The silence in a small vintage clothes shop after the music playing from the speakers runs out
An out-breath
The silence of an unlit fire in the grate
An in-breath
The silence in a bathroom just after someone goes in and locks the door
An out-breath
The silence after the test drive of a new car while the salesperson waits to see if you like it or not
An in-breath
The silence after an unrequited ‘good morning’
An out-breath
The silence after a crucial but tiny screw of something you are building or repairing has fallen on the floor and stops rolling, settling somewhere out of sight
An in-breath
The silence after a zip gets stuck on an overpacked bag and refuses to go forwards or backwards
An out-breath
The silence after a racist joke
An in-breath
The silence after a bird flies into a window
An out-breath
The silence at the end of a presentation when the moderator asks the audience, ‘Any questions?’
An in-breath
The silence after a waiter puts down an expensive but tiny portion of unimpressive vegetables
An out-breath
The silence after you realise you just killed someone
An in-breath
The silence after young children have gone to bed
An out-breath
The silence after you work out you are in totally the wrong place
An in-breath
The silence after you remembered you left your passport on the table of the last place you stayed at
An out-breath
The silence after someone tells you they are leaving you
An in-breath
The silence when you’ve entered the incorrect password for the last time
An out-breath
The silence of a tap when water no longer comes out
An in-breath
The silence after having just pressed the door buzzer at a job interview
An out-breath
The silence after the pin’s been pulled out of a grenade
An in-breath
The silence at the end of a play about domestic violence
An out-breath
The silence just after the electric meter runs out of money
An in-breath
The silence after opening an unwanted gift in the presence of the giver
An out-breath
The silence of an empty backstage after a big concert
An in-breath
The silence after someone has tried the wrong key in a front door
An out-breath
The silence after you’ve asked a friend for a lot of money
An in-breath
The silence after the curtains are closed by a stranger in the same room as you
An out-breath
The silence after you realise you can’t remember
An in-breath
The silence after someone is thrown out of an aeroplane
An out-breath
The silence after a new mall is completed
An in-breath
The silence after saying goodbye at a station
An out-breath
The silence after you realise nobody has called to see how you are
An in-breath
The silence in a house after everyone else has gone to work
An out-breath
The silence after a mercenary has put a hood over your head
An in-breath
The silence after someone tells you something you never realised they felt, a secret
An out-breath
The silence after you send undercooked food back to the kitchen
An in-breath
The silence after the safety catch has been released from a gun
An out-breath
The silence after lying back in the bath
An in-breath
The silence of concrete where there used to be grass
An out-breath
The silence after you run out of fuel
An in-breath
The silence after the last member of a family dies, leaving no children or relatives
An out-breath
The silence after an artist shows a curator their terrible new work
An in-breath
The silence after a birthday party
An out-breath
The silence between parents on a hike, who have run out of water
An in-breath
The silence after someone unknown closes the front door
An out-breath
The silence after an alarm has stopped
An in-breath
The silence as people start to get dressed at the end of a swingers party
An out-breath
The silence when a phone stops ringing after two to three minutes
An in-breath
The silence after a whip has met flesh
An out-breath
The lengthening silence between the beats of a failing heart
An in-breath
The silence of a loved one through glass
An out-breath
The silence after a radio has been turned off
A shuddering breath
The silence of a pond just after a frog jumps in
A broken breath
The silence just before a wine bottle lets go of its cork
A curtailed, muffled breath
The silence after a bee has left a flower
6.
Grave
To love
There’s a low buzzing made up of several noises. There is a 50Hz cycle, an earth hum. Layered on top of that there is the vibration from a fan, which is also creating a hum, but this is just the vibration of the fan motor, as it’s mounted against an inner metal frame that’s hidden from view but vibrates in sympathy, but out of time, with the rest of the structure. The motor driving the fan has a slight whine. There is also the movement of the air itself from the fan, a stable but uneven noise. The thin blades on the fan are oscillating as they spin so there are minor variations. It feels like a wave.
It is part of the sound of a freezer lodged in a corner on an uneven floor surface and is shuddering in tiny movements. We can hear this if we get right down on our hands and knees and pay close attention. As a consequence, a small area of the whole structure is rubbing a little against the wall, bumping very slightly onto a tiled wall. Some tiles, though, are recently broken and one has a sharp edge. Every fifteen seconds or so the freezer rocks a little further than usual and catches the sharp edge of one of these tiles. It adds an occasional tiny spike in the sound in the mid range, a dry, short click. You wouldn’t necessarily know it was from a tile if heard in isolation. For the most part, these are minute sounds that barely register.
There’s an occasional gust of wind that blows a little dust onto the foot near the front of the appliance. The cheapish metal footing rings a little metallically as the dust hits it. A tiny sound, but there nonetheless.
A jerky scratch, followed by an excessively long pause is possibly a mouse, out of sight. The gaps are long enough to make you think that you imagined it.
There is a need to think sensitively about how to mic this up, as it isn’t appropriate, due to the nature of the scene, to rig the whole place with microphones. On the other hand, someone needs to hear and record this sound for ever.
We live in this collection of sounds for a while: the familiar hum of a freezer, a light gust of early evening wind blowing some loose sand. And a breath.
The
breath itself is uneven. At times it has a pattern, but every few breaths there is a heaviness in the out-breath, the mouth closed. We can catch the air coming down a single nostril. It has the shape of a mini sigh, a fast crescendo to a sudden stop. This keeps happening; the shape of the sound is the same each time. After a minute or so, we hear a long juddering breath in, as if the owner of the lungs hasn’t managed to get enough oxygen during the preceding minutes. When the breath is bigger either in or out, there is a slight movement in the clothes. The polyester in the jumper rubs a little against itself around the arms, the fibres bristling unevenly against each other. A plastic-soled sandal twists a little bit in the dust. At the same time, a tiny rock trapped beneath the sole, but still bigger than the dust and sand, grinds slightly against itself as the sandal turns. And when it stops it feels like silence again. But it’s not silent; we can still hear the motor of the fan, the blades spinning.
There are other noises. There is a small overhead fluorescent light causing a familiar dreary buzz that would only really become apparent if we turned it off. Still we hear the breath.
There is also a ticking we can just about hear, although for some reason it seems to come and go. A watch, maybe. If we wanted to, we could hear their heartbeat buried somewhere beneath the clothing.
The dullest of sounds, this time a hand placed carefully on the left shoulder. In the background there is another buzzing, humming. It feels like it gets closer then moves away again. It’s a very uneven sound and it would be hard to point to where it was coming from if you were actually there. It, too, has a combination of hums, whines – all mechanical noises. It might be a drone, it might be a lawnmower being used on a small patch of grass or it may be some kind of power tool. It seems to be ignoring where we are, though, choosing to wander. It is a viscous, unrelenting noise, but its journey is meandering, unclear. It is not so loud as to disturb the stillness of the scene, but it feels like it is always audible. On the extreme right of the stereo image there is another mechanical drone, hum. This time from a generator that chugs away unsteadily in the distance. Again it is very quiet, but it is present. It may be that during the recording of this scene, the generator runs out of fuel, in which case we immediately notice its absence, even if we hadn’t noticed its presence before.
A very distant ambulance siren briefly comes in on the same note as one of the smaller fans spinning on the freezer. The drone/mower/tool dips a little and for a split second they are in unison before each sound continues in its own direction, the tempo, rhythm and key differing wildly now as they stick rigidly to their own part.
A moped burns past, its tiny, holed exhaust spurting a violent tear through the sound field, moving from right to left in the image. Since we are on a relatively steep hill, the sound, if recorded properly, should feel as if it not only moves from right to left but from lower down to further up the slope. The squealing buzz of it creates waves of sound that slosh about, fluid and angular between the different buildings.
At a strain we could potentially hear a radio, or perhaps a TV. We couldn’t distinguish whether it was even words or music but on repeat listens, we would spot it as part of the soundscape. There are no schoolchildren playing, nor the sound of water fountains.
A pigeon call. Unanswered.
A cup of some sort, filled. A hesitant pair of footsteps that stop some way short of where we are.
The very distant rattle of gunfire in two short bursts. Then nothing.
A whisper nearby. A subtle rearranging of the balance of feet.
The slim slide and shift of paper.
The twist of a fan.
A clicking noise. It has a constant, nervous rhythm to it, but it runs and stops in uneven measures. The intensity and volume remains about the same. If you were to look at a technical analysis of the sound, it would have a low rumble that was almost inaudible on the file but it would have sharp peaks further up the audio spectrum where this clicking was. What the microphone picks up, though, isn’t necessarily the truth and, in fact, it is more of a flicking sound in real life. Someone is resting a finger inside a weirdly dipped, curled plastic protrusion made from a colourful sticker that, as well as having faded, has also lost some of its glue and is starting to peel off on one corner. It has created a curl that is a perfect fit for a finger. The sticker is for an Al-Aroussa lemon-
flavoured ice cream, and it is one of many attached to the front panel of the freezer. The thickness of the plastic of the sticker, thicker than a sticker you’d find in a house, has meant that the curl itself is a particularly tight one, creating tension and resistance for the finger. The net result is a crisp click and a subsequent plucking motion from the finger. The finger itself has no rings and the nails are short. It has a thickness to it and as well as having patches of both wetness and dust, there is something unfamiliar under the end of the nail. The fingers on other hand are pressed to the skin of the skull, the hand supporting the head. The fingers occasionally slip a small distance, disturbing the thickness of the hair for a fraction of a second. The elbow is resting on the arm of a simple plastic chair. While each of the chair’s legs are the same length, the unevenness of the ground has meant that the chair isn’t flat on the floor and the chair is also occasionally rocking, but only slightly. Each sparse rocking of the chair sends a little stab of gravity up the leg and where the metal of the leg meets the plastic of the chair, there is a bump in the lower frequencies and a nearly inaudible version of a snap.
From the sounds so far we can work out that this is a man.
The creak of knuckles as a hand grips something made of cotton and nylon too hard. It has a pair of plastic eyes, one slightly more worn than the other, and small plastic toes that pop out from fur. There is a metal stud near one of the belt loops on his jeans that one of the toes catches on once during the five-minute recording.
Still the occasional tick of a hot-water urn or metallic kettle.
A mosquito appears for a while, coming in and out of focus. And then stops.
The artificial sound of a camera shutter: someone taking a photo on a phone.
We notice the breath again. Uneven, occasionally shuddering. A resettling on the chair. The hum of the freezer, the droning, the wind, the dust, the presence of a few other people in silence.
An imperceptible noise – the sound of an ache, an unbearable pain. Organs moving fluids around more slowly than usual. New types of chemicals pulsing through arteries. Neurons firing unheard in the brain, signals passing up and down a spinal cord. A skeleton barely moving but whose tiny movements are measured and recorded as the bones shift. Feet resting in preparation for the long walk to come. Tiny hair follicles on the arms laying low. The fingernails have temporarily paused their growth, but the keratin layers still rub against each other in sympathy. Wax is settling inside the ears. Sweat is forming but not yet ready to reveal itself. Saliva is absorbing itself into the lining of the mouth. Kidneys are still washing toxins from the blood. The cartilage between elbows that helped to grip is already stiffening, albeit temporarily. Lactic acid is forming. Cells are replicating, folding.
A stomach in no rush for food.
An uneven sense of air.
The sound of skin forming into furrows.
The finger stops picking at the sticker briefly. The generator seems to be running, but the weird drone noise has gone. Everyone is still, waiting. The bird takes off from a fence. Inside the freezer, if we took the time to listen carefully, we’d hear the sound of ice crystals forming inside the body of a child.
7.
Tenuto
To be rich
In London, the head of a sticky mop, twisted, turning, squeezed into a plastic bucket. The remnants of blood, water dripping in uneven thick droplets. The shuffle of a nylon tunic, and the slip of a pair of bangles down a wrist as a hand moves further along the mop handle. Another twist of the mop, fewer drops. An unexpected cough. A security
turnstile. Someone else is pulling on gloves as a supervisor repeatedly flips their phone in silence.
Elsewhere, inside the cheap plastic toy model of a refuse truck that was received as a present some years ago, a two-year-old battery has leaked and created a kind of crusty webbing between the toy’s driver’s seat and the door. This acidic crust has created a tiny, subtle high-end rub at the point of impact that otherwise would have been a simple, smooth, brittle snap when stood upon by an oblivious parent. As we hear that noise, the stereo image opens up to a stacked soundscape of two communities of families living on and among rubbish dumps somewhere in the world, each recorded from an omni microphone slung from an extra-long series of cables strung beneath a pair of cranes.
Bulldozers, seagulls, a multitude of drowned-out voices. Grinding, cracking, torn plastic, mushy paper, rotten food and metal. Glass shards and broken wood. It gets louder.
Two broken fake-gold chairs fall from a truck near a severed limb or hand from medical waste, lying on top of a rubbish pile. One bird defecates onto the screen of an old, dead TV facing upwards to the sky, another one defecates onto an abandoned shopping basket. A glob of phlegm from a passenger on a motorbike in Cambodia onto a street sign saying ‘Two-way road’. A pair of soiled, once-white, now-grey underpants hits the bottom of a plastic bin in an old people’s home. Someone is wading through a blocked sewer. Clumps of dirt fall off bright pink wellington boots near a neon-lit puddle. A demolition ball smashes through a tower block. A chimney sweep forces a brush up a flue. The shovel of spades as women separate ore from sand in a coltan mine in Fungamwaka. A mechanic drops a used oil filter on the floor of a garage. A dead mouse slips further behind a cooker. A red-topped black plastic wheelie bin blown over in the wind with a bang in an alleyway. Piles of rotten leaves are pulled in handfuls from a pipe. Under a sink, a white plastic U-bend fixture comes undone with two violent slops, spilling its contents of congealed hair, blood and spit on a bathroom floor. A small bag full of dog turds swung hastily into a bramble patch in a forest. Someone stamps on a sealed bag of out-of-date and now rotten spinach. Bruised and unwashed toenails being clipped in a caravan. Dust is shaken from plastic plants. A mouldy tea towel that’s been used to mop up spilt milk and then left for two weeks is dropped in a Waitrose carrier bag by someone with a green paper mask over their mouth and rubber gloves. A lit cigarette is flicked into two centimetres of last night’s red wine in the bottom of a stained mug with a spitting sound. An eagle ripping a sinew from a decaying bone. Somewhere humid, an elderly woman stands on a bent paperclip, which punctures the sole of her flip-flop. A flame cracks a glass pipe. A pair of chipped toy marbles hits a corrugated-iron roof with a short popping bang and then roll down the remaining length before falling off the end, one onto a tarpaulin and one into an empty plastic bucket.
The Music Page 7
