Sound from a Town – Details, episodes & analysis

Spend some time with some chill chickens from Stamford Street allotments in Ellesmere Port. Clipped the mics to the chicken wire roof and left them for 30 mins. There may be standard background chat, the sound of planes, strimmers, cars, doors and windows closing or other suburban sounds, but the occasional cluck, trill, wing flap or the sound of the feeder helps to position you properly amongst the allotment plots.

Recorded on 31st July at around 7pm.

A recording of dawn chorus on Ince Marshes.

The protected nature reserve sits in the Stanlow marshland now occupied by heavy industry. Some of the heaviest - oil refineries, chemical plants, glass factories. 

As I arrived, as well as the familiar orange hue felting itself to the cloud cover above the oil refinery, what struck me was the noise of the Encirc glass factory dominating the soundscape of birds waking up and having a stretch of their vocal chords. 

I was left wondering whether this din affects the sound of the birds, whether they sleep okay, whether they get used to it, or if they see it as positive compitition. Either way, this soundclash is a pretty unique one, and another way to show how the lives of wildlife, machines, and humans are inexorably entwined in this place.

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Apparently the Pendleton Bowling and Social Club shut down not long after a pandemic, after the owners couldn't raise funds to keep it going. I used to live opposite, well after it shut, and with no other properly social venue within a 30 minute walk, even I missed this place. Kids run about in here, climb on the ledge outside, and chuck things at stuff. That's until a parent finds them and drags them away from the crumbling neighbourhood institution.  

Everywhere else in the building is pretty much pitch black thanks to boarded up windows, and aside from being light enough to film and record, there's something about this first floor bar area, where Christmas decorations were seemingly stored, where you can peer out on the world continuing outside of this pandemic snapshot, and where, like a deranged Jack Torrance, you can fill in the hubbub vacuum and empty, sodden sofas with imagined lively end of weekend conversations and old boys drinking mild in their Sunday best. Recorded on 28th April 2024.

I took the long route to Derwent Dam, walking south down the Ladybower Reservoir, then along the sheep fields on Crook Hill and beyond, and back to the Dam via Hagg Side, recording bits as I went, and ending on a recording of the overflowing dam. Like most rushing water, it's very white-noisey, which I quite like.

Derwent Dam was built in 1902, and the reservoir was used for practising Dambusters raids.

I used 2xClippys, a geophone to record one of the streams up close, and an F6.

Recorded on 11th April 2024.

www.georgepowell.online

From Cooper's Hill in Egham I recorded the mixture of birds and planes. I didn't edit too much, as I wanted the 'natural' rhythm of the planes to be close to what it was on the day. The loudest planes are those that head east after takeoff due to them turning and heading pretty much overhead. 

Used 2xClippys and an Audio Technica BP4025 as I find the Audio Technica gives the tones I want for recording machines. 

Recorded on the 28th March from midday.

www.georgepowell.online

Recorded at Alexandra Palace. Swapped places once while I was there. If you listen carefully, you can hear the screech of - I think - a hawk amongst the more common birds.

Recorded on 24th March, 05:30.

www.georgepowell.online

I recorded a bunch of sounds from different levels of the spiral starcase in the Feldstraße Bunker back in April. What you'll listen to is a non-linear edit of these sounds to try and convey the sense that the building is a living object, which is what I felt when I was in there. 

The bunker was used as a bomb shelter back in WWII, I believe. When I visited there was a load of rumbling and clanging construction going on outside which appropriately made it seem as though I was in the middle of a raid.

The concrete structure seemed to allow not only reverberations of the sounds up the spiral staircase, but also the memories of the historic use for the building.

www.georgepowell.online

An audio walk in Bedford on a Sunday, contrasting the sounds of St. John's Retail Park and St. John's Church.

You can read a more detailed write-up in a blogpost on my website here: https://georgepowell.online/blog/ 

Recorded on 12th March 2023.

Many businesses on the High Road thrive on match-days. Many don't. The businesses that suffer due to the council-enforced road closures, often barbershops, beauty salons and off-licenses and other retail, still have to pay the same business rates, despite many customers staying away when Tottenham play at home. In some instances, the till can be down more than half compared with a non-match day.

Here you can listen to Mem, who works in an off license, talk about how things have changed for him since the new stadium was built. You'll also hear fans talk about what they do once they hit the High Road, and the sound of roads being closed and match-day ambience.

A walk around Westminster on Thursday 19th January. From 12 bells to 1 bell.

Along with the sound of Big Ben, you can hear me get shouted at by police speeding through Parliament Square and the sound of many gates being closed and locked. There were also people protesting outside Downing Street, and I spoke to Geza Tarjanyi, who made headlines a week later for pushing Matt Hancock in a tube station.