I have started a monthly audio release called the counterfactual mixtape. You can read some intiial thoughts about the idea here, but essentially it’s a kind of audio sketchbook for collages of music experiments, field recording diaries and other found sound material. The mixtapes are an exploration of sound as a place for the what if, a way of creating other possible worlds by combining existing ones in interesting ways. I’m hoping it will also become a space for early stage collaborations, contributions from old and new friends, a sharing that is open to input, critique and exchange.
I’m distributing this using multiple routes, you can access it from any of the following:
Episode list
The content listings below each piece are only a set of pointers, it is the overlaps I’m really interested in, where the combination of existing places create other possible worlds.
February 2025 #1 Clearing the Throat
This first mixtape is an expulsion, a chance to clear both my mind and my hard drive. It’s a collage of small music sketches and field recordings, both from my everyday life and more intentional expeditions. There’s processed sounds here too, recordings that I’ve tried to x-ray, excavate or drill inside to find out what they’re made of. I’m weaving them together in a way that imagines my past inside different future scenarios and spaces.
0'00 Shinto shrine harmonics 01 1'10 Ham Wall Nature Reserve 2'05 resonant mechanics 01 3'30 Ise City alley 3'42 Bristol Cathedral choir rehearsals 4'15 roof window 4'46 cloud compressor sketch 01 5'52 baristas 6'30 gutter drones 6'45 ocean resonating through structures 7'11 gravel bugaku 7'43 nylon autotune 7'49 paper making hydro 8'50 botanical garden 9'07 waves through bells 9'43 Broadmead, Bristol 9'54 resonant mechanics 02 10'23 bells through structures 10'46 family piano, shinto drums 11'49 salt makers harmonics 12'24 Shinto shrine harmonics 02 13'24 Frenchay common 14'10 pulsar sketch 14'26 Futami 16'18 cave flutes 16'59 night walk 17'20 Bath high street 18'08 cloud compressor sketch 02 19'47 stray emf
March 2025 #2 Howling Architecture
Around the back of Temple Meads station in Bristol there are rows of newly built office and apartment blocks. Whether it was unpredictable or badly planned for, the shape and materials of these buildings seems to be responsible for incredibly loud and intense whistling tones that occur whenever the wind picks up a bit. This mixtape features a set of recordings of this soundmark, combined into duets with woodwind samples I’ve been playing with (courtesy of Spectres by Slate+Ash). There’s also some diary field recordings from Liverpool and more sketches from work in progress music, all rapidly and roughly woven together.
0’00 wind/woodwind duet 2’30 historial marker 3’26 spectral rooms, Liverpool 3’50 rowesound / spectral birds 6’00 Catholic Cathedral, Liverpool 6’20 Anglican Cathedral, Liverpool 7’14 sketch 89 part 1 7’33 spectral birds, Crosby 9’29 papermakers above/below water 11’34 wind/synth duet 1 15’06 sketch 96 18’45 spectral waves, Ise city 19’34 slowect (sketch) 20’00 travel plans, between Crewe + Stafford 22’41 wind/synth duet 2 24’39 sketch 89 part 2
April 2025 #3 Ghost Duets
A more melancholic drift than usual, maybe a dream of a time when all the venues are closed and the festivals are bankrupt and we rely solely on the buskers. This mixtape includes multiple ‘duets’ created by combining captured fragments of buskers and street music performances (including some Holy Week processions as it seemed timely). I enjoy the idea that these performances were greatly separated by time and space and now hang together in one imagined moment. There’s also some extracts of small improvisations I recently recorded with my long time collaborator Sarah Anderson and some field recordings to build worlds around all of these sounds.
No timeline for this one, but rather just a list of locations and material, but as ever it’s the space created by overlaps that really matters. Enjoy.
April 2025 Contents -
Bilbao Holy Week processions; Improvisations with Sarah Anderson, Walthamstow; Car boot sale, Lewes; Trumpet player, Mexico City; Arc welders, Mumbai; Acapella vocalist, Hong Kong; Oktoberfest choir, Berlin; Mahjong hall, Guangzhou; Muted bridge guitar sketches, Bristol.. and more.