sanderson & sanderson

A nocturnal walk through a liminal zone, a marginal edge land of the senses… sharon sanderson - field recordings robert sanderson - discarded guitar and atmospherics

Darkness falls over Wuffinga-land, and an autumnal day comes to a close. Chieftains sleep forever in their buried ships, and Mrs. Edith Pretty consults the spirits, while Basil Brown, trowel in hand, scrapes away the soil of centuries. Sharon's on a patch of heathland recording the rutting red deer, before she realises that the beaten tracks have dissolved into the darkness, and she's now lost. Sharon Sanderson - field recordings Robert Sanderson - atmospherics voices - Professor H.C.Wyld, an academic and linguist, reading an extract from Beowulf Basil Brown, a local self-taught archaeologist explaining how he discovered the remains of a buried ship at Sutton Hoo

gloaming by sanderson & sanderson

music for two nightingales and an ersatz cello sharon sanderson - field recordings robert sanderson - ersatz cello f. scott fitzgerald reading the first verse of ode to a nightingale by john keats nightingales recorded at westleton heath in suffolk

Low tide, and the stunted remains of a Bronze Age timber circle poke through the sand. A herd of curlews take to the air just above the surface of the water, and land a few yards away. A parcel of oystercatchers go about their business among the peat outcrops. Just over there, inside another timber circle, a body lies under the sky in the roots of an inverted oak, waiting for gulls and crows to pluck out the eyes, gouge out the innards and strip the flesh from the bones, to set the spirit free. Soon the tide will turn, and the shifting sands will cover everything, and everything will be lost…

Over the centuries the nightingale has flown in and out of the English national psyche, and its song has been an inspiration for musicians and poets throughout the ages. One of the cultural myths concerning the bird involved it jamming along to a cellist during a series of live recordings broadcast by the BBC, though it now seems likely that the corporation used the skills of a siffleur to impersonate the song. This track is based on variations of a dance by John Playford, and incorporates samples from the 1943 propaganda film The Demi-Paradise. The nightingales were recorded on Westleton Heath in Suffolk. sharon sanderson - field recordings robert sanderson - guitar & atmospherics

A sonic landscape based on the holy North Sea islands of Lindisfarne and the Farne Archipelago, which were the home of Saint Cuthbert and the seat of English Christianity before the Viking invasion. The title of the piece comes from a large and decorative map of Lindisfarne and the Farne Islands, from the 1645 German edition of the Blaeu Atlas Novus. Calves slaughtered, vellum prepared, oak apples picked - without the wasp the word of god would remain unwritten. A shooting star cuts the sky in two; an angel transports a soul to heaven. This world is the work of the devil and woman is his willing tool; the hermit prefers the company of the donkey and the eider duck to that of the weaker sex, and in the life and death his body is un-corrupted. Carry him now, cart his coffin around the country, establish his church at every station along the wandering route, and leave behind a trail of tall tales, invented legends, stories of piety and saintly intervention. Scribe, sharpen your quill, scratch your mark upon the page and record the works of a sky-god’s son that lived in a hot and distant land. The wind is whipping over the dunes, and the tide is turning. Porpoise and seals sing their songs to the sea. In the beginning was the word. So be it. The end is Amen

A piece of music inspired by the bleak unstable terrain of the North Norfolk coast, and by the medieval ship graffiti found in some of the churches there. We navigated by stars, charted our course by constellations, carried cargo on the German Ocean from Lubek to Lynn and fished for herring and cod in the cold north waters. We lined up with the church towers as we pulled into port and carved our crude ships on the pillars in the nave - votive scratchings as we listened to long sermons for the saints and the hammer-beam angels to intercede for us, and grant us safe passage. And after the harbour has silted up and after the river has changed its course and after the town has hollowed out and long after we have sailed from these shores our graffiti ships will still be there safe in the haven of our souls

A summer nocturne, with the strange eldrich churring of a nightjar, and a couple of muntjaks barking into the darkness. The souls of unbaptised children wander the skies tonight…

The Vinegar Pond is a body of water on Mousehold Heath near Norwich, and is popular with frogs during mating season. sharon sanderson - field recordings robert sanderson - atmospherics

the fiefdom of twilight by sanderson & sanderson

A winter afternoon on the marshes, with the temperature falling and the light fading, and rooks and jackdaws returning to roost. Sharon Sanderson - field recordings Robert Sanderson - samples, atmospherics and voice

a little bit of bread and no cheese a little bit of bread and no cheese a little bit of bread and no cheese a little bit of bread and no cheese sharon sanderson - field recordings robert sanderson - guitar & computer

A soundtrack to a project about changing landscapes and abandoned world war two airfields - the thundering roar of the bomber is a distant memory, and has been replaced by the song of the skylark. sharon sanderson - voice & field recordings robert sanderson - gramophonics & samples

According to superstition, nightjars are the manifestations of the souls of unbaptised children forever doomed to wander the summer night skies. Nightjars and muntjacs recorded at Broadland Country Park, near Norwich. sharon sanderson - field recordings robert sanderson - atmospherics

Field recordings made before sunrise on a morning in early summer inside Bant’s Carn, a Bronze Age burial chamber on the island of St Mary’s in the Isles of Scilly. sharon sanderson - field recordings robert sanderson - atmospherics

recorded early one morning in springtime at buckenham marshes sharon sanderson - field recordings robert sanderson - atmospherics

recorded by sanderson & sanderson voice - ollie

recorded by sanderson& sanderson