Unearthings: Recent Episodes
sanderson & sanderson
The music is the landscape, and the landscape is the music, and we’re all tied to it by our shared history... Unearthings is a series of transmissions inspired by the changing seasons and changing landscape of East Anglia, drawing on poetry, prose, found texts and field recordings.
It’s dry and arid, there’s been hardly any rain for weeks,and everything is parched. The yellowhammer has changed his onomatopoeic song, and he no longer sings of a little bit of bread and no cheese, but of another day in the anthropocene.
sharon sanderson - field recordings
robert sanderson - guitar
the cuckoo comes in april
he sings his song in may
in the middle of june
he changes his tune
and july he flies away
sharon sanderson - voice, and field recordings made in woodland near minsmere, suffolk
robert sanderson - guitar & gramophonics
The dark night is over and a new day begins...
sharon sanderson - field recordings (Kelling Heath)
robert sanderson - atmospherics
They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters;
These men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.
For at his word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
They are carried up to the heaven, and down again to the deep.
Their soul melteth away, because of the trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.
So when they they cry unto the Lord in their trouble he delivereth them out of their distress.
For He maketh the storm to cease, so that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad because they are at rest; and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be.
We navigated by stars,
charted our course by constellations,
carried cargo on the German Ocean from Lubek to Lynn
and fished for herring and cod
in the cold north waters.
We lined up with the church towers
as we pulled into port,
and carved our crude ships
on the pillars in the nave -
votive scratchings as we listened to long sermons
for the saints and the hammer-beam angels
to intercede for us,
and grant us safe passage.
And after the harbour has silted up
and after the river has changed its course
and after the town has hollowed out
and long after we have sailed from these shores
our graffiti ships will still be there
safe in the haven
of our souls.
sharon sanderson - field recordings & voice
robert sanderson - music, atmospherics & voice
Darkness falls over Wuffinga-land, and an autumnal day comes to a close. Chieftains sleep forever in their buried ships, and Mrs. Edith Pretty consults the spirits, while Basil Brown, trowel in hand, scrapes away the soil of centuries. Sharon's on a patch of heathland recording the rutting red deer, before she realises that the beaten tracks have dissolved into the darkness, and she's now lost.
Sharon Sanderson - field recordings
Robert Sanderson - atmospherics
voices -
Professor H.C.Wyld, an academic and linguist, reading an extract from Beowulf
Basil Brown, a local self-taught archaeologist explaining how he discovered the remains of a buried ship at Sutton Hoo
A nocturnal set of music and incidental soundscapes designed to be listened to under the stars
- gloaming
- the nighttime is the best time of the day (finnish tango)
- through the woods
- music for bat detector & gramophone
- the souls of unbaptised children wander the skies
tonight
sharon sanderson - field recordings & bat detectors
robert sanderson - atmospherics & instruments
all tracks by sanderson & sanderson
music for two nightingales and an ersatz cello
sharon sanderson - field recordings
robert sanderson - ersatz cello
f. scott fitzgerald reading the first verse of ode to a nightingale by john keats
nightingales recorded at westleton heath in suffolk
recorded early one morning in springtime at buckenham marshes near norwich
sharon sanderson - field recordings
robert sanderson - atmospherics
This is from a series of scratchy, glitchy, low-fi podcasts we produced a few years ago. Although February is often the harshest month of winter, there's always the promise of better times ahead. It's the most schizophrenic time of the year - a time of snowstorms and snowdrops, sap rising and earth freezing, of Valentines and Lenten fasting, of optimism and resignation. Remember man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return...
A compline for jackdaws and rooks, recorded at Buckenham in Norfolk.
sharon sanderon - field recordings
robert sanderson - gramophonics & samples
Low tide, and the stunted remains of a Bronze Age timber circle poke through the sand. A herd of curlews take to the air just above the surface of the water, and land a few yards away. A parcel of oystercatchers go about their business among the peat outcrops. Just over there, inside another timber circle, a body lies under the sky in the roots of an inverted oak, waiting for gulls and crows to pluck out the eyes, gouge out the innards and strip the flesh from the bones, to set the spirit free.
Soon the tide will turn, and the shifting sands will cover everything, and everything will be lost…
An audio snapshot of an area of Newcastle down near the Quayside, watched over by the kittiwakes that nest under the Tyne Bridge, and on the balconies of the Baltic contemporary art gallery.
sharon sanderson - field recordings
robert sanderson - singing, guitar & atmospherics
Over the centuries the nightingale has flown in and out of the English national psyche, and its song has been an inspiration for musicians and poets throughout the ages. One of the cultural myths concerning the bird involved it jamming along to a cellist during a series of live recordings broadcast by the BBC, though it now seems likely that the corporation used the skills of a siffleur to impersonate its song.
This track is based on variations of a dance by John Playford, and incorporates samples from the 1943 propaganda film The Demi-Paradise.
The nightingales were recorded on Westleton Heath in Suffolk.
sharon sanderson - field recordings
robert sanderson - acoustic guitar & atmospherics
recorded by sanderson & sanderson
a soundscape based on a derelict nuclear weapon testing site on the Suffolk coast
blue danube
big bertha
brown bunny
blue peacock
blue fox
blue hare
blue steel
blue water
green bamboo
green granite
purple granite
short granite
orange herald
violet club
pixie
knobkerrie
sea slug
red beard
red snow
yellow sun
blue danube
(code names for atomic weapons research projects linked to the Orford Ness testing site)
The music is the landscape, and the landscape is the music, and we’re all tied to it by our shared history...Unearthings is a series of transmissions inspired by the changing seasons and changing landscape of East Anglia, drawing on poetry, prose, found texts and field recordings.
We navigated by stars,
charted our course by constellations,
carried cargo on the German Ocean from Lubek to Lynn
and fished for herring and cod
in the cold north waters.
We lined up with the church towers
as we pulled into port,
and carved our crude ships
on the pillars in the nave -
votive scratchings as we listened to long sermons
for the saints and the hammer-beam angels
to intercede for us,
and grant us safe passage.
And after the harbour has silted up
and after the river has changed its course
and after the town has hollowed out
and long after we have sailed from these shores
our graffiti ships will still be there
safe in the haven
of our souls.
sharon sanderson - field recordings
robert sanderson - music, atmospherics & voice
Graffiti Ships inspired by the medieval ship graffiti in St. Nicholas’ church at Blakeney, North Norfolk.
A fanfare and field recording made during the red deer rutting season on Westleton Heath in Suffolk
A summer nocturne, with the strange primeval churring of a nightjar, and a couple of muntjaks barking into the darkness.
A dawn chorus recorded at Kelling Heath in North Norfolk
sharon sanderson - field recordings
robert sanderson - atmospherics & toy piano
A winter afternoon on the marshes, with the temperature falling and the light fading, and rooks and jackdaws returning to roost.
Sharon Sanderson - field recordings
Robert Sanderson - samples, atmospherics and voice
sharon sanderson - bat detector and field recordings
robert sanderson - gramophonics and keyboards
An incidental soundscape inspired by the medieval ship graffiti in St. Nicholas' Church at Blakeney, North Norfolk.
A collection of observations and lies, broadcast to mark so- called Freedom Day. How did we let this happen?
It was the strangest of times
that long furloughed season
when the days and weeks melted into one-another,
towns and cities went into lockdown,
and entire countries came to a standstill.
We stayed at home, we stayed alert,
we clapped in the streets on Thursday evenings,
we stood six feet apart in supermarket queues,
and evoked the spirit of the blitz
as the body count rose,
and all the while
we did what we were told.
And when it was all over, and things started to return to some kind of normal,
we threw away the face-masks and gloves,
headed back to the restaurants and bars,
we flocked into the shops
and took advantage of all the closing-down sales.
We enjoyed the great outdoors once more,
and descended on the beaches and the wide open spaces,
we herded together to keep ourselves safe
and were no longer concerned with the tracking and tracing.
And the historians of that period all agree
that despite the economic crash,
and despite the second wave,
we were a happy breed
and we all pulled together
and good old-fashioned British common-sense prevailed.
On the 75th anniversary of VE Day the Queen gave an address to the nation. Not to be outdone, Mrs. Sanderson also gave an address...
Mrs. Sanderson’s address to the nation:
“As we commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day today and remember the fears, losses, courage and sacrifices that our parents and grandparents experienced during those wartime years let us also remember that these same people were determined to live in a better world when it was all over. To create a country in which everyone had opportunity through the provision of social housing, access to education, support for the arts and creativity, the provision of welfare for those in need and of course the creation of a National Health Service, universally available to all. All of this while they continued to live with rationing and austerity. They made a better world for us their children, for me personally that led to opportunities of which they could have only dreamed. As we now live through our own crisis I hope that we can think and plan for a better world for our children, finally understanding that when we work together we can achieve not only our own dreams but create opportunity and better lives for all”.
A Litany in Time of Plague
Thomas Nashe
Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss;
This world uncertain is;
Fond are life's lustful joys;
Death proves them all but toys;
None from his darts can fly;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade.
All things to end are made,
The plague full swift goes by;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Strength stoops unto the grave,
Worms feed on Hector brave;
Swords may not fight with fate,
Earth still holds open her gate.
"Come, come!" the bells do cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Wit with his wantonness
Tasteth death's bitterness;
Hell's executioner
Hath no ears for to hear
What vain art can reply.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Haste, therefore, each degree,
To welcome destiny;
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage;
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
A summer's day in deepest darkest East Anglia, and a record of the changing physical and sonic landscapes of the countryside. It's an area of ghost airfields, buried history, and vast wide open fields under a vast wide open sky.
Transcription of larksong by Professor Walter Garstang.
Voices -
Mr. William Aldred, an 80 year-old farmhand, recorded in 1936
Professor H. C. Wyld (reading an extract from Beowulf)
Basil Brown, the archaeologist responsible for the discovery of the ship burial at Sutton Hoo
Olivia Masi, reading her poem and talking about the disappearance of corncrakes from the countryside
It was a Sunday in mid-May. We were in Suffolk, listening to a cuckoo in a wood near a nuclear power station, and the time seemed to stand still. On our way home, we stopped by a patch of heathland, and were serenaded for more than an hour by a pair of nightingales, who were drowning out the sound of the military aircraft that were rumbling overhead. It was a clear evening. There was a sundog before the dusk decended, and a tawny owl called into the night.
Readings:-
The Cuckoo - anon
The Cuckoo - a poem by Frederick Locker-Lampson (1857)
An account of the barley bird, by the Rev. Robert Forby (The Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830)
Sweet Suffolk Owl - anon, possibly by Thomas Vautor, fl.1600-1620)
A celebration of allotments, the patron saint, birds of the air and the bard, along with the arrival of spring. The words in the cuckoo section are taken from Our Bird Friends by R. Kearton (1900).
Incidental music for the feast of St.George, which also happens to be Shakespeare's birthday. And his deathday. I guess the party was a bit of a downer...
Mousehold Heath is an expanse of heathland on the northern outskirts of Norwich. Although now much reduced, it has over the centuries played an important part in the development of the city's character, and events which have taken place there have had national and international repercussions. The first part of this programme is an adaption of a passage from George Borrow's Lavengro, which is followed by a field recording and soundscape of the Vinegar Pond, which in springtime is a breeding ground for frogs, and is usually full of frogspawn by the end of March.
HMP Norwich is on the southern side of the heath, just up the road from Kett's Heights, which was the base of Robert Kett during the rebellion against land enclosures in the summer of 1549.
Norwich was the scene of the first case blood libel, which was leveled against the city's Jews in 1144, after the supposed murder of a young boy, William,whose body was found dumped in a shallow grave in woodland on the heath. It was an early example of fake news being used to demonize an entire race of people, and this event sparked a flame which spread across Europe, and even now, more than eight centuries later, it is still burning.
An extract from the third Unearthings podcast, this time inspired by the landscape and history of Mousehold Heath, an ancient area of heathland on the outskirts of Norwich. The Wind on the Heath is adapted from the writing of George Borrow, and the Vinegar Pond is a breeding ground for frogs in the early spring.
The second of a series of scratchy, glitchy, low-fi podcasts from sanderson & sanderson. Although February is often the harshest month of winter, there's always the promise of better times ahead. It's the most schizophrenic time of the year - a time of snowstorms and snowdrops, sap rising and earth freezing, of Valentines and Lenten fasting, of optimism and resignation. Remember man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return...
The music is the landscape, and the landscape is the music, and we’re all tied to it by our shared history... Unearthings is a series of transmissions inspired by the changing seasons and changing landscape of East Anglia, drawing on poetry, prose, found texts and field recordings.
we walk through dark woods
leaving the past behind us
towards the unknown
wind rustling the pines
the white noise of the forest
voices in the trees
the edge of hearing
thin brittle branches snapping
sound of slug eating
ant metropolis
tens of thousands of workers
in endless labour
female grouse disturbed
flies for cover into trees
away from humans
roe deer disturbed
darts for cover into trees
away from humans
the wind changes -
a time of uncertainty
days are blown away
a tartan landscape
heather turning to purple
crows perch on outcrops
rivulets singing
as they flow down the hillsides -
we drink up the song
water glistening
pools of light catching the sun
dazzling our eyes
waiting for winter
a ski-slope dreams of the snow
as summer passes
the need to ascend -
a steep climb upwards, moonwards
cloud forms question mark
technology's song -
wind blows through radio mast
a lonely chorus
how many long miles
have we travelled to be here
at this journey's end?
The first of a series of monthly podcasts, inspired by the seasonal and historical changes in the East Anglian landscape.