Sound design & music

Sound is a visceral medium for me and plays an integral role in my artistic practice. My work spans studio composition and improvisation, as well as field recording for site-specific installations. These recordings often become the foundation for arrangements, remixes, and evolving soundscapes, developing into layered compositions. I also work with Maschine Studio for mixing and live audiovisual performances.

In the studio, I bring together an eclectic and organic mix of analogue and digital tools, combining synths, pedals, guitars, software instruments, and a strong element of improvised percussion. There are more sound pieces in the JAMS section.

Below are some examples of commissioned works.

This soundtrack was commissioned by the renowned Lille based projection mapping artists collective Les Rencontres Audiovisuelles, to make a soundtrack for their Leeds Light Night piece in 2022. To watch the video go to the project page here: Zauberin Des Mondes. Made over a few weeks, it uses a mixture of analogue and digital instruments based around a short melody motif created on the guitar.

A soundtrack made to accompany a building mural and projection mapping event, see project here: Constellation. The piece combines orchestral and electronic textures and rhythms to create a dynamic and dramatic journey as the projection unfolds.

Ghosting Reflections is a soundtrack made to accompany an installation at Pyramid Gallery in York as part of a show by the Contemporary Glass Society. The show was ‘Water & Music’ Glass inspired by the 300th anniversary of Handel’s Water Music. The soundtrack was made for a film piece which was projection mapped onto glass sculptures and was made entirely using abstract samples from each Suite of Handel's Water Music. 

A suite of music was composed for the project Microbial Puppet Masters, a virtual reality experience in a collaboration between University of Salford and Liverpool University, highlighting bacteriophage research and in particular the use of new treatments for cystic fibrosis patients. See project here: Microbial Puppet Masters.

This sound work was created using the Oral History Archives from Craven Museum in Skipton. Along with the main installation, it explores themes around the veracity of memory and it’s inherently ephemeral nature. The piece used granular sampling to create shifting layers of abstraction, sometimes becoming a swirling confusion of voices but occasionally throwing up a recollected memory, clear and sharp as the moments themselves must once have been. See project here: New Light.

An ambient soundscape made for Wave installation; see project here: Wave.

This was a soundscape made for an immersive installation "Aquarium" for Athens Science Festival.

This was a soundscape made for an installation as part of a residency with glass artist Griet Beyaert in Kobe, Japan. The piece uses field recordings in and around the port of Nagahama, developed, layered and mixed to make the final piece.

These are soundscapes made for Entwined, a mixed media sculptural installation piece celebrating crossing paths and the dynamic connections within Salford through a sensorial blend of sound, light, sculpture, and painting. Elements included in the piece included voice notes from Salford community residents and extensive soundwalks.

Songs of Wood and Stone is an ambient soundscape composed from a series of binaural field recordings of artists working with stone and wood for sculpture work as part of the group exhibition: BasementOverground: Emergence.

This is a section of a longer (45 minute) improvised jam made with my Soma Terra synthesiser as part of a project commissioned by Leeds University School of Music for Light Night Leeds. It was made in response to the students' music pieces and short parts of it were used as bridging sections to create and uninterrupted 45 minute projection mapped immersive audiovisual event; see project here: Smeaton’s Planetarium.

These two soundscapes were composed for a large scale installation which was an investigation of the ephemeral nature of history and the passing of time and memory which re-imagined Skipton Town Hall - its rich history and architecture and the people who have inhabited it over the years. The pieces comprised abstract sound textures interwoven with binaural soundwalks in and around the building and the town. See project here: memento.

This is a excerpt from a longer sound piece made for an immersive installation at University of Salford Media City for Lightwaves Festival. Most of the parts were just played in one long live jam; I hadn't set a time limit but probably had 20 minutes in mind but it just went along to around 48 minutes. I then live mixed the visual content to the sound and made the 360 projection installation, see project here: Microcosmic.

This was a short track made for a promo video for an installation The Light Within by myself and glass artist Griet Beyaert at Blackwell Arts & Crafts House, Windermere, commissioned by Lakeland Arts. The track is a live mix using field recordings we made for the site-specific installation.

This is the final soundscape made for the installation at Blackwell Arts & Crafts House. All the sounds were recorded in and around this historical building overlooking Lake Windermere.