Presented by The Radiophonic Institute and the Museum Of Sound, The Sound Of The Year Awards is an annual competition celebrating sonic life in its many forms from across the globe. We caught up with Mark Williamson, winner of the Children’s Category, which recognises “sounds and recordings that encompass the ideas of play and adventure”
Tell us about what’s happening in your recording…
“We recorded our sound in a classroom in Cornholme near Todmorden. Having planned it out the week before, we had all the necessary ingredients. We built the sound up in sections, the most fun was definitely sequentially snapping 12 sheets of dry lasagne across the stereo field! Once the whole sound was assembled, it was great to hear how the various parts coalessed into a piece of story telling.”
Your immediate reaction after making it?
“I was excited about what we had produced and I think the children were amazed that the sounds they had made with gravel, flour, drills, saws, straws, water and bubble wrap had become a coherent story about an ice fishing adventure.”
How do you feel listening to it now?
“The more I listen to the story, the more I feel it draws attention to the concerns of the young people who made it – namely climate change and habitat loss. Although this was not our conscious intention initially, I think perhaps the children’s underlying ideas crept in by the back door.”
What’s your background in making recordings?
“I have been using field recordings in musical work under my own name and my ‘spaceship’ project for many years. The albums ‘A Prospect Of Loughton Brook’ and ‘A Hole In The Ground’ were constructed mainly and wholly respectively from recordings gathered in Epping Forest and at a series of Royal Observer Corps Nuclear Monitoring Posts. I have also made many location specific pieces, taking synths and other instruments into the hills or up to ancient monuments.
“At the same time, I have been working with young people creating improvised music as the Primitive Percussion Youth Orchestra and it was once such group who created our sound for the competition.”
What inspires you?
“The landscape, ancient sites, thinking about how geology affects and area. With the children, a desire to give them experiences of music and sound making that extend beyond classroom norms into exciting and infinite possibilities.”
The best advice you’ve ever been given or would give?
“I think I’ve learned that there are no rules, no right or wrong ways and just to follow what you want to do and not be afraid.”
If you could only ever record one more thing, what would it be?
“The Maes Howe chambered tomb on Orkney during the winter solstice in 3000BC, just as a shaft of light from the setting sun penetrates the chamber.”
To find out more about the Sound Of The Year Awards, go to soundoftheyearawards.com
