MEDIS
LOCATION: PORTLAND SQUARE
TRACK: FORTUNE RIDDIM
Composed and produced by Marley Small
MEANING: "Reclaiming the area's history of merchants making their fortunes off slavery. This is now MY place of fortune and a place to dance/express myself freely.
PROCESS: A collection of field recordings taken from the area and captured the sound of people talking about upcoming gigs - outside Cosies [iconic Bristol venue in Portland Square], Mickey Zoggs, Birds and Sirens. These were put to one side whilst I collected samples from news reports on the 1980s St Pauls riots. Using a jazz loop I began building my drum pattern using a mixture of samples and sounds created from my field recordings."
– Medis
RATIBA AYADI
LOCATION: PHOENIX WHARF
TRACK: FOR THOSE WHO SEE US [ft. Silent Songstress]
Composed and produced by Ratiba Ayadi, mixed by Mathew Keightley
MEANING: FOR THOSE WHO SEE US is a soundscape located in the Bristol Harbour area of Phoenix Wharf,
where architectural landmarks and textures preserve a history that gets lost in the novice archetype of the Marina.
Harbours at present romanticise the ‘bourgeois’ bateau community as if stuck in some Miami Vice time-lapse. Histories are lost at the splendour of the romantic harbour.
This soundscape specific to location draws on the textural qualities in architecture and water’s allure to excavate further histories of the Harbour. Bristol is a city of dampened histories and souls. When we think of the water we see it in spectacle. But the silenced history of Bristol’s Harbour is the passing and coming of spirits and those kindred to self.
The work is a sonic study by Ratiba Ayadi ft. Silent Songstress, and speaks of an investigation of being self-enraptured by a black mirage. A Non-Visual Performance - intrinsic to the listener, guided by the Silent Songstress. An entity or thing that can move through and between studies of self through vocal and physical inquiry.
Berthed in the speculation of identity in the diaspora - sonically they exist together as the duplicity of being - a bridge between worlds. In this work, they tap into frequencies of alternate lifelines while suffocated by the weight of separation as a result of oppression. As excavation and a return to knowledge from the dark.
In this particular work, they examine their initial congress. This relationship began with bodily investigation through the concept of embodying multiple bodies in this lifetime. Somatic practices have brought to light the knowing and unknowing of ancestral knowledge in trauma and its affiliation with darkness (blackness). Without Light, there is No Darkness and Darkness No Light. I began to investigate what it means to be all-encompassing of black, dark space - black absorbs many spectrums of light.
To embody darkness could be everything and nothing and somewhere but nowhere -
The Silent Songstress moves through ancestral bodies in song to shape a sonic space for introspective study. With vacant knowledge of identity - we begin our journey in the dark. Blackness is unquantifiable.
It is said there is no evidence to prove they were storing slaves in the architecture of the site during enslavement. The lack of clarity challenges a very prominent history of Bristol Harbour. We find ourselves searching for a tangible study to define a very obvious history. Theorist Frank E. Wilderson writes about the term ‘Afro-pessimism’ - a notion that discusses the essential nature of the oppression of black people for the functionality of humanity - what he calls gratuitous violence. I want to adapt this research into reappropriating and reimagining a decolonised space by bringing forward textural sonic spaces that disclose black emotion in a (black) space. A trans-diasporic space where unquantifiable expression embodies a breakthrough - a weight of de-humanising and oppressive histories. By clearing the rubble for those who see us. Those who dance in the black mirage of the water, bring forth interdimensional knowledge. A Lucid Open Space allows things to pass through you.
To speculate on the water - like fire - is to call on primitive processes of contemplation.
We look to water for reflection. The polyphony of voice between Ratiba Ayadi and the Silent Songstress calls on the bridge between the ancestral and the present. They who sing to the waters open visually muted portals of darkness that host space for spiritual study. Generational voices that were lost in the materialisation of this site, are recognised and called upon in this moment of reflection and sonic interrogation.
PROCESS: "The track process began by excavating sound from old video footage from Phoenix Wharf. Having lived there for a significant time during the pandemic, I came to listen to the silence of the area. The silence in the architecture enabled me to read
histories and hear remnants of being, unclear and distant but hollowing and dark.
My time spent at the site is where the Silent Songstress and myself learned each other’s names. They would perform for the water. The lights that reflect in the black mirage. The track process is very prominent in the silent dialogue happening in the space. The track began lyrically as an investigation into bridging the gap for these alternate worlds. Through vocal play and research, it evoked emotions and resonance with spirit. I sampled sounds that fall into the dark history of my heritage. My ancestor’s histories were lost and diluted as they moved through generations. Leaving me in the dark. I have learned how to look in the dark sonically for connections with ancestral knowledge - using sound design and composing invisible sonic structures and sampling and transposing sonic moments with those said to be in my heritage."
– Ratiba Ayadi
TALLULAH BLUE
LOCATION: BRISTOL MUSEUM
TRACK: THE BRISTOL SHADOW
Composed, performed and produced by Tallulah Blue. Mixed by Ellie Holland aka Dutchie
MEANING: I visited the Bristol Museum as a young child, aged 5,
and returning here again as an adult I saw the building and its space in a different light, through different eyes.
More recently there was a BLM exhibition in the main hallway, which led to the creation of my track. I challenged myself to encapsulate a world in music; each section introduces a new instrument set and tempo change to create the sense of entering into a new era. The piece leads the listener through a journey in history, with each section representing a specific time with the cultural changes and controversies that come along with it.
It seeks to interrogate, asking for answers and demanding truth in its most vulnerable form.
The project has four prominent sections which are titled: ‘The Shadow’, ‘The Statue’, ‘The Flag’ and ‘Bristolians’ - each section presents a different genre theme, symbolising the museum and the people of Bristol in a call and response motion.
PROCESS: The track was produced in my home studio, utilising only virtual instruments. I also recorded ‘found samples’ from the hustle and bustle of the Museum to create a sense of uneasiness and discordance in the track's structure.
The ‘shadow’ section is from the voice of the museum, light and mysterious instrumental using piano and strings and staccato instruments.
The ‘statue’ section represents the people of Bristol asking for answers, particularly the black community. These are heavy sounds, “urban”, trappy styles to replicate modern-day Bristol. The voices in this moment can seem heavy and sometimes a bit jarring in the musicality. I used samples of sound recorded in the Bristol Museum to create an intricate drum pattern that is automated to undulate throughout the section.
The ‘flag’ is an orchestral section, really grandiose and absolutely over the top, which is the Museum responding back. Reminiscent of the feeling of when I first revisited as an adult, how beautiful and magnificent it was, so many places to explore. Even though I walked through the BLM exhibition and had a moment with this.
The final section ‘Bristolians’ is a nod to the Windrush generation, using ska and reggae-influenced styles. The lyrics here have echoes of “London is the place for me”, but in a Bristol style.
“More than survive
Out here we’re thriving now
We’ll be just fine
Now we’re Bristolians”
THE YARD WOMAN
LOCATION: CHRISTMAS STEPS
TRACK: STEPS [ft. Tlya X An]
Co-produced by The Yard Woman and Tlya X An, Vocals by Tlya X An
MEANING: The sounds used in the track are designed to make the listener feel like they’re going up and down The Christmas Steps in Bristol city centre.
Trippy, spatial percussion and fast switch-ups in the pace and feel of the track are used to express this.
The location has an eerie, haunting atmosphere with lighting, asymmetric buildings stacked either side of the steps giving an unusually, unbalanced vibe to the space. Some people claim to feel that someone is following them, hearing the sound of dissonant footsteps. Haunting, distorted vocals and typical Bristolian sounds from people chatting outside pubs, and 90’s rave-inspired atmospheres and synth.
Lyrically we’ve taken the idea of the STEPS, as in ‘A JOURNEY’ and that growth is not linear and neither is this track.
PROCESS: We worked at Tlya’s studio together starting off altering the samples and some of their notes to fit with the vocal melody and arrangement. Tlya recorded live vocals on her phone and on a mic (phone recording was to add the gritty sound). We also added sounds of people talking/arguing outside a pub, bringing an outside nighttime sort of vibe. We visited the location multiple times and also with Tlya X An, I wanted to get Inspiration for the type of vibe and feeling it exudes as well as the sort of metallic sounds that you can hear by tapping on doors, lampposts and other objects in the space. We used glitchy percussion and played with the pitch of certain vocals and instruments, this was to support the expression of the architecture of the steps and the asymmetric nature of the buildings, shops and stairs. The track arrangement is quite surprising with unexpected switch-ups and a playful interplay between the haunting vocals by Tlya and the harsh synth sounds and bass.
- The Yard Woman
MARLA KETHER
LOCATION: Millennium Square
TRACK: 000
Composed and produced by Marla Mbembe. Poem by Georgia Morgan Turner
MEANING: As someone who works as a session musician and DJ whilst also pursuing a Chemistry degree,
I wanted a location that would allow me to marry science and music together.
PROCESS: Constructed from a cypher using the words, 'Metallic', 'Futurism' and 'Millennium', the piece is introduced by field recordings taken in the Square, before the arrival of synths,
invoking allusions to science-fiction, and the gradual building of a distorted, metallic soundscape.
The weight of the bass coming in mirrors the overwhelming sense of the magnitude of the sphere as you approach it. This lo-fi footwork track showcases the songwriting talents of Georgia Morgan Turner, delivering a poem mythologising the provenance of the large silver sphere [the Planetarium].
- Marla Kether