sounding the gardens

We were left on a creative high after making the music for our film Water Wash my Tired Feet, a project we’d worked on together for Voices of the Water. Surprised how gathering sounds, then jamming with them in a cosy room with tea - layering rhythms, freshly created poetry, and sample instruments, had heightened the processual poems of our film. This despite almost zero technical knowhow or experience of music production. Perhaps it was just a fluke we thought. Or the spell of that unique walk? We wanted to find out for sure and make more.

Our new idea was a more ambitious, ‘found sounds’ two-sided album. The first half would capture the spirit, spaces, textures, and colours cultivated by so many at the Story Garden, now nearing the end of its life, or rather its current incarnation in Ossulston St; the second section sounding the kinetic clanks, mud, and the joyous co-creation of the Triangle site, the permanent next home of the Story Garden, being made by the community - documenting a kind of sonic action research for both.

As we layered our ideas, the distinct timbre of sections began taking shape. At least in principle. We mapped important breathing spaces and feeling tones, the mindful nooks of activity, the characteristics of each building; the areas we felt connected to. The seasons themselves would play a part, we knew, as would the infusion of the non-human; the many beautiful dialects you hear there, both natural and man made sounds that echo in the spaces. Yet we were not sure if we could really turn all this into music.

At our first session on the barge, and even with the best of intentions, we were not able to put down much, sludging through fiddly tech and strange wires, apprehensive of the recording process itself. Not until the last 30 minutes, when finally we just went for it, did something emerge. The experience left us a little rattled, however, as we began participating in more and more workshops, the beats and inspiration came trickling in, from countless co-producers, gardeners, children, and staff, gifting ideas and technical know-how. A super find was Zak Philips and Hannah Burrough from the Triangle building team, who helped us with the software and became important co-producers.

Going beyond words was sort of the impetus for the project as a whole. To catch and express the personality of the gardens in this other way. There had been much beautiful writing, mindful fragments, careful descriptions we wanted to still include. But we also wanted to open up to the unique qualities of sound. To its material relation and environmental resonances, the incidental and the ephemeral aspects which are always sort of out of your control. 

The microphones became a magical leveler and revealer of our surroundings. What you imagine as inconsequential becomes focal points on replay. It revealed the way our ears are conditioned by overly conscious intentions, old patterns and judgements of what are ‘good’ sounds. But when you replay it with permitting ears, the rumble of a train, the darting of a bird, squeak of a distant wheelbarrow interrupting, regains prominence. As the pioneering electronic musician Richard D James puts it  “You can make any sound into music if you listen the right way.” 

As the two album sides began taking more distinct feelings, particular songs would shift the direction of the project. Nathan Mpelenda, a fellow and the floating garden ambassador’s track ‘Fresh Spring’ was much more of an individual creation, for instance, creating all the instruments, composition and words himself. It felt like uncovering new skills and talents, becoming confident in a medium when one is shy expressing in another, and helping shape large sections of what followed. Another revelation was how much each listener’s ear would affect the song when recording together in a room. Just sitting, listening, someone's quiet attention would tilt the direction of a track.

Samika Barclay perfoming at Building Trainee Showcase

Silvia’s, our GG Action Research manager’s idea to record the more-than-human world became another turning point. Tuning into birds, insects and plants and materials themselves. We were influenced by discussions about the slippery borders of ‘man-made’ and ‘natural', and whether they really even existed. Perhaps, as some suggested, there's merely ways of listening, caring, and relating. Not natural or human-made, but both woven together, in relation. As we folded the seasons into the songs, Eid, Solstice and Christmas, and Springtime, the music began to feel like a snapshot of a year.

What remains is momentary passing impressions and snapshots captured in sound, but ones we feel resonate with a bigger story.

The album will be part of a permanent exhibition at the new Story Garden (currently Triangle, off York Way) in 2026. Before that it will also be performed on September 23rd’s Fundraiser Garden event, and on September  27, as part of the Goodbye Story Garden event. We hope you will join us to listen.

By Homan Yousofi and Lily Baldwin

LISTEN BELOW TO ‘Sounding the Gardens’

Producers: Homan, Lily, Samika, Nathan, Zak, Hannah, Silvia, and the Gardens

---

Notes from the Garden