Nature in the noise: The Sounds of King's Cross

Field recordings and city soundscapes

Last year, I was approached by Kings Place, a music and arts venue in King’s Cross, London, to create a new spatial sound installation about urban nature and the people who look after it. I agreed, excited by the challenge to search for hidden pockets of wildlife in the busy metropolis I call home, particularly after focussing mostly on more remote locations in my recent projects.

The launch date for the installation, called ‘The Sounds of Kings Cross’, is now just around the corner (5th April!), and will be followed by a gig from me and my band on the same night, as part of Kings Place’s Earth Unwrapped programme.

And so, over the last few weeks, I’ve been venturing up to King’s Cross, microphone in hand, to record the cars, bikes, planes, birds, boats, canals, construction work and people as they go by. Usually, when I’m out on my field recording trips, I search for the quiet corners and the paths less trodden - anywhere that might minimise the possibilities of human interruption. But for this project, there’s absolutely no chance of a break in the chatter, hum and rumble of the city.

It’s got me thinking about this idea of “pristine” soundscapes. It’s something I’ve pushed against ever since starting field recording. Quickly, it became apparent to me that they don’t really exist. Even when I’ve been halfway up a mountain or deep in the woods, the sound of a car or a plane will always find its way into my microphone.

Last year, I made a documentary for BBC Radio 4 on the subject, called ‘Shifting Soundscapes’. I’d met a field recordist called Martyn Stewart, who over his career has recorded almost 100,000 different sounds. He told me about how when he went to the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge in the Arctic, despite being almost as remote as you can be, his microphone still picked up the sound of an oil rig 60 miles away.

I remember thinking, “you mean to tell me that even if I travel all the way to the Arctic, I’ll STILL hear the machines?”. We talk about how good our brains are at filtering out unwanted noise. Martyn says, “the microphone never discriminates”. Damn.

So, despite the frustration of my recordings being punctuated by the beeps and burbles of mankind, I’ve decided to draw attention to it, rather than edit it out.

Martyn Stewart recording in the wild

In the city, there’s no way of deleting the human from the audio file. The car horns break through the birdsong, geese fight over some bread in the canal, shovels break through soil in the community garden, a fireplace crackles in the floating bookshop. My work explores our interconnectedness with the natural world, and this is it isn’t it?

The process of making this installation has also got me thinking about the term “urban nature”. According to #NatureForAll, urban nature is considered “areas in urban environments that are home to plants and non-human animals”. But just as we pervade all ecosystems, every nook and cranny of the city is home to something non-human. Where does urban nature start and end?

Whatever the definition, the importance of looking after our urban nature is undeniable for a host of reasons. From adapting to climate change, through to improving the wellbeing of ourselves and the wildlife with which we share the city, healthy green and blue spaces have a key role in our future.

This installation will not only draw attention to the tapestry of sounds we hear in King’s Cross, it’ll also feature the voices of the people who create and look after the spaces that bring so much to our cities. These will include team members from Camley Street Natural Park, a marshy nature reserve home to butterflies, birds and amphibians. I’ll also be visiting Global Generation, a charity which works with local young people and residents to create community gardens, and Word on the Water, a floating bookshop on Regent’s Canal.

If you’d like to experience the installation for yourself, you can book tickets below.

Coming up

• ‘The Sounds of King’s Cross’ - my spatial sound installation at Kings Place exploring urban nature in King’s Cross, London • Saturday 5th April. Book tickets here

• My next gig with my band is at Kings Place, London • Saturday 5th April. Book tickets here

In case you missed it

• Listen to my Found Sound with wood artist Darren Appiagyei for Ffern’s podcast ‘As The Season Turns’ here (also available wherever you get your podcasts)

• Listen to my new EP Cloud Walking here

• Support my work by purchasing a vinyl, CD, artwork or digital download here

Recommendations

• New songs by Maia Friedman - I love the arrangements of the vocals, strings and wind instruments

• The Outrun, a film about a young woman (Saoirse Ronan) who returns home to the Orkney Islands in Scotland. She gets a job with the RSPB, while trying to overcome her alcoholism

• The Parable of the Sower, a novel by Octavia E. Butler first published in 1993. It’s about a dystopian future set in the years 2024 to 2027, with a crazy American president and wildfires in LA… sound familiar?