I am just back from the Audio Foundation Autumn residency with 8 hours of ideas.

The residency was open in terms of output. No external pressure to “make a thing”, just a chance to nudge some ideas into the light. After a few days of pulling a random array of instruments out of cupboards and off shelves, I settled on working with 6 organs, a prepared piano, a glock, a selection of bowls and sound makers kindly lent by Chris O’Connor and two metal trolleys.

Jeff Henderson, AF director, generously mic’ed everything up, set me up with a recording session on Reaper, we set levels and he left me to it. It is rare that the gig room at AF is unscheduled for such a long period, but the clustering of stat holidays resulted in a gig void, some time off for the AF team and an empty room for me.

It was a new experience recording in a large space for days at a time alone. It took a while to drop into that mental space where the rest of the world fades and your focus narrows to only what you’re making. I value these times out of time so much.

I didn’t really have a plan. I knew I wanted to bring home a collection of tones and drones but beyond that I just played for hours, listened back, culled the dross and kept ideas I felt I could develop. Once I had a first cluster of ideas down from each instrument, I moved everything from AFs computer to my laptop and began overdubbing. This was a more familiar way of working, layering new sounds and ideas up in real time, playing along with myself.

When I’m working like this I often take and make videos. They help me see the sound as well as hear it. Below is an example.

Huge thanks to the Audio Foundation (especially Jeff and Sam) for the invitation and opportunity to spend 8 days researching and developing new work. Thanks for making me welcome and making it easy.