Every morning, if we are awake, we can hear the Dawn Chorus. The sound of birds and insects and animals waking up. But what do we really hear? How do those sounds change around the world? And what about the underwater chorus? Can we hear that too? Today we speak with Grant Smith and Mort Drew, both part of the Soundtent collaborative that organizes the Reveil project – a 25 hour long streaming of the dawn chorus around the world. We talk about sound, listening, and working collaboratively in ecological sound projects. It was a fascinating conversation and we listen together to some streams – underwater and above ground.

The streams are pretty quiet so make sure to listen on headphones and turn up the volume when we listen. We talk about flat listening and I encourage you to practice that for today’s show.

Bios

Mort Drew is a creative technician and sound artist working on live audio broadcasts, antihierarchical sound systems, and installations. Their practice explores ephemerality, activist radio, grief and displacement. Their work appears as broadcasts, workshops, publications, sound devices and performances. Mort is co-director of the artist cooperative Soundcamp and co-founder of Associació So (Sound Association) a new sound art collective based in Catalunya.

Grant Smith is a British artist and writer working on sound, transmission, text, domestic and social projects in Loughborough Junction, South London. Smith co-founded the Soundcamp cooperative with Kirsty Collander-Brown and Maria Papadomanolaki in 2013 soundtent.org. Soundcamp’s Reveil (2014-2022), a 24 hour broadcast of the sounds of daybreak on International Dawn Chorus Day each year presented in partnership with Wave Farm and broadcast on WGXC 90.7-FM.

Reveil, an annual 24 +1 hour live radio programme, assembled and broadcast from a temporary station at Stave Hill Ecological Park in Rotherhithe. Real time streams are supplied by contributors around the world at daybreak. The primary feed is hosted by Wave Farm in the Upper Hudson Valley, New York, and aired by UK broadcast partners Resonance FM / Extra in London UK and a collection of FM and net radio stations.

Links

Mort https://mortimerdrew.co.uk/ @mort_drew

Grant https://self-noise.net/

Reveil https://soundtent.org/index.html @sound_camp

Waterhall Dew Pond Livestream: https://locus.creacast.com:9443/waterhall_dew_pond.mp3 Jasper Ridge Livestream: https://locus.creacast.com:9443/jasper_ridge_birdcast.mp3 The Locus Sonus Soundcamp where these streams are hosted and listeners can find other live microphones: https://locusonus.org/soundmap/ The Reveil webpage which will go live at 05:00 UTC+1 Saturday 03 May, this is where people can listen to Reveil, read about the individual streams that create Reveil, and join the IRC: https://soundtent.org/reveil/index.html#/ Our most recent call for streams, if listeners would like to contribute a live stream for Reveil: https://poetic-wallaby.pikapod.net/campaign/7ee8f1b6-8049-4dad-a091-92656b680f65/d51edb44-193c-4df4-8634-029f4da10b5a Link to the hydrophones we mentioned, distributed by David Rothenberg: https://www.terranovapress.com/books/aquabeat-hydrophone Link to Zach Poff’s work Pond Station: https://zachpoff.com/artwork/pondstation/

So much about sustainability is about change. Looking at where we are and where we want to go. But often sustainability planning feels like binary choices about technologies, policies, and projects. What if there might be a different way to think about that? Today we explore a different kind of metaphor – metamorphosis. Xayide, the alter ego of musician Aura Danielle Muñoz Barragán, has described how metamorphosis implies potential, that “the blueprint for transformation is always there”. We talk about how those ideas of potential and transformation are part of music, sounds, and “the fluidity of life”.

Links and bio

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/xayidemusic/

Chrysalis https://renatura.bandcamp.com/album/chrysalis

Label re:natura https://www.instagram.com/label.re.natura/

A special live edition of sustain.fm featuring drusnoise performing the composition ‘There is no separation’. drusnoise explores the sociomaterial world through light, plants, radio, electromagnetic radiation, heartbeats, and carbon dioxide concentration data. The improvised composition and performance questions the story that we are separate from nature. That nature is separate from us. That nature is for us to control. But we are a part of nature. Nature is part of us. There is no separation. drusnoise performs with modular synthesizers, samplers, sensors, electro-acoustic instruments, climate data and poetic explanations of the performance element with vocals by Erbse followed by an artist talk and Q&A.

Recorded live at RBL.LAB Berlin 22.01.2025

Many thanks to Dario and the RBL team for technical support for the performance and live broadcast

Bio

drusnoise integrates analog modular synthesizers with digital FX and organic samples to create a style that flows from lush ambient tones to gritty techno. Known in the outside world as Dr. Steve Williams, his academic work includes conducting and publishing research on sustainable energy transition, sound, and energy justice in Canada, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. He brings plants, heartbeats, light sensors, sonified climate change data, quantum physics concepts, and air quality data to create sustainable live techno and sound art sets. drusnoise is a live, electronic music producer, sound artist, co-founder of Berlin Modular Society, curator of sustain.fm showcasing sound, music, and sustainabiility through live events and workshops, and the host of the Radio Banda Larga show ‘sustain’.

https://rbl.media/en/programs/sustain/

https://instagram.com/drusnoise

https://sustain.fm

Steve Williams’ researcher profile

https://www.sv.uio.no/iss/english/people/aca/stephegw/index.html

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=mHq_ZhEAAAAJ