As if I was watching say a concert and I'm trying to figure out what this artist is about, what sounds they like, what their materials are. I'm trying to see what materials they're using. So I feel like I was in more, maybe, an academic mindset. So I feel like that took away a little bit of heavy visualisation. Lots of layers of sound and I felt like my right ear was lighter than my left ear, because I felt more heavy sounds in my left ear. Or maybe I was tilting my head when listening. I'm not sure. There are also some sounds, similar sounds that I've heard before. No, not a sound, maybe it's an effect. Maybe like a reverse effect or something. I'm not sure, but it made me think of computers. But then also there were some parts where—I think this was on my left side—I could hear you moving some objects. For some reason that made me immediately go back to this performance—where I'm watching you perform live. It's switching between that and a studio where you're manipulating the sounds after. Maybe you're manipulating it in livetime. I don't know. I want to hear it again. Because I know this is for research, I feel like I have to remember some sounds and then I know I'm never going to hear them again. There were some sounds that I like. I like little crittery sounds. So that's nice and I like it in general. It's very metally, but I like little crittery sounds. [Images?] Yes. But only if I close my eyes, because if I'm walking around or I'm doing something, I'm definitely analysing it a little bit more. Whereas in concerts or right now it's very visual just because I'm blocking off any distraction.
Alanna

To begin with, there was more pressure and information happening to my left side. And then the sound sort of travelled through my sinus systems to my right hand bottom jaw. And then, when there [was a] break in the space and it just became these elongating beats and the needly, sharp sounds—because of the space—they were able to occupy something [in] the center of my brain, if that makes sense. And then it just drained away quite nicely. It's quite pleasant. [Images?] Colours. I think I got colours. Towards the end where there's the space and there's less bass. I felt there's a reasonably high-frequency blitz. I could feel them [as] slicing points of pink light. [That] would be my attempt at some sort of synaesthesia. And then the bassy sounds which happened very early on, were all happening to the left, in the left side of my head.
Susannah

I did quite a lot of meditation so it feels—you just get to a place where you can be quite still. Because I do so much meditation—sometimes the sounds, the fatter, more curved sounds are helpful—the more music-[like]. Watery sounds I find irritating and [I] don't need that. It's like surface chatter or something. But the deeper, vibrational stuff is very arresting. It's like I'm already here, I don't want that [chattery stuff]. So when I feel like that sort of nasal stuff is happening, it hit quite strongly. That was at the very beginning. And then at the end I could feel like something was acting—like a part of my brain was turning on that pink colour. [Images?] In meditation yeah. I have in the past with music but not like people write about—synaesthestically. But then as I was reading your material I was going maybe that's what that is a little bit. But I think of it more as meditative, what happens when I meditate, rather than it being "this equals that".
A.

…but pure colours. Pure blues and pinks and greens. And it's a bit science fiction, new-agey, the music. When the little chattery stuff started down the bottom, like little living beings of some sort—chattering, nibbling away— I was in some sort of science ficition-y set really envisaging, I don't know, some living, little, electronic, man-made nibbling things. It was a very pleasant world, and with the little nibbly things, chattery things, who knows whether they were meant to be evil or good. I don't know, they could have been either. That depended upon what I chose to do I suppose. If I was the person in the middle of it. [Images?] More [of an] idea of what I would see if I was looking at a performance really. I'm an observer, having them flashing up, or beams of them.
C.

So it was, it was very much about really careful listening, as in almost wanting to hear beyond the surface. It had this kind of quality of—and it felt like by the end of it—I'd gone there, I'd gone beyond the surface. It felt like I was in a space where I was surrounded by entities, almost like memories in the form some kind of entity. And there was an energy buildup as more of them entered the space. But by the end, I think I'd gone beyond the surface of what that was.
Matt

I think I was listening in a really different way. I'm not sure if, because it was longer, maybe it allowed me to enter the process of duration, which I didn't really get to in the other [sounds]. So I was thinking about the development of the sound. I guess that's kind of where my brain kicks into the compositional elements of how it starts with these impulses and then grows outwards in the stereo field and then comes back in to the center again with this more organic bubbly sound, that sounded a bit like the [sound] from earlier. And the rhythmic elements, the dynamic elements—[I was] thinking about all of the textural, about all the things altogether in a way that I don't think I was with the other sounds. So maybe I hear this is as more musical, whereas with the field recordings, it takes me longer to listen in that same way. I'm not sure. But I did notice there was a certain kind of pulsing sound at the beginning that sounded like it had almost a bit of a break in the texture, which I really enjoyed. So I like certain textural impulses. And I like when it moves, when it becomes physical and when certain sounds dissolve and other sounds enter—the flowing between all of that. [Images?] I did. They weren't really figurative. I saw these—I guess this is in response to you asking the question now, so I'm not sure [if] I’m making it up in my memory when I think about the sound—but darkness and pulsing lights at the beginning [and] this underwater scene with this bubbly insect squirming in a water bubble in the middle.
Alexandra

… I am aware of a need for tension and release. It comes with practice, I know that—but it's not something I'm, at this stage, very good at. The layering was great, very well articulated and timed and it all came in—the bass as it panned across was weirdly pressurous. Not unpleasantly but I definitely felt it. It added weight. And there's that moment when everything is there—all the elements are in it—and it doesn't feel unnatural or you know deliberate. Like it's all come together very organically, and I quite like that. And then as things fell away you're left with a different element than what you started with, but I couldn't tell you exactly when that occurred. All of a sudden it's just, “Oh that stuff is gone now and I'm just [left] with this" and it's quite nice. At one point I was trying to count how many things were in play and realised I couldn't. And it didn't matter, but just that kind of mental exercise—it was a fun little brain party.
D.

For me, [as] it started, it could have been wind or it could have been very natural sounds…that sort of wind through metal wires, or caves or rocks or whatever, at the beginning. And just very quiet. And then it gathered and layered, layer upon layer of different little sounds. Felt fairly natural although not necessarily natural sounds…morning to the middle of the day thing didn't have the bird chorus. So that was lacking. So it had that stillness of the sounds at the beginning, and then, it had for me, that feeling of gathering consciousness, I suppose, of the day time. And there are all sorts of sounds in the middle, of water and birds or little animals or some other mechanical sounds maybe. Yeah, layer upon layer. And what else? Oh, it also reminded me of what I was saying before about the Stephen King thing—when I start with one sound and it layers, more and more come into my consciousness, and you can hold several sounds overlapping at once. So that's what it did for me I suppose.
Lizzy

And it felt like my body had lots of air inside it as I was listening to that. And then those other sounds started to layer in that were—they kind of peaked my curiosity. They were those kinds of sounds that evoke something, but are not something. They were activating my curiosity. So the earlier sounds, which were the kind of spacious airfilled sort of sounds were almost meditative for me, calming. And then when the other sounds started to layer in that were more stimulating…It wasn't that I was trying to work them out, but they were spontaneously evoking things. But I don't think they were really the things that they were evoking. So there were bits that sounded like little bats. I’m not sure what the others were evoking, but it was just that they activated my mind more to "oh, that's curious and oh that's an interesting sound" and they were all really pleasurable to listen to. They're all really enjoyable sounds. I think that they're connecting because they're all layered in together, they don't happen sequentially. They're laid in together and sometimes new combinations are appearing when different sounds overlap. So it's never—it's a constantly shifting thing. My sense of it is that I'm integrating them and it's like a web. It's constantly shifting around. I think if it just settled on one sound, I'd probably be getting stuck on that and pondering that but because it's moving all the time, it doesn't really allow you to do that. Because it stays as this abstraction—it's always an abstraction, nothing's sort of obvious—it didn't allow me to just slot into something and stick with an interpretation.
Helen

The first is from a game called Eco, where there's ordinarily very little sound in the game except there are long, stretched out, unidentifiable sounds. And because the space is meant to be so unfamiliar to the player it's meant to evoke this sense of isolation and loneliness, even though you have a little companion. Just this big castle that's empty except for these two little kids that are trying to find their way around. And the other's from a film called a Silent Voice where the soundtrack is meant to evoke—because one of the protagonists is a deaf girl—the way the reverb pedal is being hit on the piano, the notes are very spaced out, and I felt that similarity. I suppose between that and then the sounds interspersed. That was interesting because it's like they sound vaguely familiar but I can't pinpoint what they are…Water was one thing that came to mind, water droplets, rather than sort of running water I suppose. Not the gurgle, gurgle from earlier. There was this thing that sounded sort of like a cry but it wasn't a cry I don't think. …But that's what I kept thinking it was, even though it wasn't. It was just very distorted.
E.K

They were very real to me, because I hear them all the time. So I felt comfortable with that froggy and tweety [sound] and birds nesting. So that was nice. I thought “oh yes, that sounds like home”. That's a nice thing. I always find electronic music—I feel as if I'm being manipulated by it. But that's because, I'm not very fond of technology so I think, "here we go again". It's too—I know it's obviously not done by a person. I know it is, but…So when it first started I thought, mm [sceptical tone]. That’s a bias, my bias I suppose. So when the natural sounds [came in] I was quite relieved. I thought, that's nice. So, not unpleasant. I could listen to it again and it wouldn't worry me. Although I might, if I wanted quiet at home, turn off that first part. If I was concentrating or just didn't want sound. That would be a sound I wouldn't keep on the radio. On the radio too, if I hear natural sounds on the radio I always turn them off because I can hear the real thing outside.
Mary

…because it doesn't have anything that's particularly distracting in it—just more opening up your ears and your mind. And because there's an echo you feel like you're in a smaller space and maybe safe from whatever is…It's getting a little bit ominous now. I can see little characters squeezing out of a small space into somewhere bigger. Doing something naughty…And now they're going down the drain. They were pretty cute though. I guess you're more imaginative about what they are or you don't actually have a visual on what the creature is, it is just the sound. I guess it just puts you in that mindset…You're trying to train your brain when you're listening to those sounds. It's part of the training to not think too much outside of that. I did visualise a space that I was in listening to that sound. A small space similar to where I am here, or a bedroom or something. A comfortable small space [where] you usually would be meditating on your own.
Meghan

It's a little bit dizzying. The sounds themselves seemed to remind me that I'm listening. I think it was more a sound environment for me. Not sure if I pictured too much. I heard the first few notes, the higher pitched and I felt like that was maybe going to be the whole piece. But lots of other sounds came in. It got quite, well somewhat busy. There were lots of sounds going on. You sped up the process, yeah. Those first few sounds I found very relaxing and then the other sounds creeping in, maybe was where I felt a little bit dizzy because you were getting it over and done with quite quick. High pitched. The rhythm of them, the rhythm of the changes gave me a little bit of a sensation I get from some music that's looped. A relaxed sensation. But sort of like the ocean sounds, you don't necessarily, you don't know exactly where everything's coming and that is actually a relaxing experience. It's like a massage or something. It's probably a funny descriptor—a massage.
Michael

And at the end it was, there's something—it was almost isolating but in a fine way. And then it was like, "aww, not alone", little things creeping in. Well it felt really contained and calming in a way that reminded me of other music that I listen to and I can just be. It was very like a sound bath, but then when there were little squiggly noises and drops coming in, it felt unfamiliar in a way and was disorienting. Or it kind of opened up the experience. In terms of an emotional response, I think it's a curiosity. What is this contributing, where are we going? I don't know. Because I trained as classical pianist and oboist, it's hard to detach from those easy resolutions, but I do like just noises and they don't have to—I like things that end in an unresolved yet beautiful way.
Susie

I felt like I could go and do some work now. So it was reassuring in that way. But then it was very short, so it didn't feel like it really fulfilled its promise also. It sounded like some electronic music that would go on for seven minutes or something. But it did feel like it was opening, opening up an opportunity for me to go and be productive. I guess the deeper sort of the bassy sounds were very comforting. The sound at the end was a little intrusive, the higher pitch. I guess something in the regularity of the rhythm felt safe. It just felt—I guess it just felt familiar. But not the music, just that structure. It did feel, I guess soundtracky. It felt like it could be a sort of thriller, like a British, or maybe even a Noir, a Nordic Noir. At night in winter with some wet streets reflecting the lights, foggy, with some kind of pace, fast cutting at times, or some pursuit. There was a bit of that going on. If it was a genre and a television show, there would be a lot of technology in the show. There would be a lot of surveillance and AI. It felt it was a type of music to fit a certain—there were certain tropes.
Kim

It excited me. If there was a scene in a movie it would be the big change of tack for the character. I don't know how else to describe it, it was just exciting. The music that I'm drawn to has a lot of detail, especially pinprick detail like that had because I DJ using three or four channels, so often I'm digging just for textures. The more functional club music that I play—those textures are often very minimal—so I allow enough head room, for those other textures to exist over it. I also just love tracks that have little glitches, like at the end. I love how the track just broke down into these minimal little pinpricks, which was totally unexpected and is stuff I'm drawn to. I love those little ASMR-y pinpricks
Thorsten

…sending a signal as if it was a ball, or something like that. And because it's so sharp I really feel like it makes the pong image for me because they're like flat paddles, computer paddles, firing this…I feel like another conversation comes in, in a different way, different people, making another back and forth conversation. And before that the bass—something in a lower frequency—was making a kind of sigh. And I really connected with that. The third sound that came in, the bassy one, it seems like a sigh or a cry or a mood of sadness. I really liked how it kept coming back, kept repeating itself and being there as it eased off and then came back. And then this thing happened where I was like OK , there's a few more sounds coming in and I was having to keep track of the different ones and it was gratifying to notice the sounds I heard from before were still there. Because the space was being taken up and as I concentrated on different ones I forgot about other sounds. And then sounds started to leave and I became more aware of just the gravelly sound—like a disconnected signal or something—and that touched me in a different way, in a more visceral…it hit me in a different spot.
Matte

I think it evened it out a little bit but because of the contrast both of the noises really stood out [against] one another, so for me there wasn't one sound I was listening to more the other. And I thought it was really interesting when the beeping sounds were shifting between each ear creating a sense of movement and giving space even though it was being played directly into my ears. It made me think of something being detected. They sounded like radars or something like that picking up different aspects of a space [that were] then being compiled into one. I was thinking of a dark space for some reason, but nothing particularly detailed. Perhaps like racing against something as well, I don't know. I felt like the sound was composed in a way that it had the beginning and then built up and then faded away so it had its own narrative within it. But I felt like it could have continued.
Gabriella

But what it really felt like was that moment when you stop paying attention to the outside world and all the noise around you, and you start to sort of go inward. So you can be walking through the city and you're filtering out all that noise, but you're hearing some other soundscape. And that's when I start to remember songs. Switching off, coming down to just…I think if there was a soundtrack that went with that experience, that would be it. The rhythm of it. So you're going from, I’m very focused, I'm doing the thing, I'm walking along like a little typewriter and I'm stressed out and I've got stuff and it's all happening and then [I’ve] left work and I'm just going to go and walk somewhere, in this case on the beach. And it's just gonna help me to be a bit more reflective and, you know, this could all be happening from the point of view of I'm lying on the couch and I've just gotten tired and sleepy, and I've gone from being aware of my surroundings to just being—let's just go to sleep now—that transition. Like it's about to launch into some dream somewhere. Do you ever have that [startled noise] when you're realising you're going to sleep and you sort of start?
Elle

And there were some sounds that made me think of insects but also needles in a way, or some kind of strange alien creature was conjured in my head. It got less familiar as it went on. And certainly the source of the sounds was mysterious and I enjoy that mystery, because it can be so evocative, without being, what's the word, without signifying necessarily. [Images?] Sometimes. I definitely did then. It started out as just washes of colour and then some sharp lines. I thought of shrimp but I thought of metal alien shrimp.
Reuben

…I think particularly of train travel and looking out the window. Perhaps travelling somewhere new and that being a pleasant exciting experience. Something about it as well, was like [when you’re] travelling, or going somewhere, [and] it's kind of good to be leaving—so extra potentiality. Instantly I had this feeling that it was transportive. I felt at the end of the piece, where the panning seemed to slow down and a lot of the sound stripped down, I was anticipating something quite low and very reduced for a while. I don't know, it was was almost like now it's going to go into—with that little bit of panning at the end which was, I can't quite remember, a little bit clicky and buzzy or something—then I was prepared for a very low, sustained sound to just come in. Like it was intro-ing into it. And I know that thing I said before is probably a little bit to do with imagery, but it seemed to correspond to that feeling of if you were travelling and you were leaving somewhere where it was kind of good to be leaving and you were filled with optimism, [but] there's inevitably that moment when that initial optimism seems a little bit, not temporary, but it's there for a while and then it settles into—it plateaus or something. I don't know where this travel metaphor came from.
MP

I noticed that kind of rhythmic element made me start looking for patterns. And as the sounds were added I felt the field of sound, I perceived [it] as being wider. When the bass came in, it made it feel a lot more spatial. It opened out my listening from kind of a smaller focus to something larger. I guess it's kind of noticing the focus on the timbre, like the softer bass sound, with the higher pitched—I guess it felt slightly harsh. The harsher sound [made me] focus on timbre. And then coming back to rhythmical aspects, again, picking up patterns and the way that they interacted, the sounds interacted. That was I think how I went about that…I guess that's maybe not how I would [normally] go about listening. I don't know. I was more mindful about trying to kind of step back and just see how I went through that particular piece. I definitely think I have a more timbral listening focus in general.
Jo

Straight away. The insistent—the urgency of it. And then when the slide came in, I felt like I was being taken by my seat and lifted out of my body right through this deep blue, like [wwhhooo], like a cloud—being taken out and then bought back as that big sonic slug slid. It was like that shape took me from that point in your forehead, between your eyes, whatever that's called, that gland there, right out of my body and back, looping. And then the higher pitched changes…There's a beauty, for me anyway, a beauty in that—the profound stuff—the big blue sweep taking and returning. It feels like the underbelly to all the other stuff that's ever-changing. And then it petering out and finishing with those high pitched…it was beautiful. [The tapping sound] came in probably two thirds of the way through and it was quite close. It felt in my eardrums, whereas the high pitch stuff, I'm one of those weirdos who love going to the dentist because I lie there and listen. I just let go into that sound. So I don't mind the high pitch stuff at all. I quite like it. The blue, the deep blue, that big sound…And I think this is what I prefer with sound, that I don't actually know what it is. I listen to a lot of electronica, good electronica that allows me not to hear a horse or hear a wave, but rather to just go on a trip, you know? Shapes, colour, sound.
Penelope

It was really nice. I could listen to that for hours. I just straight away felt myself in it I guess. And there's something about the visual aspect to listening. As that was playing I couldn't help but imagine, I don't know, the plants [interview is in a garden] as being part of the sound as well and the way that they were moving. It was kind of going along to the rhythm in a strange way. I was thinking about it the other day actually. When I was young, we listened music in the car and you could see the power poles and I imagined a bouncing ball, an invisible bouncing ball, making the beats, and the poles were the end of the bars. So I had to complete it before it got to the pole. Definitely a sense of community and being social in a space with friends. Just in terms of the movement, I imagined being out and being with a bunch of people moving along to the music.
A.S.

That's why I feel that listening to music or sound is work related because of me being a choreographer. That sound, even more so than the one before, very strongly creates for me a space where I see a body in relation to it. It's because the sound is strongly layered. On the one hand, its quite rhythmic but then it has the—I don't know if that's waves sampled or something, it sounded like it— and then later the higher pitched sounds. So there's a lot going on sonically where personally, in terms of movement, I think it's letting the sound penetrate the body and the body not doing that much. I think because of the layered nature and new things coming in, to my mind it lends itself to quite gradual but slow movement, but then also the possibility to have slight accelerations in the movement. Working against the music and then going with it. I'm wondering if that's at all useful because I think the way I respond to it is "how would I work with that piece of music?". I think in contrast to that music, so what comes to mind is some kind of gliding movement or scanning. But then sometimes, when new sounds come in, that could be [where] you play with that acceleration. It's quite strong. I had that [sense of movement potential] even with the one that came before, that was so minimal, and maybe because of our history [as collaborators] I just go into it. It's like all these times in studios or something, where I go, I know what that is or what it does to a body.
Martin

There was a dance music quality to it—the sort of regularity of the four bars or 16 beats—that's the regular sort of 4/4-y chunks of time, with the lower pitch coming in. And the low pitch resembled a chord change to me [sings descending duh, dah dah], which I thought in the first iteration, was more pronounced or I read it as being a specific chordal movement down. Then in subsequent iterations it felt more ambiguous. I don't know whether my first reading of it was me applying my perception wanting to hear that it sounded like a baseline. And so it kind of sat on this weird cuspy situation between being some sort of sonic event in the universe or some sort of musical construction. Then the changes that happened subsequently all did the same thing. Just as you are settling into thinking of this as almost a dance music-y stability or something—like somebody, well known or reminiscent of so many things—certain things manifested and changed in the music to take away the assumptions and to draw, draw you back into the actual listening, so out of an assumed listening. So I'm suddenly going, no I can't assume what this is. It's now too interesting and too specific for me to go, "ah, this is—I don't want to say musical cliché—but like a musical stability". Something that's a structure or a template. So it always kept me guessing, which I think a lot of good music does. I guess when music becomes clichéd, you're no longer guessing you go, "ah, I know what that thing is". But this is constantly bringing you back to sound as material or, you know, something you don't quite know. Just constantly keeping you asking what is this thing like?
Jim