Ecological soundscapes explored
Who they?
From the doom-y electronics of 2014’s ‘Chrysalis’ to the post-rave haunt of ‘Irregular Territories’ from 2018, Bristolian musician and producer Sophia Loizou has crafted a body of work that captures the essence of place in unique and distinct ways.
Why Sophia Loizou?
Alongside numerous and varied creative projects, Loizou also lectures at Goldsmiths in London while herself studying for a PhD, and it appears that her most recent project is another embodiment of that polymath spirit. ‘Untold’ combines evocative field recordings with affecting electronics to explore issues of ecology and climate. But the record is just one piece of a much larger project, consisting of a lecture performance, an audio-visual show and ‘A Tellurian Memorandum’ (a piece that uses poetry and sound art to examine “different aspects of entangled Earthly relationships”), the scope of which is much wider than anything she has created before. Being part of this larger body of work, the impact of ‘Untold’ feels deeper and more profound, with Loizou’s decaying drum ’n’ bass inflections underpinning a climatic foreboding that creeps through all nine of its tracks.
Tell us more…
The sense of ecological receptivity in Loizou’s work is acute. “My writing was triggered by lots of weird and changeable weather events, at home in the West Country and on trips to Scotland and Iceland,” she explains. And this is certainly palpable on tracks such as ‘Anima’ and ‘Vestal Waters’. While her previous work has also featured ferocious and evocative depictions of place, ‘Untold’ is the work of an artist truly connecting with the landscape around her. “I’m not the sitting still type” she says, “but when I stop and observe the world, I become transfixed by the shapes and movements of those natural forces.”
‘Untold’ is out now on Houndstooth
