not losing yr marbles walsall by sean burn

not losing yr marbles walsall – a soundmap can be found for listening/download at http://audioboo.fm/boos/264418

not losing yr marbles walsall is a soundmap for the people of walsall in which i keep their marbles from getting lost. what do i mean by this? you all know the comment about losing yr marbles, well … theres a base layer to this soundmap which is marbles rolling around a plate and not dropping off – the marbles arent lost. this layer is me keeping walsall in balance, avoiding the disorder of losing yr marbles. over this are layered multiple sounds of every-day walsall. the marbles roll uninterrupted for almost a minute before the other sounds start up, slowly at first and then more furiously before dropping away at the end and leaving just the marbles once more. at about 45 seconds someone enters walking and asking is that a peaceful moment?, then at the minute mark there is a club singer faint but just audible coming thru the floorboards of the hotel i was staying in. next is contact-miked ice from the marina just outside the galllery. it crackles and hisses and spits like electricity. toddlers running down the long corridor gallery where my work is installed comes after. occasionally man-made sounds like distant thunder are heard. all this takes us to the 4 minute mark. then comes a large burst of competing, multilayered sounds. a wok from a chinese takeaway, a fruitseller repeating his cries of apples, pears, bananas, grapes or strawberries, several times, ducks from the arboretum (subliminally in there), louder is post office numbers for those queuing which also repeat as does the grinding of a motorised advertising board. the marble sounds become more subdued but carry on as architecture underpinning the work. a man selling meat offers sirloin steak and chicken fillets, the cry of a swan from on the ice is just audible, meds being rattled likewise, a kid squeals, the sounds of a pigeons wings are heard around 5 minutes and 8 seconds and again 8 seconds later. there is a brief riff made from walking footsteps. street sounds increase as do the competing cries of the meat seller and the numbers called out electronically for those queueing at the post office. ice stirred with hydrophones can be heard around the 5 minute 20 second mark followed by more selling of sirloin, lets go over here and explore from an adolescent voice. the icy water being stirred with hydrophones is less crackly and more about the sounds of cracking or breaking of ice (cracking up) and then the ambient sound from hydrophones on top of the ice is heard. there is also some whistling in a chipper. the marble sounds re-emerge and at 6 minutes and 10 seconds a pound a pair street cry rings out, followed by the fruit seller still crying apples, pears, bananas, grapes or strawberries, general chatter from the streets plays out, marbles regain their dominance in the mix, a beat of sound spills out from a doorway followed by brief sounds of a market stall being dismantled, someone says hi and then laughs, and the marbles finally still