Coal Lines

Coal Lines is my first major commission - working with the artist Tony Wade and the tech company XPlor, I've created a one hour long soundscape to accompany a new exhibition, Sentinel, in WX (Wakefield Explore), the new events space in the centre of Wakefield.

The soundscape consists of two main sections, a 15 minute composed piece in 5 sections, depicting a day in the life of a mining village, followed by a 45 minute interactive soundscape section.

The piece explores the history of mining in the Wakefield district with an emphasis on the use of canaries (the centrepiece of the exhibition is "Sentinel", a giant light sculpture inspired by canaries). The piece incorporates the sound of canaries, live brass band music, excerpts from both archival interviews and interviews I carried out with ex-miners, and music written and recorded by myself in my own studio.

The arty, clever bit of this project is the fact that the piece is based on 34 notes, which have been mathematically determined by the relative depths of the 34 mine shafts that were operating in the Wakefield district - each of the 34 pits has a designated note within a three octave range.

You can listen to an mp3 of the piece and also a truncated remixed version of the soundscape on my music page.