Huw Morgan’s Sound Mirrors

Huw Morgan is a composer, organist and conductor is “drawn to the power of ancient, haunted landscapes and their lost inhabitants; fascinated by impermanence, space, and time.” This is the first perfomance of his new piece Sound Mirrors for organ and fixed media electronics, inspired by the Denge listening ears: “alien structures haunting the coastal landscape, still listening to the skies…”.

It was given by the composer as part of an Automatronic concert in the JAM-on-the-Marsh 2015 festival. Field recordings were made at St-Mary-on-the-Marsh and elsewhere on Romney Marsh.

Aqulio music video with the Abbot’s Cliff sound mirror

Aquilo EP Human

Lancashire duo Aquilo‘s EP “Human” released on 8 December 2014 features the Abbot’s Cliff sound mirror (and other locations around Folkestone) in two videos.

The song is “based around the idea of a delicate relationship that was slowly coming to an end and eventually finding a solace in the fact it had ended”, according to an article at Pigeons and Planes. It’s perhaps not the most cheerful ditty, but does have a sound mirror.

I Gave It All

Losing You

The videos were directed by Eoin Glaister and filmed in November. Make up artist Anna Inglis Hall tweeted this picture:

Last year psych-rock quartet Syd Arthur featured the Abbot’s Cliff mirror on the cover of their album, “Sound Mirror.

Syd Arthur’s Sound Mirror

The second album from Canterbury psych-rock quartet Syd Arthur is called Sound Mirror, and features the Abbot’s Cliff acoustic mirror on its cover.

Sound Mirror album by Syd Arthur

“From the tantalizing ‘Garden Of Time’ to the prophetic ‘Sink Hole,’ ‘Sound Mirror’ expands and refines Syd Arthur’s already uncommon sonic multiverse into a brave new space where focus and concision is as essential as freewheeling abstraction and genre-shattering creativity”, apparently.

Sound Mirror will be released through Harvest Records on 2 June 2014.

Nicki Minaj at the Denge sound mirrors

I seem to have missed this when it first came out in November 2012. Nick Minaj shoots music video in Kent!, says Kent Film Office.

According to Wikipedia, “”Freedom” is a downtempo hip hop and R&B song that features a “sonically breezy” soundscape, complied with ambient riffs, pop-inspired synths, and soft pop choruses.”1

According to Director Colin Tilley:

Fun fact#2… the wall we are standing next too thats super curved was an old sound satellite they built back in the day that was supposed to receive messages from England to Paris…. kinda awesome. If you stand on one end and whisper the person on the other end can hear as if you are next to each other…2

I think there is a little bit of confusion there!

  1. Freedom (Nicki Minaj song), Wikipedia, accessed 24 February 2014
  2. Director Colin Tilley on Nicki Minaj “Freedom”, Steven Gottlieb, Video Static, 27 November 2012

Popular beat combos at the Denge sound mirrors

Rock Atlas book front cover

The Denge sound mirrors have proved to be a popular location for music videos and associated photo shoots, and are included in a new book called Rock Atlas, by David Roberts.

The author has got in touch to tell me that: The 304-page, full-colour guide book includes 689 fascinating British and Irish music locations and the stories behind them. Written and researched by former Guinness Book of British Hit Singles & Albums editor David Roberts, the book provides instructions on how to find each place of Rock and Pop pilgrimage, plus extensive lists of the birthplaces of every major musician.

The sound mirrors entry says:

The Dungeness coastal landscape is shaped by the strange architectural splendour of the sound mirrors that are featured as cover artwork on Turin Brakes’ Ether Song album and hit single ‘Long Distance’. Constructed as a Royal Air Force early warning system for incoming aircraft, the Denge mirrors are often referred to as ‘Listening Ears’ and have also featured in The Prodigy video for ‘Invaders Must Die’ and Blank & Jones‘ Monument album cover and video for ‘A Forest’.

LOCATION 147: between Lydd-on-Sea and Greatstone-on-Sea. Postcode: TN29 9NL. Access with guided walks. www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/soundmirrors

Invaders Must Die by The Prodigy

On February 23 2009 The Prodigy will release an album called Invaders Must Die, which features a track of the same name for which a video was shot at Dungeness. The Denge sound mirrors feature from about 1 min 15 sec in.

‘Invaders Must Die’ is 40 minutes of having your head battered by future nostalgia, serotonin levels twisted by feel-good horrorcore and your synapses snapped by whiplash attitude. It’s the sound of The Prodigy mixing up genres, contorting the past and rewiring the future, ram-raiding through the tranquility of music’s status quo like a blot on the landscape of England’s dreaming.
Source: Invaders Must Die

So now we know. I just hope no morons get it into their heads to try vandalising the mirrors as depicted in the video.

The mirrors have been used by a variety of musicians, including Turin Brakes, Bass Communion and Blank & Jones.

(thanks to Ken Morrow for letting me know about the video)