Sounds of Walking Chapter 3.2.2 No.2: 'no trace' sound work mp3 file
No. 2: ‘no trace’ was a work based in the River Pont over the half mile for which it flows inside the estate boundary of Cheeseburn Grange, Northumberland. At its core were quadrophonic recordings made as, on two occasions, I walked downstream, paused, and then walked upstream in the river. The first downstream/upstream walk was recorded around the winter solstice and the second was recorded around the spring equinox. On a third occasion I made a series of sequential hydrophone recordings about every 15 metres along the length of the river walk. On a fourth occasion, I made a mono recording of my walking the river whilst talking about the act of my walking—a (literal) stream of consciousness. The final recording was a mono recording of my reading the poem I wrote about walking the river, River Drifting Leaves, a 20-verse poem written in the style of a renga, this appeared towards the end of the composition.
This stereo mixdown of a gallery installation was broadcast as a walkplacedistancetime episode on 2nd April 2022. Whilst the overall sequence of the tracks from the installation was maintained, as with several of my radio broadcasts, there was a degree of shortening/selecting/cross fading in composing a 59-minute work.
This work is one of six selected for submission alongside my PhD thesis. Many of the other works discussed in my thesis can be found through my webpage ( https://martinpeccles.com ) or Soundcloud ( https://soundcloud.com/mpeccles ).