WEATHER

Extending over 2,000 miles down the Atlantic coast of South West Africa, the Namib desert is an ancient landscape, a vast ocean of sand flowing inland from the Skelton coast to remote interior dunes and bone dry river valleys. This piece suggests a timescale beyond our reckoning. It reflects upon a landscape which has evolved over millions of years – a fragile and hostile environment, now challenged by the recent effects of a changing climate.

The Namib is a place to listen back in time, above and below the surface. The piece reveals the deep rhythm and sound of an evolving sand dune, from individual grains to a moving mountain creeping in advance of the prevailing winds. After dark, the dunes and valleys are patrolled by an emerging alien empire. Insects vibrate and sing into the night air, accompanied by predators cloaked in darkness. At daybreak, the rapid sunrise offers a brief window for a dawn chorus, before the burning sun restores a stillness to the sands.

Chris Watson

There is an erosive wave action which sweeps twice daily down the coast of East Anglia – an unstoppable force that is annually eating its way into the soft landscape. Between high and low water there is a no man’s land serving as a transient feeding space and seasonal refuge for migratory wading birds. Huge flocks take to the air when pushed by the flowing tide. Below the surface, turbulent currents shape-shift the sand and silt. The seabed out here is cloudy and disturbed, a place of ancient memory. 

One night in the 13th century a powerful storm washed the thriving port town of Dunwich into the sea. The remains of the town now reside out to sea, and some local fishermen maintain that an oncoming storm is forecast by the sounds of Dunwich’s church bells tolling in the deep – a warning of what is to come.

Chris Watson

​​The Vatnajökull glacier is the largest in Iceland – a massive river of ice formed between mountains in the remote central uplands. This work suggests a dream journey in the company of ice crystals on their 10,000-year voyage from the summit by Kverkfjöll to finally mixing and merging into the Norwegian Sea. 

A deep heartbeat pulse from the depths of a crevasse marks the initial shift, accompanied above by the haunting Aoelian tones of an arctic wind sweeping across the frozen surface. During the long daylight hours of summer, skuas and whimbrel inhabit the margins, eventually joining the arctic terns and grey seals in the coastal lagoon at Jökulsárlón. Here, the ice is returned to the ocean and the ancient pockets of air it has held fast for millennia is released back into the atmosphere.

Chris Watson

We regard tropical rainforests as places of beauty and wonder where we sometimes, quite rightly, fear to tread. During the heat of the day, the dense leaf canopy allows only a few strands of direct sunlight to penetrate the forest floor. Down here, we see very little but hear everything. 

This piece celebrates a day in the life of the Amber Mountain rainforest in northern Madagascar together with the voices of many endemic insects, birds and amphibians. From sunrise to sunset, there is the daily rhythm and pulse of life punctuated by the storms passing overhead.

Chris Watson

Ensemble Manchester Collective

Music Michael Gordon
Sound installation Chris Watson
Film installation Carlos Casas

Creative direction Rakhi Singh, Adam Szabo
Sound design Joe Reiser
Producer Steph Clarke 

Co-commissioned with Southbank Centre 

Music Director Rakhi Singh 

Violin Dylan Edge, Nathan Fenwick, Jack Greed, Martyn Jackson, Bridget O'Donnell, Tom Pigott-Smith, Kate Suthers, Anna Tulchinskaya, Lily Whitehurst

Viola India Blackshaw-Britton, Nicholas Bootiman, Kimi Makino, Lucy Nolan

Cello James Conway, Reinoud Ford, Waynne Kwon, Jonathan Pether

Bass Diane Clark, Harvey Falla

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