An art experimentalist, painter, photographer and critical thinker.  Rachel Megawhat is perhaps best known for her fine art photography, her extraordinary images explore the ancient magic resonating through modern politics.  Sacred knowledge revealed in patterns and symbolism; the complex interplay between the historic and the present.  Speaking from her studio in Lambeth, sheltered from a tempest outside by a massive Linden tree, more of that later...

Sonic and visual artist Heidi Kilpelainen and I met years ago in London in and around clubs like Nag Nag Nag and Shoreditch bars before it was safe to go out there at night!  We speak about her extraordinary exploration of image, identity and the power of an unembellished song.  She is currently engaged in a utopian insect police project, dressed in her father’s old uniform.

​

Fierce.

Some Summer listening.  Speaking with author and comedian Rosie Wilby about her book The Breakup Monologues. While we discuss her process we muse about the contrast between a performance and the sounds of the city as you journey home, sounds of childhood ( in this case endless Wagnerian opera) and hear the tap tap, tap of Dolly the dogs' feet, as she walks about Rosies home.  Rosie and I met a while ago when Madam cellist Sarah Gill and I played at her night Femmes by the Thames at the legendry Royal Vauxhall Tavern.  That was a very magical night with the tiny backstage area full of sequins and tutus.  We play music by Kate Bush, Fleetwood Mac and talk about words and sounds conjuring vivid imagery perfectly illustrating the concept of SOUNDVISION.  Yes

Lucy Jones and I have been friends since we met working at a bespoke shirt makers on Jermyn street a million years ago. There was much going out after shopwork in Mayfair and Soho, thinking and drinking, as we both negotiated what else we could be doing with our lives.  Her life has twisted and turned.  Designing for major fashion outlets, travelling the globe in pursuit of fastenings and the perfect button and establishing her own sustainable fashion label many years before that was a concern of the industry.  After a huge lifechanging health emergency Lucy prioritised her fascination with flowers and created a cutting garden in London and designs and produces bouquets and floral displays for shoots, events and of course weddings . We speak about nature in an urban environment, bird song, sirens, songs from her childhood and the place sound and silence play in her practise . The sound of rain in the orangery roof, the displaced sound of an airport and the power of an articulate political lyric.  This show was recorded in the bar at Soho Theatre, as the staff were setting up for the day, so the shows' sonic environment is illustrative of some of the narrative explored in this episode, yes yes.

Oscar nominated composer Gary Yershon speaks of East London, street sound, spatial sound, how he visualises sound, which turns out to be the most astonishing description I have heard from all of these SOUNDVISION podcasts.  This episode is the true essence of this program, exploring the collaboration in an imagination of sound and vision to make it possible to write astonishing music for films including Mister Turner, Topsy Turvy and theatre productions for amongst many others, the RSC and the National Theatre.  So much sonic beauty.  We speak of how codes are employed translating sound into music; notation as feeling.  How an early immersion into to music lead to this astonishing career; we play excerpts of musicals, soundscape that feature in Garys life and examples of his varied and outstanding music.  What a brain... an utterly fascinating hour.  I mean who learns to speak Russian just to read a Pushkin poem that's quoted in Three Sisters!  I met Gary so long ago at a casting for a Phyllida Lloyd play at Bristol Old Vic, I remember him willing me (unsuccessfully) to be what was needed for the play as I played a melancholy verion of "To a Wild Rose" on my flute... and then again for Mike Leighs Topsy Turvy where I sang "Tit Willow" at the top of my voice playing Sullivans maid Clotilde.. yes.. yes I did.

My June guest is the wildly talented artist, set designer and art director David Curtis-Ring. We speak about symbolism, sygils, sound effects and concepts that don't start with S.  We play film soundtrack from The Dark Crystal, Woodkid, covert ( since approved ) underground recording, a gorgeously dramatic cello piece commissioned for Davids' graduation film and speak about how his ideas form, how synaesthesia is probably present in all thinking and about his astonishing collaborations with menswear designer Craig Green.  David and I met on a short film directed by Kyoko Miyake set on a pig farm/women's refuge, where nothing is what it seems. Trivia fact fans, this was the second time I have expertly chopped wood with a massive axe in character.  This hour went by so quickly, we didn't have time to talk about ALL the intriguing fashion, dance and music collaborations David is involved with, so, explore his site to see the wonderland that plays out in his creations.

 

Mercedes shares stories from her adventuring and creative time in the UK , Ireland and New York..  We had so much to say about these journeys and stays, that some locations get spoken about more than others and I think there will be a part two for this sonic exploration at some point.  Beginning life as a classically trained dancer, expanding that practice to incorporate a less formal expression in movement and pilgrimaging into the wilderness of the west coast of Ireland, the sonic choices in this show embody these diverse and immersive landscapes, both urban and for this show, very much nature based.  Working as an actress, musician, singer, dancer, writer and director, I ask Mercedes, what imagination-gymnastics it requires to contain and release a huge idea.  We play Kate Bush and her band Sybil, we laugh a lot, we talk about creative dyslexia, foxes as boyfriends and how essential music is to thinking anything at all.  I used the word profound a lot, in this particular show, it is especially fitting.

This show explores voice and soundscape differently from other episodes.  I commission spoken word pieces from former guests Marcia Farquhar and Georgina Starr and ask award winning storyteller and actress Hannah Smith to read three poems from women poets.  Sound artist and composer Alyssa Moxley shares two compositions originating as field records, one from the edge of a live volcano and the other in an olive oil distillery.  I have also included an eleven-minute music and spoken word piece I made in response to the epic night filming for When I met You which is the third track on Back to the Sea (Shilling Boy Records).

I have been aware of Steve Gullicks' outpourings since I arrived in London.  From his startling photographs of Nirvana and the whole Grunge era I have been an admirer of his astonishing, intimate yet swaggering, images of musicians, artists and landscape.  When I started to play live music, I was taken under the wing of the amazing independent label Stolen Recordings who worked out of an artist colony based in Tottenham.  Over five glorious years they curated legendary live events including at the, now departed, Spitz, booking artists and bands who connected with their off kilter, emotionally driven, independent music and art makers.  Cindytalk, The Kittens, Candy, Serafina Steer, Pete and the Pirates, Bo Ningen and for a time Steves' band Bender.  I worked with Stolen as their Door Bitch as well as being one of their first artists (with my band Madam) and saw Bender play a good many times, so raw, feral and glamorous I loved them.  In this show we talk about the essence of the sonic , of locating yourself through audio , the collision between sound and vision and drone , a lot about drone.... We also play tracks from Nirvana, Cat Power, Earth and Steve and James Johnstones' new project We Travel Time.  I loved this show

Razor sharp, swift talker, fantastic raconteur, music fan; introducing Brad Feldman, what could go wrong? Nothing!!  High octane and hilarious, this is a speedy show and all the better for it.  Brad is an American TV producer and football commentator working out of Boston.  He describes the sounds of the streets growing up in the city, the early street protests he took part in with his artist mother and the consequences of the sonics of his fathers HUGE muscle car which made me laugh so much I couldn't talk.  Big Mistake!!  I eventually wrestle the show back to some kind of order and we play music by Swervedriver, The Beatles and Buffalo Tom.  What a joyfest.

What does it sound like growing up in Singapore in the early 80s?  How does it feel to time travel hearing yourself sing as a child on disintegrating cassette tapes?  I first met Pam Oei, in 1996 when we worked together on a BBC film Peggy Su, set in the 60s in the huge Chinese community established in Liverpool.  We spent months rehearsing in London and then filming interiors in Acton and in a beautiful laundrette on Penny Lane in Liverpool and we remain friends to this day.  I have watched how Pam has worked tirelessly to use her fame and notoriety to question and engage with the conservative Singaporean government and effected real change.We speak about Pink Dot, a pro LGBTQIA rights, annual protest/gathering, initially in Singapore but now global event which Pam helped establish. It is still illegal to have same sex relationships in Singapore, a hangover from colonial rule. Pam is part of an incredibly successful cabaret trio The Dim Sum Dollies , we play music from them and also her politically charged band Ugly in the Morning.  It pains me to say we also play Barry White...  A true force of nature doing incredible work.

Ty Jeffries aka Miss Hope Springs, joins me to speak about growing up in and around his fathers movies sets, how he and his sisters encouraged his father to adapt “The Railway Children", one of the most outrageously emotional films! We talk about vacuum cleaners inspiring song, modelling in New York in the 80s, writing pop music in the 90s, wild clubbing and the emergence of the creature that is Miss Hope Springs.

I am lucky to have spent many an evening hearing John talk about movies and music and humans, he is just the most engaging person to be in the company of.  So here then, a nostalgic and moving race through the sonic memory of award-winning director of TV and film.  Political, hilarious, considered, passionate and the best start to any show so far...... From his Durham college days to London to America, Jamaica, the sound of the sea, cathedral bells, freight trains... Fred Astaire, Hamburger Hill, Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, boarding schools, Mandela..   It was an absolute honour to speak to John for this hour.

My heart skips a beat whenever I hear his name.

Marcia , Marcia Marcia , once is never enough . As Marcia Farquhar said just before we recorded her episode ... "Darling, can you pronounce it Faaark aaaaah, you know?"  With her extraordinarily beautiful voice and outrageous stories, Marcias work is performance based, but includes sculpture, painting, photography and object making.  Scripted or unscripted her stories unravel and journey fearlessly through memories and recollections of her long and glamourous life.  As a listener we are transported to familiar experiences that maybe as women we have all endured, but which somehow, through Marcias narrative, become precious, with jewel like detail lifting them out of any mundanity and into glorious and fantastical moments of existence.  We speak about her childhood, how fortitude was common place, how humans, some long since shuffled off, made their impression on her and how deeply their incidental existences affected her thinking.  All the cringing, ironic incidents that befall a pre-pubescent girl, all the shocking and awkward behaviour that humans exhibit, made bearable by Marcias intelligent humour.  No detail too small to illustrate the significance of a moment, it's just breath taking...

 

LEGENDARY photographer of the human, explorer or hardcore, individualism, self-expression with both body and apparel.  Street life, music tribes, after dark club life, no holes bared (what?  yes!) images of the erotic and the exotic.  Currently enjoying a resurgence of recognition as he bosses Instagram with stunning images, we speak of his experiences watching live music in the 60s and 70s, seeing amongst others Jimmy Hendrix and Pink Floyd.  How gentle and inclusive the atmosphere was.  Punk changed all of that.  Aggressive and fight ridden changing how he wanted to interact with live and consequently, as a protection against the violence, he started taking pictures in front of the stage to disengage with the argy bargy from the rioting snarl fest. I met Derek through a mutual friend about three years ago, but as soon as we started talking, we both thought we had connected at some point much earlier.  One day looking through some of his pictures taken of the Mod scene in Southend on Sea, I realised that we must have met when I was going starting to go out into the Essex to hear music. In the mod precincts pictures from '82.  Probably in an adaptation of my school uniform....  bad!  We play amongst others, Alice Coltrane, Joan Baez, Crosby Stills and Nash and mention the sound of a shutter a few times...  gorgeous.

Dr. Ulrich Blanché writes academic papers and books on the significance of global street art and is an expert on the work of Banksy.  I became aware of Ulis work through a friend of his with whom I have written this fabulous paper (The Physical Becoming Sigil Scritture nascoste published in ALTERITAS, 2020) which explores a specific piece of graffiti, completed over several months near my place in Camden.  The graffiti exhibited a peculiar and powerful ability to demand certain stencilled images be included in its display which in turn became hugely significant to the street artist.. as if the unfolding picture had knowledge of future events..  It was wildly odd and comforting.  I speak with Uli about his learnings and why he writes about this form of expression so intensely.  We trace his academic beginnings from rural villages in the German countryside to the bright lights of Berlin, and we play tracks from his sonic diary.  My favourite story he recalls is some wild shamanic dance he was inadvertently part of - dancing to a track about an eclipse of moths...  What is not to love about that?  We nearly play Queen, but somehow there wasn't time.....

Self-titled Mother of Yarn Bombing from her New York apartment just as the Black Lives Matter protests are taking place and covid is beginning its reign on the land.  We speak about her heritage, how she is about to open a restaurant in a pandemic, about the energy and the sound of the streets with the demonstrations present insight, in sight... A burgeoning understanding and appreciation of street Art and has co-written a paper about its power on us, its magical properties to inform our thinking.  We play disco, prayers, an outrageously sweary song and celebrate how vital and vibrant New York is. Yes, we do.

Georgina curates such a sonically intriguing show.  When I ask someone to be a guest, I suggest they put together a playlist of song/soundtrack/spoken word/ambient sound, anything sonic, as a sort of diary of audio memories.  Sometimes as a guest speaks about a subject the playlist order is adapted to fit their train of thought but in Georginas show she asked to keep the running order exactly as she planed it and as a consequence we go on a delicate, magical sonic adventure..  Here is the map:
1. A Sound: Molly Drake (1950)  2. Her Mothers Daughter: Dory Previn (1978)  3. Mum Sings Hello: Georgina Starr (1993)
4. I’ll Be Your Mirror: Nico & The Velvet Underground (1966) 5. Echos: Beatriz Ferreyra (1978)

6. El Bent El Shalabeya: Fairuz  7. What a Wonderful Thing Love Is: The Learys (1999) 

8. Vessel (an Opera Epic) : Meredith Monk (1984)  9. Glam Racket-Star : The Fall (with Brix Smith) (1993)
Along with this list of music.  Incantations, rapid fire commentary about her film Quarantaine, some swearing, much laughing.

This month's SOUNDVISION show features Peter Leigh who has innovated and shaken up the areas of the music industry that he has worked in since the 1980s.  Musician, DJ, promoter, festival mastermind, marketing expert, working for both Rough Trade, One Little Indian and Polydor, he has straddled the difference approaches of fiercely independent labels to the excess of the majors.  His widescreen approach to music and the source of its creation has led him to spend time working in the Caribbean, New York and Iceland including setting up a travel company, which contributed to the explosion of Uk bands exploring Reykjavik!  We speak about what effect music has on thinking and brain activity, the exploration of which has motivated him to establish Key Changes, an award-winning charity providing recovery programs for musicians experiencing mental health programs.  I am a trustee of the charity and am agog at the positive effect it has for hundreds of humans locked into a cycle of hospitalisation and drug therapy.  Key Changes have established a label and are actively promoting and releasing music created in the various programmes. 

Gorgeous and clever Rose Butler’s Artwork can take the form of installation, single and multi-screen videos, or large-scale photographs.  Her work teeters between different states of being and knowing, and plays with time slippage, repetition and intervention.  Her recent works reference and weave political, spatial and fictional histories to create social or political commentary.  She works with the narratives that surround and shape us through literature, personal account, journalism and observation made during the process of documentation.  She is also extremely inventive as to how she can be covert using spy technology which is good because her research examines the ethics and politics of looking considered through art practice and surveillance.  I met Rose at an artist weeklong take of Kabinet Mutz in Czech curated by David Cotterrell.  Seven artists showed their work and as Rose said, I headlined with a song, spoken word and video piece. Hoorah.

Geraldine and I have known each other from the nights we played in our respective bands coming out of Catch and the Spitz hosted by Stolen Recordings, or was it earlier than that through a writer friend who took me to a huge party in an abandoned school in deepest Shoreditch such a long time ago.  Millions of Bad Seeds were there , Sebastian Horsley, who became a close friend until, you know.. well that..  Yes, it was there I first met Geraldine, surrounded by magnificent suited men and girls with dark flashing eyes and glamorous dresses...  We speak about her work with Faust, who are wild wild wild to hear live and about her unnerving and utterly compelling painting. There is a picture of me somewhere on the walls of Groucho's.  It is the one opposite of Dorian Gray; I hope I avoid its premonition....  A mighty talent.

They call him Brock, Brock Norman Brock... we have known each other since I was in the UK premiere of his award-winning play "Here is Monster."  A fierce and extraordinary play about masculinity, violence and expectation and a whole lot of other stuff. I played wife of monster and spent most of the play chopping wood with a MASSIVE axe. MASSIVE.  In this episode we explore the origins of the screen play Bronson, see above .. talk about collective pulse in response to music , New Orleans as a creative island of bohemian inspiration. We play music from a lost friend from that time, so beautiful it  cast a spell on us. Dr John, Thelonius Monk, Lotta Lena.

What a start to this run of shows ! Internationally acclaimed artist Bruce Mcclean and his brilliant daughter, milliner  Flora Mcclean come in to the studio to speak about an ears response to frequencies, improvised jazz musicians' brain activity as they create sound, a huge horse ridden by a tiny girl that makes an appearance in a Spanish bar they were drinking in, how painting is dancing, how sound is something even when its silent, how Spain and a Latin aesthetic is present in both of their work, we play a sewing machine that makes the sound of a samba, rain on iron roofs, rock and roll and chickens.. this is a riotous hour.