Listening to the Landscape: Holbrook

About Listening to the Landscape: Holbrook

I am an experimental musician, sound artist and performer whose work explores the rural landscape of Suffolk (with a particular focus on the morphology of working class soundscapes). I also explore how conceived notions of the pastoral landscape inform and influence ideas of national identity. My work uses manipulated field recordings, homemade instruments, music concrete and modified electronics salvaged from potential landfill to create textural explorations of timbre with instinctive, chance-based arrangements that mimic the rural soundscape. My current project is an ACE funded exploration of the changing soundscape of the village of Holbrook in Suffolk, UK. Main photo credit: Dell Atreides

Publisher

Matthew Shenton

Category

music

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

9 Jan 2024

Latest episode

8 Dec 2025

Latest episodes

24 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   8 Dec 2025

   Holbrook Garden, Christmas Day Morning 2024

   This recording was made on the morning of Christmas Day 2024 in a residential village garden at around 11am. I had wondered if the soundscape would be different on Christmas Day; quieter perhaps? The usual songbirds are captured in full flow, but background traffic can still be heard and planes are still travelling across the sky, so perhaps this recording is not much different to any other made at the same time on any other day of the year. What, if anything, does this say anything about modern village life in the 21st century?

2. 

   11 Jul 2025

   Alton Water Reservoir, 26 June 2025

   This underwater recording was made at Alton Water reservoir using hydrophones. The recent hot weather had lowered the level the reservoir, revealing tree roots and fine collection of previously lost tennis balls. I suspended by hydrophones from some low hanging branches so that they were around 30cm from the surface of the water. The clicks of underwater creatures and air being released by plants can clearly be heard. As can the quite unpleasant drone of what I assume is a powered boat that was being repaired some 500 metres away. Towards the end of the recording, a feeding fish came along and created some interesting sounds as it weaved around the tree roots.

3. 

   6 Jun 2025

   Song Thrush at Dusk, 4th June 2025

   This episode captures the diverse bird sounds, including a song thrush, swifts, and other birds, at dusk in a rural Suffolk garden, revealing the soundscape of Holbrook.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

189

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Podcast Authority Score: 44 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

52

Social presence

0

YouTube

64

Engagement

27

Contact Listening to the Landscape: Holbrook

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.