Subterranean Sketch was composed for the Sonic Terrain compilation for World Listening Day 2015. The compilation features over 40 new works using recordings of water as source material for experimental compositions.

Listening to Subterranean Sketch on Soundcloud here, the entire compilation is available from Sonic Terrain here.

This piece draws on a series of short hydrophone recordings from bodies of water across Australia, Cambodia, India and the USA. The recordings were made during the River Listening project, an art-science investigation into the creative possibilities of aquatic bioacoustics and the potential for new approaches in the management and conservation of global river systems.

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This year’s theme for World Listening Day was “H2O”.

The global water crisis means 750 million people around the world lack access to safe water. Water is rapidly becoming the commodity of the 21st century and the catastrophic effects of climate change often involve negative associations with water. Rising sea levels, devastating floods, melting ice in Antarctica and droughts spreading throughout the globe, all highlight our increasingly unpredictable and extreme relationship with water.

Yet H2O is vital for life, water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface, and 60% of our bodies are made of water. Oceans, rivers and lakes are the core of many of the world’s iconic cities and historically civilizations formed around water. Indigenous communities across the globe believe water is at the core of our existence. For thousands of years communities have lived sustainably by holding significant cultural and spiritual value of rivers, lakes and oceans.