ASH
ASH. An Audio AR collaboration between Colchester’s Cinematic Folk band Fishclaw, wild writer James Canton, composers Jim Sutherland and Ian Stephenson.
Using the analogy of landscape and soundscape Fishclaw will create a musical soundtrack exploring the East Anglian landscape and folklore alongside the cultural heritage of the Ash tree. With the potential loss from Ash Dieback there is a chance the Ash tree may become a rare thing in our landscape. This project will highlight the wider message of environmental issues from both a local and global scale and aim to get people engaged in trees in a new way, challenging their current views on them. importance of the trees around them in both urban and rural environments.
We are creating an Augmented Reality App that uses GPS data to trigger sounds in order to create an immersive listening experience for a range of woodland locations. The soundscape will be located in different parts of the woodland so as the listener wanders each musical element overlaps, intensifies and fades creating a truly personal soundscape which is unique for every listener. Bringing together elements of music, folklore, nature and being outdoors our project will also focus on well being, visitors can de-stress, get active in nature walking whilst enjoying a creative listening experience.
Open the Ash app and create a musical experience. Mark the route you intend to take or the area you wish to explore. Ash will create a responsive soundscape contained within circles on the map, sounds contained within geofenced areas. These will trigger musical content when you physically walk near, inside or through the zones. Depending upon the route you take sounds will layer in subtle or rich ways, the soundtrack will reveal itself to you and guide you for the duration of your journey. This is a completely different way to experience your physical environment, a threshold where magic happens.
Future developments will integrate, GIS tree data, time, temperature, pace of moment, step count, location or even data on an areas biodiversity. All these new triggers will generate new variables that will unlock new and and exciting soundscapes , creating a truly unique and personal listening experience.
Fishclaw are a band of highly skilled musicians calling Colchester their hometown. Each having previously worked in different genres from folk, rock, hip hop, jazz to blues and electronic music the combination of each member bringing their own approach and history is what produces such a strikingly original sound.
From dark soundscapes to seriously hi-tempo tunes Fishclaw create music that, whilst folk at its core, isn't afraid to move into whatever realm the band chooses at any given moment.
“Folk Music With Teeth” Tom Robinson 6 Music
Jim Sutherland, the noted producer and composer has worked alongside the likes of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Eliza Carthy and Shooglenifty on projects such as Disney Pixar's Brave, Netflix’s The Outlaw King and the Struileag project.
Ian Stephenson is a highly regarded musician and composer known for his playing in bands such as Kan, Baltic Crossing and 422. His recent work to create a solo show utilising live electronics and looping is underway following a successful first performance at Sage Gateshead, where he is currently an associate artist.
The wild writer James Canton, author of BBC Book of the Week The Oak Papers has been mainly concerned with the ties between nature, literature and the environment. Finding himself frequently entranced with exploring the distant past. For his book Ancient Wonderings, he travelled across Britain in order to understand something of prehistoric ways of life in these islands.