2001

I caught the final screening of the IFI's 2001: A Space Odyssey 70mm screenings last week, and have been reading up about the production and cultural aftermath of the film. What became hugely apparent while viewing in a cinema (as opposed to watching at home) was how vacuum-like the theatre becomes during those silent space scenes, with only a low rumble of LFE for any atmosphere. The audiences automatic reaction to quieten themselves even further creates the tensest atmosphere you can imagine. 

The subjectivity of our perception of loudness is greatly reliant on contrast. After we are exposed to sounds of high intensity, the stapedius reflex, or auditory reflex, contracts the muscles in our middle ear, reducing our perception of loudness. “Filmmakers often ignore the fact that continuous loud sound is no longer perceived as loud by the audience because the aural reflex ‘turns down the volume,’ making the scene less effective than expected.” So silence is crucial for the perception of loudness. - Sonic Centaurs: An Exploration of the Common Grounds Between Music and Sound Design

Kubrick uses this effect beautifully when weaving the score and sound design of the film. Ligeti's Requiem (used without the composers permission!) taps into something primordially terrifying as we approach the monolith on the Moon, and peaks with the deafening tone emitted by the the monolith, before cutting to the dead silence of space as we join the 'Discovery' craft on it's voyage.

It can be taken for granted, but the quality of the voices and delivery in 2001 is exceptional. There is famously little dialogue in the film, but from Heywood Floyd's throaty G-Man pipes, Dave Bowman's passively detached tone, to the centrally important and unforgettable HAL9000, voices are a huge part of the film's sound design.

Though Richard Branson might try to persuade us otherwise, Kubrick knew that space travel would be profoundly boring. We feel the painstaking tedium of life on board a space station, the arduousness of maintaining the human body in a hostile, sterile environment.  A significant part of the soundtrack aboard the Jupiter mission is simply – and effectively – that of human breathing. - BBC Classical Music

This applies to the speech of the astronauts. They've been travelling for months, alone. All is routine by now and they have little to say to each other, or little conviction in what they do have to say.

It's not the most sound-centric film out there, and it seems that Kubrick was much more concerned that the visuals should tell the greatest part of the story, yet still the sparse sound of 2001 is carried out intelligently and with great effect.

Excellent BBC discussion on 2001 featuring Keir Dullea and Garylockwood

The crucial standoff scene between Dave and HAL, but with a Bob's Burgers twist. Unfortunately audio channels are messed up and only from left channel.

The Impossible Address on Inisheer

Last weekend Martin Sharry, Timmy Creed and myself gave a special performance of The Impossible Address on Inisheer island, the place that inspired the work.

 

The weekend began on a fraught note, with me making the last ferry from Rossaveal with only 10 minutes to spare, thanks to several delaying incidences. 

To try and further develop the ideas in the show, we decided to  hold a sound walk on the island before the show. The intention behind it was primarily that it might 'activate' the listening of the participants before the show, and hopefully allow them to engage with the show more readily. 

Myself and Martin carried out a recce of the route on the misty Saturday morning. Even though there is a stillness to the island, we identified three particular acoustic atmospheres to the route. Looking across the Foul Sound between Inisheer and Inishmaan we could see Galway Hookers sailing in the mist. 

The weather, unpredictable by a factor of ten this far west, didn't work in our favour for the sound walk. After a beautiful afternoon, the curtains of mist descended again. The first half of the walk was an isolating experience. I had asked everyone to walk with some distance between them and the person in front, and to refrain from talking. This silent march was made more sombre by the rain, wind and almost total absence of bird song. 

We stopped at tobar Éanna, a well that in folklore has the power to heal. We made the decision to turn back due to the weather, which of course, once we had set on our way back, cleared and provided some glorious sounds and sights. The most interesting contrast was the bursting back into life of the sound of the island. Once the wind had died down and some shafts of sunlights had broken through the cloud, the birds began to sing loud and in multitudinously. I handed my recording gear around to allow people to listen through the microphones, and note the difference in perception.

We arrived back to carry out the performance of The Impossible Address which for various reasons had an intensity that wasn't present at the previous performances at the Collaborations festival. It was a good experience, though probably left some of the audience feeling uncomfortable. Not necessarily a bad thing either. 


Eclipse

A whole lot of newspaper column and webpage was filled in the last number of days hyping up the solar eclipse that occurred this morning. Some less reputable papers had 'experts claiming' that animals would be driven to 'unpredictable behaviours' by the eclipse - as vague a threat as you'll find.

There were also claims that the soundscape would fall silent as birds became confused about the time of day. I decided to record for a while to see if I could hear it myself.

While there wasn't a complete dead stop to the bird song, it definitely quietened down during the eclipse. I have a feeling that city birds may already suffer confusion thanks to artificial lighting, so that may account for the groups that continued singing even as it went dark.

The white rectangle highlights the birdsong. You can see it reducing as the eclipse reaches it's peak.

The white rectangle highlights the birdsong. You can see it reducing as the eclipse reaches it's peak.


Winter Chorus

One of the highlights of Spring is the return of the dawn chorus. It's something I miss most about living in the country, having taken the sound for granted when I was younger. But it isn't as singular a time of year to hear birdlife as might be thought.

In 2013, I finally had the means to attend the course run by Chris Watson and Jez Riley French as part of the Wildeye school in Norfolk. There, I recorded a morning chorus as rich as any I have heard before, but this was in early December. I've had it sitting on my hard drive, with the intention of doing something with it, but think it best now to make it available for listening.