On Sunday, my S H E E P focussed field-recording show played on London’s Resonance FM as part of the Framework afield programme series. You can stream the podcast for yourself here on the Framework website, for one week only.

Here are the notes.

/*framework*/ – phonography / field recording; contextual and
decontextualized sound activity
presented by patrick mcginley

*S H E E P *

Featuring highlights from Greg Wagstaff, the Sounding Dartmoor project and the excellent Freesounds archive, this episode of Framework has largely been arranged around Felicity Ford’s sheep-related recordings.

Since October 2008, Felicity has been informally researching the history of the British Wool Trade in writing, knitting and sound-recording. Her explorations have taken her into the bleak Romney Marshes where wool
was smuggled out of the country for hundreds of years, into smallscale spinning mills, and on the daily rounds of a Wensleydale flock keeper. Growing her own crop of Woad and recording the process of turning it into a dye, she has also met with sheep farmers and learned about the related Indigo-dyeing process.

The sonic aspects of the British Wool Trade recording journey so far have been like wool itself; full of the stories of people, animals and the land, full of the loudness, earthiness, laughter and straightforwardness that accompany hard work, scratchy like the kemp in fleece, and sometimes – like knitting – repetitive, soft, and quiet.

Websites related to the show:

http://www.woolcraftwithwensleydale.com/
http://www.diamondfibres.co.uk/
http://sounds.bl.uk/
http://www.freesound.org/index.php
http://prickyourfinger.com/

00:00 – 00:42 / acclivity / Herdofsheep.wav / freesound project

00:42 – 02:53 / acclivity / sheepandlambs.mp3 / freesound project

02:53 – 03:04 / felicity ford / sick lamb

03:04 – 03:52 / felicity ford / hog in wool

03:52 – 07:11 / felicity ford / Julia Desch talks about breeding

07:11 – 07:28 / felicity ford / miscellaneous baas

07:28 – 08:11 / felicity ford / Julia Desch talks hay

08:11 – 08:49 / felicity ford / Baa-ing Wensleydales

08:49 – 13:56 / felicity ford / a ewe calling for her Son, her Ram-lamb

02:53 – 13:56 all recorded at Beech Hill Farm, Sussex, with Julia Desch
and her small flock of Wensleydale Sheep

13:56 – 14:54 / dobroide / Sample :: 20080302.sheeps.close.wav /
freesound project

14:54 – 26:24 / greg wagstaff / Sheep herding/whistle / Sharpening
scissors/shearing / Barvas Fank / Generator start [distant] / Electric
shears / Touring Exhibition of Sound Environments / Earminded Label

26:24 – 29:08 /nancy sinclair / Farmers collecting sheep for their
annual shearing, near Two Bridges in Devon / Sounding Dartmoor / John
Levack Drever http://www.rermegacorp.com/

29:08 – 30:48 / felicity ford / Rachael Matthews’ Spinning Wheel

30:48 – 33:18 / felicity ford / Diamond Fibres Smallscale spinning mill

33:18 – 34:46 / felicity ford / the sea at Dymchurch / Rachael Matthews’
swift / Dymchurch Beach

34:46 – 37:36 / felicity ford / harvesting the waxy woad leaves

37:36 – 40:32 / felicity ford / woad dyebath preparations

40:32 – 46:41 / felicity ford / indigo dyebath & sheep farmer talk

46:41 – 50:22 / felicity ford / knitting

50:22 – 54:52 / greg wagstaff / Scraping crotal/lichen off a rock /
Traditional wooden hand loom [Joan MacLennan] / Hattersley loom / Rapier
loom, Lewis castle college tweed workshop, Stornoway /Touring Exhibition
of Sound Environments / Earminded Label

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