back on 2018

Shadows & Reflections: Chris Watson

CLOT Magazine: making audible the inaudible

CHRIS WATSON, making audible the inaudible

Words by Meritxell Rosell

www.clotmag.com/chris-watson

HELLH LE

Minds Meet presents:

HELLH LE

World Premiere at Berlinale Panorama 2019; HELLH LE has been selected for the Panorama program of the Berlinale 2019

Three starkly different people deal with the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Brussels in May 2016. A Flemish doctor, whose son is a fighter jet pilot on a mission in the Middle East, is forced to confront his loneliness. A young man from Algerian descent is asked by his brother to do him a deceivingly simple favour. An Italian woman, who works in the heart of the European Institutions, is slowly losing control under the pressure of her demanding life.

The same question that seems to haunt the city, looms over their lives: where do we go from here?

A Film By Bas Devos with Hamza Belarbi, Alba Rohrwacher, Willy Thomas, Lubna Azabal, Mieke De Groote, Amine Benhilal, Produced by Tomas Leyers, Marc Goyens, Coproduced by Petra Goedingsm Sibylle Smets, Nicolas Karakatsanis, Cinematography by Nicolas Karakatsanis, Production Design by Elsje De Bruijn, Edited by Dieter Diependaele, Sound Design by Boris Debackere, Additional Sound Score by Chris Watson, Rerecording by Benoit Biral, Music by James Kirby

SLOW RADIO – Midnight at the Oasis BBC Radio 3 | Thursday 6 December 2018

 24.00 – 00.30  

Sound recordist Chris Watson captures the changing soundscape from dawn to dusk in the Kalahari Desert in south western Africa. As the light fades, you can see very little but hear everything; from the close up sounds of insects to the far-carrying contact calls of spotted hyenas.  Producer Sarah Blunt.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05k5bq0

The Changing Sound of Radio BBC Radio 4e | Saturday 13th October 2018

Made for 4 Extra. Wildlife recordist Chris Watson examines some of the ways technology has changed the radio we listen to, from early experiments in sound to the podcast explosion.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bn22mh

BOILER SHOP PRESENTS: 100 YEARS, Newcastle | 10th – 11th November 2018

A Weekend of music and performance to mark the 100-year anniversary of the 1918 Armistice which ended the 1st World War

SATURDAY 10 & SUNDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2018 BOILER SHOP, NEWCASTLE

Sat 10th November – British Sea Power + Bas Jan

AM – Sun 11th November – Chris Watson + breakfast + Luke Turner (The Quietus) in conversation with Chris Watson + Richard Dawson.

PM – Sun 11th November – Shirley Collins

To mark the centenary of Armistice Day, Boiler Shop presents ‘100 Years’, a weekend of unique events curated by the venue’s Richard Clouston andDaveid Phillips with author and editor of The Quietus, Luke Turner.

Much loved UK institution British Sea Power will play on Saturday 10th November with support from London based experimental post punk trio Bas Jan, built around the remarkable and distinctive voice and songs of multi-instrumentalist Serafina Steer.

In the very early hours of Sunday 11th November, world-renowned sound recordist Chris Watson will present ‘A Nightingale on The Western Front’, a multichannel sound composition recorded in the battle sites of Flanders. This event will run from 5:00am to 7:30am on the Mezzanine for a limited audience of 80 people, followed by breakfast and a Q and A session with Chris andLuke Turner. Then a very special live show from Newcastle’s own Richard Dawson.

The weekend will conclude with a live show from the legendary English folk singer
Shirley Collins, who released her first album in 30 years, 2016’s brilliant ‘Lodestar’.

We hope 100 Years will be a poignant reflection on sacrifice and a dignified celebration of peace.

Tickets are available here