Motion
Andrew Heath + Toby Marks
In November 2017, following a house-sitting request, we undertook what became a series of fascinating field recording trips North, South, East and West from our base in England. Each trip took as its theme a particular form of transport – which in turn, offered a small and intimate journey into an immersive soundscape. Created and compiled using these recordings together with other environmental sounds from those areas, these ‘found sounds’ have been processed, transformed and blended with piano, guitar and electronics to produce deeply meditative and endlessly unfolding music.
Whilst in Norfolk we chanced across a short, former branch line now run by volunteers using a gorgeous small steam train, this gave us our way in to the idea of finding unusual transport journeys that we could record and use as the basis for a piece of music.
A trip to Swanage offered us recordings from the chain link ferry that crosses the opening to Poole Harbour. It also broadened our project to include ‘found sounds’ from the surrounding area, stone quarries in particular.
We headed west into Wales for our next location. What could be more unusual than a slate mine, its deep mine lift plunging us into the mountainside.
Our trip north found us in Yorkshire, recording gliders and planes on a beautiful summer’s day along with sounds from the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the boats navigating it. Rather aptly, our trip ended with a spectacular thunderstorm.
Our project had begun.
freq.org…
“Motion is a beautifully immersive series of pieces that are lulling in their slow rhythmic movement…”
Big Shot Magazine…
“Electronic music legends Toby Marks (a.k.a. Banco de Gaia) and Andrew Heath embarked on a musical pilgrimage across England and Wales in 2018. The byproduct of their experimentation is Motion, a transformative collaborative full-length album that stands as a wondrous sonic document of their journey.”
Toby Marks – Field recordings, Sound design, Guitar, Guitar synthesizer
Andrew Heath – Field recordings, Sound design, Piano, Electric Piano
Sketchbook images by Zoë Heath
For Stone (west) parts 1 – 3
With Iron (south) parts 1 – 3
In Air On Water (north) parts 1 – 3
By Fire (east) parts 1 – 4
Motion is available to order as CD or Download here