Sound Matters

“Making sense of sound is a biological triumph,” says Nina Kraus, professor at Northwestern University and a specialist in the biology of auditory learning. “What’s auditory learning?” you may well ask Nina. Well, you could boil it down to a simple question: how is it that we humans are able to make sense of sound and all the noise? This episode of Bang & Olufsen’s Sound Matters podcast goes for a deep sonic dive into evolution, music, language and the whirlpool of noise we are immersed in every moment of our days – all to find out just how we manage to separate signal from noise.

This is the story of a river. Not just any river, but a very special river. One that has been given the same legal status as a living, breathing human being. In this episode of Bang & Olufsen’s Sound Matters podcast we meet the documentary film and audio maker, Rikke Hout, and travel down the Whanganui River in New Zealand. The Whanganui is one of the longest rivers in the country, and in 2017 was given the same legal identity as a person due to its importance to the region’s indigenous Māori people. Sit back, immerse yourself in sound, and float downstream into nature come alive.

Music. Oh, beautiful, uplifting, inspiring music. We all love music. Thing is, we all love different types of music, and generally can’t bear to listen to the music we don’t like. But can certain types of music be so bad that they can actually harm you? In this episode we take a deep dive into a world of often conflicting, sometimes highly unconventional ideas around so-called pathological music and meet Dr James Kennaway of Roehampton University, an expert in awful, nasty and sometimes painful music. (Have no fear, dear listener, none of what the podcast contains will hurt. It’s actually quite fun, we promise.)

True crime podcasts are almost a cliche nowadays. But in terms of niches, there’s still some cache in the sound of true crime, or more specifically in the field of forensic audio analysis. What’s forensic audio analysis, you may ask? It’s “the scientific way of analysing audio recordings that may be needed in a courtroom or in some kind of official inquiry,” explains Professor Rob Maher of Montana State University, an expert in the field. Put your headphones on and deep dive into the clicks, pops and other assorted suspicious sounds in this episode of Bang & Olufsen’s Sound Matters podcast, and do some “critical listening” yourself.

“It’s a description of the next record that I will never make,” so relates UK based composer, DJ and artist Matthew Herbert, telling us about his new book, The Music – now Herbert can add writer to his CV of creative activities. But, true to his eclectic back catalogue of work, his new work is not just any novel – it’s a novel of sounds: “It’s supposed to exist in other people’s heads… I like the idea of personal interpretation,” continues Herbert, whose work has crossed genres from electronic dance music to the avant garde, recording music as Dr Rockit, Radio Boy, Transformer, Wishmountain and other monikers. Now, if there’s one thing our intrepid host of all things audible (and beyond) Tim Hinman loves, it’s personal interpretation. For this edition of Bang & Olufsen’s Sound Matters podcast, we present a version of this novel in sound, with the assistance of tonmeister Mads Lundegaard and Herbert himself.

Ah, Paris. Unmistakeable, beautiful Paris. Paris: a place so unique – so authentic, so essentially itself – that it is truly irreplaceable. The eighth and final instalment in our Sound of the Cities mini-series – a sonic exploration of our urban environments and their cultural soundscapes – visits the French capital. There we meet two composers, Yann Coppier and François Bonnet, who both spend a lot of time thinking about sound and how it informs the nearly ungraspable sensations and feelings – the je ne sais quoi if you will – which makes a place seem real or not. But just how Parisian are the sounds of Paris, exactly?

In part seven of our Sound of the Cities mini-series – a sonic exploration of our urban environments and their cultural soundscapes – Sound Matters podcast travels to the Hollywood Hills. Peacefully perched up above the sprawling noise emitter that is Los Angeles, we grab a damn fine cup of coffee and sit down with legendary artist, musician and film maker David Lynch to chat about the infinite dynamism of sound, creativity and meditation. Bang & Olufsen and David Lynch have collaborated on a special edition collection of speakers featuring Lynch’s artwork. Click here to find out more: https://www.bang-olufsen.com/davidlynch http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters https://twitter.com/david_lynch

Us humans preserve our experiences in recordings. And when we revisit these texts, images and sounds, it can feel like a small form of time travel. In part six of our Sound of the Cities mini-series – a sonic exploration of our urban environments and their cultural soundscapes – host Tim Hinman travels to Tokyo, digging up sound recordings made 20 years back, and meeting the artist and photographer Takashi Arai. Arai takes one long exposure daguerreotype photograph and sound recording every day in locations around the Japanese capital, preserving the day-to-day goings on across this bustling metropolis. http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters http://takashiarai.com

In part five of our Sound Of The Cities mini-series – a sonic exploration of our urban environments and their cultural soundscapes – we’re moving away from the noisy sensory overload of megacities. We’re still visiting a capital city, it’s just that this one is a bit on the smaller side: Reykjavik, capital of Iceland, population 337,780 (give or take). In this episode, Sound Matters meets the musician Kira Kira aka Kristín Björk Kristjánsdóttir, and artist Finnbogi Petursson, and discuss the subtle sonic and cultural resonances that emanate through their home city, and beyond. http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters https://www.kirakira.is http://www.finnbogi.com

For millennia our hearing has acted as our early warning system. It worked well out in the relative silence of nature: a bird calling out against a predator; the snap of a twig in a deep forest, and so on. But what about in our noisy cities? In a way, this primal sensitivity to noise can turn against us in our industrial, urban soundscapes and cause low level stress, confusion and exhaustion. Our host, Tim Hinman dips his head into the clamour of the Big Smoke, speaks with Cathy Fitzgerald, Colin Black, BJ Nilsen and others, and investigates how we can learn to listen to, and even embrace all this noise. http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters https://cathyfitzgerald.co.uk http://colin-black.weebly.com http://bjnilsen.com

Can listening be a creative act? In the third instalment of our Sound Of The Cities series – a sonic exploration of our urban environments and their cultural soundscapes – Sound Matters podcast immerses itself into the hubbub of the Indian capital, New Delhi. Host Tim Hinman meets the artist, musician, DJ, record label boss, festival organiser and born-and-bred Delhiite, Ish, and speaks about the Delhi art and music scene, and how the noise and hubbub of this ancient city works its way into contemporary culture, and right to the heart of how we listen. http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters

In the second instalment of our Sound Of The Cities series – a sonic exploration of our urban environments and their cultural soundscapes – Sound Matters podcast jumps into the deepest of the deep ends of art and culture: New York. Host Tim Hinman is joined by podcaster and artist, Jeff Emtman, whose show, Here Be Monsters is an influential aural institution in its own right. Jeff takes us on an epic day-long sonic adventure through the Big Apple – along the way discovering a number of sonic surprises, not least a mysterious recording of influential composer, philosopher and famed man-about-New-York-town, John Cage. http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters

So many of us live in the hustle and bustle of cities – vibrant, lively but noisy and distracting soundscapes. How do we exist among this noise? How do we listen through it to the smaller sounds, the delicate and subtle sounds that bring us peace, joy, inspiration? Series three of Sound Matters kicks off an eight-part international journey – The Sound Of The Cities – starting at home in Copenhagen, Denmark. Host and writer Tim Hinman discovers the world’s (possibly) oldest home sound system in the Renaissance-era Rosenborg Castle, and then artist Katinka Fogh Vindelev guides Tim through the echo-chamber-like Round Tower, surprising a swath of tourists when she sings a song for the building itself. We hope this podcast will forever change how you hear your world – please listen closely. http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters

“Monday’s yellow, Tuesday’s brown, Wednesday’s blue, Thursday’s light brown… If you ask people where lemons are on a piano, they will all put their hands at the top of the keyboard…” That’s Nick Ryan, sound artist and composer – but what on Earth is he talking about? Well, sometimes people get all mixed up. Specifically, their senses are mixed. It’s called synesthesia – a perceptual phenomenon in us humans where we experience one sensory stimulation with or through a secondary sense – letters, numbers or sounds have specific colours to them, words have specific textures, and so on. One in 23 of us understand the world in this way, to varying degrees. In this ultimate episode of the second series of Sound Matters, our unflagging host Tim Hinman straps on his sensorial spelunking kit and goes looking (and listening) for the mystery of synesthesia. Happily, he also travels to Jamaica with Professor Julian Henriques of Goldsmiths College, University of London, and talks sound systems, feeling the bass, and the important difference between mere science and SCIAANCE. Come with us in this last episode of the second series of Sound Matters. Relax and set your senses free. Brought to you by Bang & Olufsen.

If you’re under thirty then you’ve probably listened to more music in a compressed digital format than anything else – and that’s fine, right? It’s never gotten in the way of the music that moves you. Well, actually, there are audiophiles out there obsessed with realistic, high fidelity sound reproduction, and they think otherwise. Wax cylinder, vinyl, 8-track tape, CD, minidisc and more: our love for music is unshakeable, but that’s not the case with the numerous formats we use to store our recordings. In a year that marked the end of the MP3 alongside the continuing resurgence of actual, real life records, Sound Matters’ Tim Hinman cuts through a jungle of cables, spools of tape, and mountains of scratched CDs in search of the mythical perfect audio experience. http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters

Sounds behave very differently underwater than they do back on land – it’s a whole other kettle of fish down there you might say. What’s an earthquake sound like underwater? Do whales like music? What sounds make fishes’ hearts beat faster, and what do cod like to talk about? Our host Tim Hinman slips on his wetsuit and jumps into the deep end of our ocean soundscape. Featuring Norwegian artist and singer, Gry Bagøien and Dr Steve Simpson, Associate Professor of Marine Biology and Global Change at the University of Exeter. Come on in and join us – the water’s fine. http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters @beoplay

“We bombard ourselves with sound and music… it’s everywhere.” So says musician, artist and nature recordist Chris Watson who has captured sounds for numerous wildlife TV shows, including Sir David Attenborough’s Planet Earth series on the BBC among many others. In this episode our ever-intrepid host Tim Hinman points his microphone at, well… microphones, speaking with Watson and sound artist Jana Winderen about our ever-fascinating natural world and the jungle of sounds it makes.

Some sounds go back… way back. In this edition of Sound Matters, we travel to a time before music was music, when man-made sounds allowed us mere mortals to hear the voices of the gods – when the line between making music and making magic meant a whole lot more than just putting together your next party mix playlist. Host Tim Hinman takes us to meet musician and composer Barnaby Brown, who specialises in recreating sounds from long-forgotten instruments, and Peter Holmes, an engineer and trumpet player who rebuilds ancient metal instruments, played by ancient civilisations. http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters @beoplay #beoplay #soundmatters

“I’ve spent a lot of time recently doing concerts for dogs… They’re the perfect audience.” So claimed musician, multimedia artist and film maker, Laurie Anderson when we interviewed her recently. And, if YouTube is anything to go by, millions of people agree with Laurie: “Funny Dog Singing Compilation”, “LOL Dogs That Sing” and “My Dog Sings With Beyonce” are just a few of seemingly infinite videos shot and posted online by us humans of animals singing. We love it. But Why? Join Tim Hinman as he jumps earsfirst into the musical menagerie of animals that bark, howl and otherwise sing, chatting with Laurie Anderson and the musician, composer, author and philosopher naturalist, David Rothenberg who has jammed with all types of creatures, from bugs to whales and beyond. http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters

Outer space is a vacuum – it’s full of a whole lot of nothing – so it’s pretty quiet out there. Or is it? Sit back, strap yourself in and lift off into the great beyond. This episode of Sound Matters features Professor Tim O’Brien of Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK and amateur radio satellite enthusiast Dave Rowntree (you might know him as the drummer in legendary Britpop band, Blur) looking at and listening to sounds from beyond our atmosphere. Also featuring sounds from the Voyager Space Probe, the planet Mars, black holes, pulsars, the solar wind, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first space walk, the space shuttle, aliens, and more. Not so quiet up there anymore, eh? http://www.beoplay.com/soundmatters #beoplay #soundmatters