Spoken word / Ascoltaci (Listen to us)

When ambient electronic music meets spoken word...I wrote this poem while attending the international symposium on soundscape in Lugano, Switzerland, in October 2023. The theme was looking at how sound creations and listening practices can help us shape better futures for human and more-than-human life.The musical accompaniment was a spontaneous creation offered by my friend Andy Squiff -photographer, graphic designer and sound producer.Lyrics: Ascoltaci (Listen to us)Lisssstening... with our hearts wide open.We are here to dream of sonic futures with a reverence for life.We are here to re-imagine the rewilding of our ears.We are here to get lost soundscapes yet to find each other.Streaming from different localities, we embarked on a quest seeking the humming of the land, the hissing of the skies and the clicking in the waters.In our rush for birdsongs going extinct, so much quicker than we can grasp, we hush.Trying to make sense of the evermore silence of our biosphere while our everyday seems to get louder and louder.The storms we play on tape echo the cataclysmic challenges of our times.Meanwhile our clever machines try to capture what defies our hearing range: the ultra, the infra, the invisible, the beyond, the below and the between.We have even designed artificial intelligences that are starting to decode the languages of bees and bats.Our cables plugged into secretive mycelium and our hydrophones intruding rock pools and ponds,We are the gifted curators of the polyphony of our Mother.Yet, as a species, we have created so much noise that we can't seem to truly listen when her children cry and scream and die.But some of us do.Those who haven't let go of a sense of wonder for this beautiful and complex world.Those of us who pay attention to frequencies and vibrations.Those of us who attempt to make the planet’s gentlest voices heard despite our physical limitations.And so our dreams grow bigger and our acoustic calls reach further: we listen, we listen, we listen.What do you hear, child of the Earth?