AD: The recording is often the stimulating part of a project, especially as it involves travel and new experiences. But then… how were you able to approach the daunting task of whittling down over 50 hours of recordings? Did you go in search of a lyrical or narrative story for this project?
Lawrence English: If I am honest, the reason these recordings are only surfacing in some qualifiable way now is that it took me a very long time to come to understand them—and moreover, to understand how to work with them. One of the additional challenges of this material—in terms of working with it in a compositional sense—was this intensity of activity I mentioned previously. It took me many attempts to try and find a pathway into how I could work with these sounds technically, not to mention creatively. I actually learned a great deal working on this piece. I think every project teaches you a little, but this one taught me a lot… and patience was one of its lessons!
Structurally, I guess I was thinking about the trajectory of the environments, the temporal shifts of the day and night, and also the transition into the wet season I experienced whilst there. In many ways, the sounds led this piece; they opened up ways of connection. It was a very organic process in the end.