iain armstrong • sound artist

This recording was made in the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, part of the Wat Pho complex in Bangkok, Thailand. The Buddha’s image is a massive 45 meters long and 15 meters high. The feet are 5 meters long and the soles inlaid with mother of pearl, depitcing the 108 auspicious signs of the Buddha.

Running parallel to the length of the Buddha are 108 brass alms bowls. Visitors can purchase 108 santang coins and pass along the line of bowls depositing a coin in each. These offerings are said to bestow blessings upon you.

In this recording you can hear the hypnotic, polyrhythmic sound of the coins dropping into the bowls against the background murmur of the visitors, all reverberating in the temple’s acoustics.

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This recording recently featured in SOUNDkitchen’s ‘Metal’ installation - a curated selection of field recordings on the theme of ‘Metal’ for their Cinema For The Ears event as part of the Supersonic festival in Birmingham

© Iain Armstrong

Sunday 18th July 2011 was World Listening Day, an international call to spend some time listening to your soundscape on the anniversary of R. Murray Schaefer’s birthday. Schaefer defined the concept of the ’soundscape’ in his book Soundscape: Our sonic environment and the tuning of the world and helped establish the World Soundscape Project both significant in the formation of the area of study now known as Acoustic Ecology.

I wanted to participate in World Listening Day but it was raining in Birmingham. So I listened to the rain for some time and recorded the sound it made falling on the plastic rubbish bins outside my kitchen window. I used contact mics taped to the underside of the bin lids.

It was the first time I had recorded anything in a while. It was nice to engage with sound again in such a focused way, to spend time enjoying the pleasure of simply listening. I listened for quite a long time but you can listen to some short excerpts if you like.

Rain on Wheelie bin lid

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Rain on plastic rubbish bin lid

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© Iain Armstrong

This recording was made during a brief visit to Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, China. I stumbled upon a small market with some caged birds just off one of the main central shopping areas. However this is not the large flower and bird market recommended in the travel guides.

Kunming is a fine example of the modernization and development happening in many Chinese cities. You can still find occasional remenants of the old city jostling against the shiny high rises and contemporary city landscaping.

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© Iain Armstrong

Image from Wikipedia

The Khaen (also Khene, Kaen, Khen) is a musical instrument indigenous to the poeple of Laos and north eastern Thailand. It is a free-reed, mouth organ made from bamboo pipes. In this recording the instrument was being played by a blind busker who was being led through the narrow confines of Sampeng Lane in Bangkok.

Located in the Chinatown area of Bangkok, Sampeng Lane is essentially a wholesale market, lined on both sides with a range of shops selling shoes, fabric, haberdashery, clothes, beads, handbags etc. While closed to cars, you will find the ocassional motor bike trying to weave its way through the slow moving throng of people that stretch its 1km length.

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© Iain Armstrong

This is a dawn recording of the Islamic call to prayer on the island of Gili Trawangan, Indonesia. The Gili Islands consist of three tiny islands Gili Meno, Gili Air and Gili Trawangan situated just off the coast of Lombok, Indonesia. Unfortunately the PA system doesn’t quite do justice to the quality of the singing but I quite like the recording, especially the faint sound of cockerels (of which there are many on Gili Trawangan!), the nearby shore and our resident geko.

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© Iain Armstrong

Mani walls are a common site on the outskirts of villages in the northern sections of the Annapurna circuit where the local villagers practice Tibetan Buddhism. The stone built walls usually contain a series of prayer wheels that the traveller can spin as they pass by (always on the left hand side) releasing the prayers as if they had been recited by the person. Many of the walls are also adorned with Mani stones beautifully engraved with the mantra ‘Om madi padme hum’. The walls can range in size up to several hundred meters long. In this recording you can hear me spinning the prayer wheels as I pass.

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© Iain Armstrong

Pack mules are still a common means of transporting supplies between villages on the Annapurna Circuit, a 300km trek around the Annapurna massif. Particularly in the more remote areas not yet connected by roads. Sporting neck bells of various sizes and pitches, the sound of passing mule trains makes a welcome musical addition to the soundscape. There is usually a lead mule with a larger bell that sometimes wears an elaborate headdress. Using calls or whistles the owner communicates with the lead mule to control the speed and direction of the mule train.

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© Iain Armstrong

The Chao Phraya river runs through the city of Bangkok and functions as one of the principle means of navigating this congested capital city. The Chao Phraya Express Boat service operates a fleet of wooden boats that provide a convenient and enjoyable transport service for tourists and locals alike. I made this recording on one of the 39 floating jettys that serve as boarding stages, designed to rise and fall with the depth of the river. You can hear the sound of the jetty structure move with the wash and, as the boat approaches, the distinctive whistle used to communicate with the driver as he docks.

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© Iain Armstrong

This is the first of a series of field recordings I’m hoping to post here that I made while travelling New Zealand and South East Asia in 2007. This example was recorded very early one morning at the White Horse Hill camping ground at the foot of Aoraki or Mount Cook. It is a flock of marauding keas (Nestor notabilis) whose playful investigations of the campervan roofs led to our rude awakening. They are accompanied by some workmen beginning repairs to the track nearby.

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© Iain Armstrong