Digging into London: Expressing History

The news is hot at the moment with archaeological discoveries being made by the banks of the Walbrook in the City of London. I'm following it on Twitter with my curiosity piqued and my brain cells firing. Over the years, I have also read some of the more lengthy descriptions of past London digs such as No.1 Poultry, studied photographs of the bombed out City, St. Paul's standing proud, the hollow shell of St Bride's on Fleet Street and visited many times the far older walls of earlier churches revealed on the same site. History made physical is fascinating. The discovery of the history under our feet tends to be met by our population with an enduring curiosity and wonder.

To be able to work with such a subject is a humbling experience. The further away human culture can be found the more I feel we peer into it, like a mirror, wondering if that we look into that darkness for long enough something will emerge, perhaps a reflection of our own very human selves.

It seemed appropriate to me to look again at a project from 2011, one which was designed to do just that, to bridge the sounds of "now" with the sounds of "then".

The Diespeker Wharf brief was to condense everything that had ever been on one site into 5 minutes. Being London, the site has been exceptionally busy, from Romans to revolt, preaching to pleasure, inns to industry. A story of London men and women and, being by the canal, also of barges! The piece showed the cycles of building up and taking down. What stands now is what was left of its last incarnation, now converted into offices.



History is an enormous subject. It is always an educative and satisfying experience to work with it in different ways in sound, in music, in imagery, in the pieces I make.

So, here is the Diespeker Wharf Project again, recorded live. Identify the eras as they pass, history flying before your eyes.
Why does the drive of a Roman army seem to match the persistency of our drum and bass, how does the noise of industry blend with the syncopation of Latin rhythms? Perhaps we make everything after our own internal rhythms.

Ronan, a field archaeologist at the Walbrook site

image from the blog Walbrook Discovery by MOLA 

Go there to follow the progress and find out more.

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The Diespeker Wharf Project

This project offered the opportunity for me to do something a little more different. The initial concept was to create a narrative free soundtrack which would reflect the long history of the site. The commissioning company supplied some history research and we used that as our springboard to create our more detailed storyboard and develop the visual style it was to have along with the sound styles and genres that would integrate with it.
I worked in collaboration with The Projection Studio using the pattern of working and exchange which we have always found to work well in the past and I was given some freedom around timings which allowed for some variations in sound texture to really be effective. That said, the stereo soundtrack forms a continually shifting and changing series of beats, sounds and musical phrases which blend some of the elements of soundscaping with musical rhythms.
The most gratifying element of this for me was that it focussed on London history and as a Londoner, and still London-based, it was really satisfying to create a piece based around history that I know first hand. I've always felt very strong roots here, a love for the history and being in Islington, around the corner from where a good friend of mine was raised had a personal resonance.

The footage embedded here was actually filmed in 16:9 but for some reason is on Vimeo in 4:3. The piece was shown once live, and then once more by special request as an encore.




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Autumn 2011 Update

It may appear that not a lot has been happening over the past few months as I haven't posted.
I find that many projects go through certain stages and at the earliest stages I prefer to focus on the work at hand rather than create posts about it.
I have been a little behind as some projects have completed in the interim so in this post I will give a brief round-up of what has been happening and speak about the individual projects in their turn.
So, here's the update:

EARLIER THIS YEAR: A son et lumiere I programmed last year has won an industry award. I programmed the historical piece for the Purana Quila in Delhi to form part of the cultural programme for the Commonwealth Games in India last year.

The Edinburgh Military Tattoo took a new step forward as the new stands allowed for better positioning of technology and new inclusion of lighting technology. Very pleasing and exciting from a projecting point of view.

THIS MONTH: The Diespeker Wharf Project son et lumiere, a private commission, went live and was hugely successful. I created the soundtrack for that work, which covered 2000 years of history of the site.

COMING SOON: I have been invited back to the Illuminating York Festival this October to re-exhibit my sound work, 'Contours'. This is very exciting for me to be part of exploring a new interpretation of York's heritage and history after 'Accendo' in 2008 and 'Rose' in 2010.