Drawing the Night Curtain begins quietly. Very quietly. In conditions of quietness, the patient ear becomes alert, agile. It is able to discern shapes, movements and distances; it begins to imagine spaces.

This phonographic work captures a dawn chorus, from its very first notes (no, from the shuffling of feet as the choristers take their positions) at a site in Harestanes Country Park, near Ancrum in the Scottish Borders. A decision has been taken not to edit the recording, leaving the 'composition' of the work to the placement of the microphones and the sounding events that subsequently unfold around it. This gradual unfolding begins with the hoot of an owl seeing out his night patrol, reveals the awakening of a solitary wood pigeon and culminates in a climax of orchestral intensity. It deals with nature's time. Of course, we too exist in nature's time. But our mechanised, segmented (and now digitised) human time all too often creates conflict .

This is one of a number of recordings made between 2007-9 in order to document the natural environment of Harestanes Countryside Visitor Centre. The recordings form the raw material for an installation at Harestanes (April - June 2009) entitled Environment | Sound | Representation. The recordings function as a site-specific document - who knows how the aural landscape of Harestanes may later be transformed by the construction of through-roads, increased traffic, or new housing developments? Yet beyond this an attempt is made, using the template of stereo nature recording, to sketch out ideas surrounding the phonographic image as a form of representation. In this investigation the recordist (who chooses the microphone placement), the editing suite, the playback environment and the patient ear (with its propensity for imagining space), all play a part in drawing the night curtain.

Text by Duncan Whitley (2009)

Drawing the Night Curtain 29:53 (68.4mb)