It's Always Ourselves We Find In The Sea
Martyn Ware, Charles Stooke and Gabriel Ware
(Cold Spring)
An experimental dive into aquatic (we will explain that analogy further in a minute) and industrial rhythms, composed for 3D ambisonic sound, ‘It's Always Ourselves We Find In The Sea' is the soundtrack to an immersive installation that premiered at the Saatchi Gallery in London, and ran (appropriately) in Venice in 2022, but now opens at The Piece Hall Gallery in Halifax from 4 April. "What is 3D ambisonic sound?" you may well ask. In techno-speak it is a method of encoding and decoding audio that creates a full 3D surround sound experience. Its is often used in video games and art installations and is an area that ex BEF/Heaven 17-er Martyn Ware and former Erasure main man Vince Clarke have invested in through their company Illustrious, and have created immersive sound experiences for various clients including The British Council, The Science Museum, The Royal Ballet, Amnesty International, the V&A Museum, Mute Records, BBC TV, the Royal Observatory Greenwich, BAFTA, Museum Of London, and Tate Britain. It comes as no surprise that Ware has that sort of reach, as once he left Human League, he set his sights on creating a commercial vehicle/company for the wider application of electronic music and sound with BEF, which didn't quite take as fully as it might. Now with Illustrious, technology has finally caught up with his vision (although Illustrious has actually been around since 2000) and this is a truly immersive experience, if a tad short at 30 minutes over the two linked pieces, 'A Call To Water' and 'The Water Circle'. It is intended to be looped of course rather than be seen as a conventional album, so I can forgive that.
The installation itself is intended to create a contemplative temple to water, within which the soundscape plays. Listeners enter and explore the space in their own time, letting the sounds wash over them, thereby experiencing the stories and musical motifs as they build and gather, then subside like the tide. The intention is to encourage visitors to the installation to consider/re-consider their relationship with water and step back out into the world with an altered perspective on its value and cultural significance. Water is so fundamental to life, yet is heavily politicised and commercialised. It has an enormous value to the sustainability of the planet, yet is routinely abused, exploited and polluted, along with the teeming life that lives within it and relies upon it. That include all of us by the way. So, it is no surprise that it is one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, 14 - 'Life Below Water'. The installation, of which this soundscape is an integral part, explores our myriad and personal relationships with water in an attempt to make us stop and think and maybe care more than we do about how we use and experience water. The soundscape itself is orchestral in nature, with a lot of rippling and sloshing sounds throughout as you would expect, married to sonorous orchestral synth tones and the ambient sounds of storms, seagulls, whale song and so on. It is truly impressive. Ware has partnered with Gabriel Ware and Charles Stooke for composition and 3D ambisonic sound production duties, as well as with Oscar Blustin and Anna Söderblom for the design of the immersive experience itself. No sign of Vince Clarke though. It's very much a team effort, though Ware will of course attract the most media attention, given his higher public profile.
It feels a little disingenuous of me to review this not having seen the instillation itself, but the 3D experience works well on a decent pair of headphones (not ear buds!) and I can only imagine what it would be like experiencing the actual installation itself. Pretty incredible I would say. If you can get yourself along to Halifax anytime between now and 4th May, it would be a couple of hours very well spent. If not, there is this CD/Download, and I am sure it may well appear in other gallery locations in future if you keep an eye out for it.
Water never tasted so good.
Essential Information:
'Its Always Ourselves We Find In The Sea' runs from 4 April to 4 May 2025 at the Piece Hall Gallery, Halifax. Entrance is free.
Further information is here
Soundtrack is available on CD and Download from Coldspring Records here
