A LIFE IN SOUND
This series aims to take listeners on an epic and intimate journey through the natural world, all through the medium of sound and at the same time we want to enable a rare glimpse into the life of a man who recorded everything you’re about to hear, one sound at a time.
Martyn Stewart has spent his lifetime on a mission: to record the natural sounds of our planet. It’s a story that will take us from a council estate in Birmingham England and ultimately take him to every corner of the planet. From Belize to the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, from Denali to the Galapagos, to some of the most inhospitable locations geographically and politically. He will be attacked by lions and crocodiles, arrested in Japan for filming the annual dolphin slaughter and then find himself in long periods of isolation, in remote corners of the world waiting for 30 seconds of a that perfect sound. This is ultimately a love story – dedicated to our natural world and to the people who spend their lives aiming to give it a voice.
A LIFE IN SOUND
Creative conversation with Peter Raeburn
On August 30th 2024, 'We Are Biophonica' was launched out into the world. For the album, Peter Raeburn collaborated with Martyn Stewart and The Listening Planet team. In this conversation, we learn more about the journey they went on together, how it all began and how this beautiful collaboration has transformed them both.
Wind back to over a year ago and a serendipitous meeting in London at the Platoon offices. Pete shares that moment and how an unplanned meeting, all about nature sounds and their creative potential, sparked a profound and unique partnership.
Peter Raeburn’s music tenderly enfolds the splendor of Martyn's natural sounds, unifying them into one harmonious symphonic form that traces a lifecycle from infancy to slumber. ‘We Are Biophonica’ reminds us that we are all intertwined as part of nature’s orchestra and underscores our guiding truth – humanity resides within nature, and we will find connection and peace within ourselves once we learn to cherish its embrace and protect our home.
We delve into the concept and meaning of each track and the overarching philosophy of living in harmony with nature. The episode culminates in a powerful narrative about the emotional experiences derived from merging soundscapes, particularly the transition from the terrestrial to the oceanic realm. Through evocative storytelling, we confront the awe-inspiring and humbling power of nature while advocating for a greater appreciation of our environment. Amidst discussions on global crises, we emphasize the often-overlooked plight of animals and the essential role humans play in both creating and solving these issues. Join us for an episode that promises not only to entertain but also to inspire a renewed sense of responsibility towards our planet.
www.thelisteningplanet.com
This is Martin Stewart with A Life in Sound from the Listening Planet, in partnership with Biophonica Beats.
Peter Raeburn:Probably it's good just to start with talking about how I got to meet you, which is through sitting in a meeting in London about a record that I made after a life-saving brain surgery. And I'm sitting with a lovely man called Denzyl in London and we're having a really peaceful conversation about the record and I just delivered it and he says to me do you want to stay for the next meeting? Which kind of sounded like the most Hollywood thing I'd ever heard. It was like you know, what do you mean? I'm not that spontaneous a person. I'm, musically I'm spontaneous, but not not necessarily with like diaries and stuff.
Peter Raeburn:So I left, I said I can't, I've got, I've got, I've got to go, I've got to be somewhere else, which I did have to be somewhere else. And I got on my bike in London and cycled off and after about 10 seconds I'm like what, what am I doing? How do I know what I just said I wasn't available for and I, um, I called my studios and said do you really need me? And everyone was like no, we're fine. I was like oh, okay, so I cycled right back and it went into the uh, the studio, where, where denzel was and and my seat was still there, it was still like, still warm. It was still warm and and inviting, and and the difference was the room had filled up with a load of other people and one of those people was, um, you know the the amazing amanda, um, and and she pitched um this concept, uh, about biophonica, and as I looked at this slide that she had it kind of I kind of got all butterfly inside.
Martyn Stewart:She's got a knack at doing that.
Peter Raeburn:I got all butterfly like Because I just I've always been obsessed with sound, but I've always been just that tad more a musician, but I've, I've. If I had two lives, I'd spend one only in sound. You know, if I knew I had those two lives, but but considering, if I did, it probably wouldn't be looking and looking and hearing like this, thankfully. And so I I instantly connected with her and I'd heard about you already. I'd actually already heard about you through Denzel and he told me about what an amazing person you were. This was nothing to do with Biophonica, but I'd heard about you and I slipped Denzel some money.
Peter Raeburn:That's what it was, you slipped him some cash, yeah, and, and I never saw any of that cash. Just so you know, I never thought, okay, a red cent and and um, and so I just kind of and I called up john, who is in this room with me.
Peter Raeburn:Um, and he's been such an incredibly important part of developing our work in biophonic and with you he's your twin he's, my son is 20 years, um, and I said to john I think I just walked out of a meeting that could be the most exciting project uh, we, we, we might work on um, and that's that's. That's how I met you. I didn't meet you yet personally, but that's how I met you. I didn't meet you yet personally, but that's how I connected with you. That's my side of the story. And I and the next thing, I'm I am testing the waters of this idea of taking taking natural sound. I didn't yet feel worthy of your sounds, but I took some other nature sounds and tested that I wasn't full of shit and I thought I could do something interesting with this. And then the next thing, I remember I'm sharing it with you, like I'm going to share things with you today and have been sharing things with you the whole way through this process. And you know that's my side of the story.
Martyn Stewart:I always believe in serendipity. I always think there's a reason for so many things that happens in your life. And I remember the time when we met on Zoom that first time and you played some stuff and you had someone else's sounds. I think it was a song sparrow that was singing away and it was kind of cool and I thought, well, wow, this concept is just brilliant. You know, because I'm a guy who loves music, I mean, music has so many attachments to your life. You know, you get married to your favorite song, you grow up with influences of musicians you really like.
Martyn Stewart:But my side of the pit really is the natural sounds are the ones that always kept me happy, because I knew everything was doing tickety-boo. You know, if you're in the woods or if you're in the hedgerows or if you're somewhere and there's something singing, everything's happy. And I think I had that kind of feeling all my life and I always thought nature and music should be separate, because you don't mess around with the natural sound. She has her own rhythm, she has her own way of playing, she doesn't have to get into a certain key, she doesn't have to tune up, she doesn't have to do that stuff. And I thought well, I hated basically piano music and ocean sounds and piano music and rain and I didn't think that these things could come together, except for just that, you know, in a spa or in some you know hairdressing saloon or whatever.
Peter Raeburn:I completely agree with you.
Martyn Stewart:What you did there's one thing that's indelibly marked in my head, that and I said to you at the time I remember when the Beatles came out with Blackbird, and I remember what Paul McCartney said that one night it was dusk around his house and there was a blackbird singing outside and he tried to find out what key it was in and he started to jam with his blackbird. Well, I played a song, a vocalisation, to you. You turned on your seat and you went straight to your keyboard and you started playing this melody in tune with the critter that I'd sent you. That knocked me out, that blew me apart. It absolutely came to a point where I had my own Blackbird Paul McCartney experience right there. But this is Peter Brayburn doing this stuff with his piano. And then the rest is history. Mate, you know, there's so many things that touch your heartstrings and I think you've been able to change my mind with music and natural sounds coming together, and I think you really are the one that's convinced me that those two things really work.
Peter Raeburn:You know the whole story of the world going wrong is, in my opinion, the moment where humanity thought that they could control nature, as opposed to live within it and I've always thought that they could control nature as opposed to live within it.
Peter Raeburn:And I've always thought that and I, you know, I studied that at university I was obsessed with, with the moment when it all went wrong and and and I won't bring up all the details of that now because it's very philosophical but I've always been and I don't know we haven't really spoken about this, but I was a, you know, majored in environmental philosophy. That was my, that was my concern at university. I don't know we haven't really spoken about this, but I was a, you know, majored in environmental philosophy that was my, that was my concern at university.
Peter Raeburn:I didn't know I was playing in back, I was playing in bands, but I was. I was studying environmental philosophy and and particularly interested in the moment where, where it all, where it all changed. So and I'm fascinated by it and and I'm, uh, concerned about it, and I always was, and it's just, this project has given me the ability to bring that side of my, of myself and my musical self together in a way that there's never happened. And you know, I, I, I don't have any hobbies, apart from maybe, you know, being by the ocean. You wouldn't really call that a hobby, it's more of a survival technique. But I don't have hobbies because music is, is my whole kind of life. I have things that I'm obsessed with. I'm obsessed with my family, I'm obsessed with, you know, lots of things, but I don't have a hobby like a lot of people have.
Peter Raeburn:And when I got to to work with your sounds, it felt as close to a hobby as I've ever had.
Peter Raeburn:In other words, it's been so fun, it's like I could imagine.
Peter Raeburn:This is how people feel when they go into their sheds and they build you know, I don't know shells or fucking fireplaces, whatever they build I don't know what they do or play with their train sets or just anything, anything would work, something with their hands, probably, um, but just something very basic and pre-civil, like more pre-civilizations, like that.
Peter Raeburn:And I think that this has been an opportunity for me to connect in a totally in a way that music is kind of intravenous, um, so is, so are the, so are your sounds, and your sounds are not ordinary sounds, and I do speak from a little bit of experience, because I've, you know, as you know, mixed a lot of films and and have a lot of experience working with sound. But there's something about the way your, you record and curate sounds. This whole process has been such a joy and so, you know, I just trusted in the process. So you would send something to john, it would find its way into um, into my ears, and it would be like this most natural process, um, and anyway, I'm just so grateful for the, for the experience, I think, think you're a genius mate, and you know I don't use that lightly.
Martyn Stewart:I think what you do musically and to be able to combine that with all the critters that I've recorded, I mean I could just pull something out of the archive, think, okay, there's a melody there or there's something, or maybe a bass note or a percussion or woodpecker banging away and you chuck it into a track and then bang. You know it comes back and I've never experienced something as beautiful as sitting live in some studio listening to the theme music to a Disney film. Being born like that, because that's how your stuff makes me feel. You make me feel like the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and emotions Natural sounds. To me is a world where there's beautiful melodies but nobody's listening to them, nobody hears them, they're blanketed out.
Martyn Stewart:People walk in nature with earbuds in listening to music or you know what is there at the end of the trail? Is it worth going down this track? You know they don't see anything unless they encounter like I've been out in nature recording stuff with a parabolic dish pointing up and someone's oblivious to everything that's going around. But as soon as they see you, they want to know what you. Oh, there's a bird in the tree Wow, and they're oblivious to it beforehand. Tree Wow, and they're oblivious to it beforehand. So nature hasn't had this voice. As far as I'm concerned, that people turn their heads and say isn't that gorgeous If they did? This is the reason why nature's being pillaged at the moment, and what you're doing with your, your sound, your music and marrying it together and amalgamating this thing, is giving nature this beautiful voice again, because I know when this, when this is all released, someone's going to say, wow, you know what are those sounds accompanying that, the pitch. With each one, they complement something just beautiful. It's like a marriage made in heaven.
Peter Raeburn:So what you're doing and this is the thing that makes me feel elated the most is that you're saying to nature I'm going to give you a helping hand so that people can appreciate you a lot more, and that's what you're doing, and that's what you have done, and that's what you've done to me anyway I think, I think that the the as I, as I've been working with you, with our, with our very, very amazing team of amanda and john um, obviously the team has grown through the recording process as well and the mixing process as well now, but as I've gone through it, I've realised that it's all about trying to not just acknowledge but honour that all the melodies, all the feelings are there already and that she's offering those up to us all day, every day.
Peter Raeburn:And I think that this idea of living, you know, of living with respect to nature and we can say either living in nature or within nature or in harmony with and I think what we're doing on this project is is is honoring through, through a kind of loving and really fun process, that that we, we can, we can and must be in harmony with nature and giving nature a platform giving nature a platform and and also giving people access to connect, which which is which is really what.
Peter Raeburn:What matters in the world is the crazier the planet gets, the more dangerous the world gets, the more we have to find a way of accessing nature within us. And so I think that, as we know but I'm going to just it is a journey from babyhood to sleep and it's a really short record. It's not a which I'm really. I love how. I love its length, like 28 or so minutes. I think it's that kind of length. It feels really, it feels really efficient in that way. We're calling it this record, we Are by Funika and I think that's such a brilliant name.
Martyn Stewart:I do too.
Peter Raeburn:Because immediately it just places us all within nature, all of us, everyone we are. It's not a question, it's a statement, it's not asking permission.
Martyn Stewart:It's a real statement.
Peter Raeburn:This is all of us. Permission, it's a real statement. It is this, this is all of us, and I think the, the other thing about um, about the, the idea that this is amanda and I always love this term scored by nature, it's like the nature is is the, is the greatest um harmonist, is the greatest composer, is the greatest artist. You know all of it and I think that's that's.
Peter Raeburn:Before sharing the music with you, I mean you, you know, in this form, I think it's really important to say that you know there's no room for egos in in nature, at least not human egos. Of course there's. There's natural um, everything happens in its right place, but there's no question that the primary artist on this record is Mother Nature and that is how it should be. It's how it should have always been. And then when I accept that and celebrate that it really has freed me so much to be able to be in this incredibly improvisational place and feeling connected, I think that's when the best work happens, is when we're not really thinking about it, but we are in the flow.
Martyn Stewart:If you change ego to eco, it sounds better, doesn't it? Yeah?
Peter Raeburn:Yeah, the ecosystem, exactly the ecosystem is what's got us into ecosystem, exactly the ecosystem's what's got us into trouble and the ecosystem's what's going to save us okay so, so we're going to start with, um, with, listen to baby.
Peter Raeburn:I think I might just run this, uh, if it's okay, but you can stop me anytime, but I might run a couple of minutes here and just just go from, but maybe play the first track into the second track. Um, so we're gonna go from baby to school, um, and what I? What I decided, martin, is that because each, each track has, you know it, because of the story, I wanted to give space, uh, between the tracks a little bit, so that when people listen to this as a whole, it's not one thing, it's actually seven things and and it would have been very easy to just cross crossfade everything, but that didn't feel right, um, in terms of giving every, every chapter it's it's right space.
Peter Raeburn:So let us have a little listen and make a start.
Speaker 3:The End Thank you.
Martyn Stewart:I love that fly at the end. I love the fly, I love the effect you balance that, thank you.
Speaker 3:1, 2, 3, 4. Thank you. The engineering in this is superb.
Martyn Stewart:I mean, I know I'm listening to it over a Zoom program, but you get the idea. The spatial effect is fantastic. The rhythms, the melodies, everything beaten together is just tremendous.
Peter Raeburn:Well, you know, the school ones were talking about for me because that was a, that was an idea I remember you talking about. It'll be just conceptually. You're like we should talk, we should do a school, school and learning. You called it it's now just called school for the record but school, school and learning. And then you sent through to us all these learning critters who were all at that stage of their lives, and what was interesting about when I listened back to this, it makes learning so much fun.
Peter Raeburn:You know, I've got a kid with with, uh, pretty severe learning differences and I actually think I had quite a lot when I was well, I know I had quite a lot, but you know it was england, it was the 80s, you know. So let's let's be honest, there wasn't a lot of investigation at that time, you know, as to these things, but so it was really hard for me. Uh, learning actually and and I think this piece is is with your crit critters, as you call them, and and with this music, it feels like, actually, maths could be like that. You know, learning about nature could be like that. It doesn't have to be so painful, it can be interesting.
Martyn Stewart:The times when you spend in the sandpit, you know, when you're six and seven and you're learning about all kinds of things, wonderful feelings, and you have that dopamine release when you get excited and the first time you realise you can kick a ball around and things it is. It's quite incredible to listen to that. There's no way you wouldn't get a feel-good factor if you sat down and listened to this stuff. It makes you feel really good and it kind of takes you back to that boyhood kind of time where everything is just wonderful, you know and we're learning every day.
Peter Raeburn:I'm learning right now, just talking with you, and I think that that this is a this is what I love about about the stages of life, that we're still children, we're still learning and we're still all those ages all at once. It's just that we are. We have a different perspective. Does school feel like the right name for it Should be nature's classroom, school and learning.
Martyn Stewart:How do you feel about the title? I think you have to combine nature with school, and the reason why I say this, peter, is because is it really learning to a point? Do we really learn? As humans itself, we keep making these mistakes. Nature teaches us basically what to do. If you go into what about nature?
Peter Raeburn:what about nature's classroom?
Martyn Stewart:nature's classroom is is fantastic because nature is given an example. I think moving forward, I I think it's a far better thing than just school done, and so it shall be, that's wonderful.
Speaker 3:Hmm.
Martyn Stewart:Thank you, thank you. I think I've explained how much that makes me feel in the past. That puts me on the plains watching the wildebeest. It can put me anywhere really. I mean Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the migration of caribou going through, and that beautiful thing of life and spring and just expectations, just everything just comes together and just booms, you know, like fungi. When it gets to a point where it just booms and off go all the spores, it's magnificent, that is.
Peter Raeburn:That needs to have something done, just magical.
Martyn Stewart:That's beyond words, that one. I can't even describe how that makes me feel. My my arms feel like they don't belong to me. My heart beats and I shouldn't have it beaten the way it is at the moment. Um, it's, it's fabulous. It gives hope, it gives, it gives expectations. Is that growing? Is that what you said? The title of that?
Peter Raeburn:yeah, but we can call it. We can call it. We can call it. Now's our time, now's our chance to call these whatever feels right. It doesn't have to just be called great expectations that, to me, that I'm expecting it's.
Martyn Stewart:It's almost like that, that precursor to something that's just going to. Curtains are going to open and the best thing ever is going to be on the stage. You know, I love that, peter, I love that and that's had our South African amazing.
Peter Raeburn:South African choir singing on it it's got the London strings and the Cape Town choir, obviously, just to say that everything you're hearing is now mastered as well as mixed.
Martyn Stewart:So it's gone through a lot of processing. It's just absolutely magical.
Peter Raeburn:Africa. You know the last track we did together, the most recent one, and I'm so, so, so pleased this piece of music, this piece of work has has um, has made it onto onto this record. It felt really, it felt really incomplete without it and I can't explain why this means so much to me. I can just say that I was born on the southern tip of um of africa. Uh, at a horrific time in the world to be associated with that place, um, but it's always that you know the tradition of of, of different south and different kinds of african um music and rhythms and voices have always been um have meant everything to me. I have a theory of why that is.
Peter Raeburn:I think that there was a, well, there was a woman called Caroline who worked with my family and she died a few years ago and she was the most warm, beautiful person imaginable and I have physical memories of her holding me as a baby, as a child, and I went back to South Africa very regularly to see her and she stayed once apartheid had thankfully collapsed, she stayed as close to the family as ever. I'm really proud of the role my family played in the collapse of apartheid, may I say. But Caroline, her warmth, her physical warmth holding me as a baby. It's the, it's the temperature. I think this piece of work has the temperature of her in it and I hadn't thought about it till now.
Peter Raeburn:Also, my beloved mum, um, always played me music from south africa, where she was born and bred, and um, and then and then, when denzel mentioned this idea about Africa, it was his idea and then, you know, I think it took you about an hour from then, or two hours, to send through to us just the most amazing selection of sounds, of natural sounds, be they critters, of sounds of natural sounds, be they critters, be they, you know, very big beasts to sounds, atmos is, and environmental weather, environmental explosions, and this was the one which it was like. I just, I just I just grabbed the mic and started singing along this one and then it just, it wrote itself from there and uh, yeah, the um, the percussion and the and the. It's been tricky to mix this one um, but I feel we got to a good place, otherwise I wouldn't dream of sharing it with you. So this is simply called Africa.
Peter Raeburn:Again, if that feels good to you, it feels good to me, but see what you think when you hear it, here we go no-transcript in the end that solitary.
Martyn Stewart:You know the last word. I love that. It makes you feel like that, doesn't? It makes me feel insignificant, makes me feel like so vast and beautiful I don't know what to say, mate. Africa yes, for sure you should call that Africa.
Martyn Stewart:Without a shadow of a doubt. That is stunning. You know there's so many things. I suppose when you listen to that a few times you hear something different. I never for one minute, when I recorded all those sounds, thought it would all come together as a collection of music. Never, never in the reign of pigs pudding, did I ever think you know, something like that would come from that. And you've turned it on its head and you've done. It's unbelievable, peter. It's unbelievable.
Peter Raeburn:I mean that piece just, it just means. I mean I can't explain how much it means.
Martyn Stewart:No, I understand, I completely get it.
Peter Raeburn:It's not just personal reasons, it's just that we all know that no continent in the world has been as ravaged as that one. In my opinion, you know what I mean. It's just it's so. It's so particular and it is the most powerful. It's so particular and it is the most powerful, I don't know, and that's why, like and and just and and just, sort of purely like weird level, like getting a hippo and a closet click to be the drums, you know, and the and the lion, it's like. That feels like a good, that's a drum, that's a good drummer, you know, you get a hippo and a lion and a and a group of people and they're, they're all making a beat together. This started life as a french horn and then I thought it doesn't feel right to have a french horn. It felt a bit colonial. So I changed it to a kudu, a kudu horn. That's what that is. A kudu horn. That's just an animal horn wow which feels much.
Peter Raeburn:You know that was an interesting change there that that happened through and then, yeah, it's this.
Martyn Stewart:I love the beat because these little things you know those hyenas yeah, it's a fun I remember doing those hyenas in in um, namibia, on the skeleton coast, wow, and it was dark and they were talking to each other and there was this vast desert and I said to the guy that we were up there filming the seal clubbing that was going on on the skeleton coast and I said guys, please just do one thing shut the fuck up. I want to record this, and they were chatting with each other for maybe half an hour, so you can imagine what that conversation was.
Peter Raeburn:You know with them yeah, and you probably something along the lines of stop clubbing the seals. The hyenas are so, so key. You know, I I spent many years traveling around different parts of africa, um, and working with and and recording people, but not recording sounds, although I did record sounds as well, but working with people and making music with them in Madagascar and in when did I go? I went to lots of places, not nearly as many as you, but I went to, well, obviously, all around South Africa. A small place in East Africa next to Tanzania, zanzibar, and islands around Zanzibar.
Martyn Stewart:I was obsessed with that place the changes in Africa is huge and I think, in so many years to come, an album and sounds like this, you're never going to be able to make the same kind of something similar to this, because the animals are leaving. They're gone. You know soundscapes have changed.
Martyn Stewart:Yes, yes, you just can't have the opportunities that I had and I'm very grateful for being able to get into these situations and positions to go and record them. But that brings so many things, so many feelings, so many senses to it. It has to be called africa, peter that's what we're going to call it.
Peter Raeburn:So the next one, um, it was called nature's voice. And then in the, in the, in the mixing process, uh, mixing with this amazing guy I actually have got a message from him for you a wonderful man called mark mark rankin. He mixed this with us and he did a beautiful, beautiful job. I was really lucky because he lives out here, but he was in London the same time as I was, so we sat together and listened to everything and just took a moment to kind of appreciate what had been done, and then I went back and looked at a few new things once I listened to it with his ears. So it was really amazing to just sit with him. And because a lot, of, a lot of the work has been about protecting this relationship between music and nature, it can suddenly disappear, you can, suddenly it's so. It's just one one move to the left or the right and suddenly the music's drowning nature, um, or you can't hear the music. There's such a delicate harmony actually. So this one is, um, is called mama's voice at the moment. Um, I'm very open to that. This is what it obviously referring to mother nature. So mama's voice is this this also had benefited from um, from the recordings in cape town, this beautiful group, beautiful group of women singing.
Peter Raeburn:There was men as well, obviously, in the last track we had a lot, and this features Megan Wyler, my wife. You know she sings the lead in this and she's done this record. Her and John are singing on Nature's Classroom. We're calling it now Ah John, ah. John is all over this record. He an amazing singer and he's singing. Oh yeah, he's singing all over. He sings everywhere I can possibly get a microphone in front of him. Uh, yeah, he's. He's a brilliant singer, um, and so this is, this is mama's voice, thank you.
Speaker 3:Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah ah. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I I no-transcript.
Martyn Stewart:I love the. There's so many critters there that from all parts of the world you know, it's not just one biome or one continent. I I could hear. It was confusing at first because I think, my god, there's a screaming pier in there, there's a whip bird, there's the great go away bird and they're all kind of all down in the lower continent and it's that chorus is just divine. I feel like someone shot me and I've just come out of hospital and I'm still under the anesthetic do you like, um, mama's voice.
Peter Raeburn:I did think of another name when I was looking at you, listening to that which was mama's cry, or something a bit more um, because it feels like, of all the pieces on the on the record, that's the piece which has, um, it's almost like a bit more of a warning or a bit more of feeling, feeling the pain, I like like cry better than voice. Mama's cry.
Martyn Stewart:I like mama's cry.
Peter Raeburn:Yeah, I was a bit worried about that thing at the ending, but I'm glad you like it, I feel that also.
Martyn Stewart:No, I like it.
Peter Raeburn:I like it, it's got something to do with the resonance of the effect we have on the planet, the effect we have on each other. I think you know, at the end of these tracks sometimes you hear a little vocal that feels like the kind of almost like the muscle memory, nature's muscle memory of what happened in her, and I feel like there's something trying to tune into some of that stuff.
Martyn Stewart:The Africa track. You know that with the dove at the end, just the soul song. It's just perfect, yeah, instead of those endings that are sudden.
Peter Raeburn:Yeah.
Martyn Stewart:It kind of gives you that feeling like I'm on the dock and the ship's going away. You know, see you later.
Peter Raeburn:The dove is a very important part of this, um, this collection of work, you know for sure. Um. So the next one is I think this is the first kind of test I did uh to try and see whether it was going to work it was going to work or not and then it's been updated, and so this is a the title of this at the moment no-transcript.
Martyn Stewart:I love the heartbeat and how you've used that rough grouse. That's amazing. I love the entrance into the ocean. It's like two worlds. You're going from one to the next. You've almost numbed. Funnily enough, you'll probably be surprised at that. That's probably one of my most favorite series, is it? It's almost like you've created that. For me it's. It's like this end of life and then you're stifled and then you're in this other zone that you just don't know about it. Yeah, just brings a lot of different feelings and emotions to me. It's so powerful.
Martyn Stewart:It is disorientating how you've created that boom, the entrance into the ocean itself. You know, it's that other place where you're not expecting it. You're listening to these beautiful ocean waves and then suddenly you're immersed in it. Yeah, and then there's this other world that you ever been in the ocean when it's dark yeah, I've been.
Peter Raeburn:I've been deep under the ocean when it's dark, it's frightening yeah, I got. I went through like a big night diving phase. I did it, I did it a lot and I was really into I can't, I would never do it now. No, I mean I couldn't, but I got really into it.
Peter Raeburn:I think that you know, as comforting as nature is, she has a darkness she's all powerful and there's a darkness and there's brutality and there's a you know, and and like just yesterday, I was at the beach with my daughter and she was swimming and I looked, I looked up and she'd gone right out. You know, and I know how the ocean, you know, I've been teaching my kids about how to um, how to read and listen to the ocean and and what, and watch her and and, uh, you know, one minute, you're safe and you go just be on the break. And you're not. You're not safe. And and I was talking about, I was talking about it with eilidh yesterday and I was like you know we always maintain that humility, that humility and that's.
Peter Raeburn:It happens to all of us. We don't know, we don't know when it's going to happen, but it happens to all of us and I think that you're right and that's where and I, you know, and I really extended that ending a lot, because you sent new whale sounds, john, and they're so incredible and dolphins, and that inspired a whole lot of new work, um as well, which was, and so I feel like before it was just like an idea, that underwater scene, but but now it's like a whole world that's a powerful piece that is.
Martyn Stewart:It's just that feeling of unknown. You know this, just yeah, gives you that kind of insecurity. There's a there's a feeling of it's not right. You know it's, it's incredible, but it's it leaves you, it's scary, it's scary you know when a film ends and you think, oh, I didn't expect that ending. It's that kind of it's that kind of thing it's. I think you could get very deep into listening to something like that. You know, excuse the pun but, you, I think.
Peter Raeburn:I think that's one of my favorite tracks so this is the, the last, the last track, track seven, um, and this is in a way, the I guess it's the had thought about it until now, until your reaction to that piece, but this is the antidote, the duck leaf to the stinging nettle that was that piece, yeah, um, and this has got yeah, this has got John and John and Megan and um, some lovely South African singers on it too, and, yeah, I'm really pleased this piece exists as well.
Peter Raeburn:I feel like it. It's the comfort that we all deserve, um, as well, as you know, and so I'm going to play you a lullaby.
Speaker 3:Thank you, bye, lullaby, lullaby, lullaby. Thank you ¶¶. Thank you, thank you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh, oh, thank you.
Martyn Stewart:I have to say, the engineering of this, the mixing of this, is quite spectacular. You've done everything the way I would have expected you to have done. You know that high quality just untouchable. It's amazing You've done. Every single track finishes with I want more. You know, I want more. I want to listen to it again. I want to be part more. I want part two, I want part three, I want part four. It's perfect for a lullaby, for the ending and how you've prolonged that end and it's just that distance, and if you didn't fall to sleep with that, there'd be something fucking wrong with you. It's spectacular, pete.
Peter Raeburn:Well, it means the world to me that you feel that that is the greatest. It's unbelievable.
Martyn Stewart:It's unbelievable and I can't wait to listen to it without listening to it through Zoom.
Peter Raeburn:We're going to retitle them and send those over to you today.
Martyn Stewart:Wow, what an experience, what an absolute experience. On a plinth up here and you've, you've let us sit in the seat in the throne of the universe and you've put all the components that make nature such a spectacular force and put the sounds together just unbelievable.
Peter Raeburn:Very humbled by you well, I'm very humbled by you and by this project and you know it's just a chance for me to kind of thank you and for the opportunity, because wow, it's such a, it's such a rare. It's such a rare and you know on, as you know, a kind of serendipitous collaboration.
Martyn Stewart:There's no ego about you. You're very humble. You listen to it. You don't take plaudits, you don't none of this. Listen to me. I want clapping and audience banging, drums and shit behind you. You just do it because you love it and it shows. I can see how it makes you feel and it's resonating through every way. The people who listen to this album are going to want more and more, you know, and you're going to say come on then, mate, let's do another one.
Martyn Stewart:I've seen the demise of the planet, the natural world, the animals, the critters, and there are numbers out there that are quoted to you all the time and you kind of wonder is this a conspiracy? Is this part of this idea that the planet is warming up and it's really cyclical, and these disbelievers? But in 50 years I've recorded these critters and gently, over that time, the demise of dawn choruses, have you know? Dissipated critters have gone and now we have a million species on the precipice of the endangered list, which is unbelievable, from that time when I saw that Irish elk too, and I've always wondered how can we wake people up, how can we get the environment?
Martyn Stewart:Mother Nature is an important topic of conversation in some way. You know, instead of 13th or whatever on someone's priority list. And I've always been shouting, I've always been trying to plant seeds without preaching, and I've always wanted people to stand up and listen to and try and appreciate what we've actually got. And I think this record, this collaboration with music and nature together, is a way I believe we'll have that seed germinate in a lot of people's heads and minds and be proactive in looking after what we do have left, you know, and have a celebration between people and nature.
Martyn Stewart:I look at the destruction of Gaza in the Middle East and I look at the troubles in the world. You see the wars between Russia and Ukraine and stuff that's going on in Africa, stuff that's threatened in the South Seas and Asia and stuff, and nobody talks about the animals and how they're suffering. I watch donkeys pulling carts that are, you know, emaciated, no food, and we're talking about people starving. We don't talk about nature. In in a way that I think and I think working with you and creating something beautiful and spectacular this way, maybe some, some part of that will wake up our minds. You know, man is behind every single problem, but man is also the solution. You've just experienced another journey on the Listening Planet podcast. Dive deeper into the world of natural sounds by connecting with us online. Visit our website or follow us on social media. Let the symphony of nature surround you wherever you go. Happy listening.
