Sounds of the Wetlands
In early 2025, staff and students from the Sound and Music Programme, LCC, travelled to the London Wetlands Centre (part of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT)) to make recordings of the site and its surrounding areas. The project was inspired the long-running SoundLapse project at the Universidad Austral de Chile, where recordings of the wetlands around Valdivia have inspired ecological, educational, and creative research. During the course our project, we met with our counterparts in Chile and learned about their interests, methods, and research goals. We also met with staff and the London Wetlands Centre, and heard about the rapid decline in global wetland environments and their plans to create 100,000 hectares of sustainable wetlands in the UK.
This concert showcases artworks composed by staff and students from both LCC and the Universidad Austral de Chile using sounds recorded in London and Valdivia. The brief was very open: everyone involved was free to determine their own creative response to the recordings and the broader theme. Together, these works offer myriad perspectives on the sounds of the wetlands, and encourage reflection on our collective responsibility for their conservation and preservation.
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CD1
Oncol mix – Felipe Otondo and Natán Ide Pizarro
Flight Path – Julia Schauerman
Black Marsh Sun – Daniel Pakdel
Tiempo Austral – Leonardo Santos
Contested Territory – Max Elmore
Venus en Valdivia – Diego Benalcazar
Loss – Jerome Dodd
Encircled – Adam Stanović
CD2
False Awakening on a Mediterranean Island – Berk Yağlı
Lemai – Valentina Valderas
TQ 228770 – Robert Colman
2420 ft – Angus Carlyle
Naiad – Jiajing Zhao
Sensibilidad Natural – Nelchael Recabarren
Parque Etéreo – Sebastian Ubeda Mardones
Changing the Balance Julia Pytko
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CD1
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Oncol mix
“Oncol” is a Mapudungun word meaning “all lands” or “all territories,” a name that echoes the cultural and ecological richness of this part of southern Chile. Built from field recordings made in the Valdivian Rainforest, this piece traces the shifting soundscape of Oncol Park over the course of a day—birds, insects, wind, and distant ocean waves blending into a living breathing environment.
Felipe Otondo is a Chilean composer and sound artist working in the fields of spatial audio, soundscape composition, and electroacoustic music. His work explores the relationship between environmental sound and perception, often using field recordings and new media technologies. He has presented compositions, radio works, and installations in over 30 countries. Otondo is currently Associate Professor at Universidad Austral de Chile, where he leads the research project Soundlapse. More: www.otondo.net, www.soundlapse.net—
Natán Ide Pizarro is a musician, acoustic engineer, and sound artist based in Chile. His work explores spatial and immersive audio, focusing on how sound affects perception and expression in musical performance. With a background in acoustics and sound technology, he is active in projects involving classical and contemporary music production. He also works with field recordings of natural environments, integrating them into both artistic and academic contexts. He currently teaches at Universidad Austral de Chile and is pursuing a Master’s in Arts at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
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Flight Path
I composed this soundscape composition to reflect the dynamic sonic environment of the London Wetland Centre. The audio material within the piece was recorded on my Zoom H2n-handy recorder; additionally, I used two underwater recordings made by Daniel Pakdel on a hydrophone recorder. I composed the work in Audacity, an open-source digital audio editor and recording application software.
Julia Schauerman is an electroacoustic composer and community artist. Currently, Julia is undertaking a practice-led research PhD at the University of the Arts London; her research is concerned with developing a method of collaborative creative practice, namely, collaborative acousmatic storytelling. Julia has been awarded a scholarship for this research. Julia’s interests include composing ecologically themed works and exploring the use of electroacoustic techniques within community arts practice. She works closely with digital art group Genetic Moo, creating sound designs for their immersive digital ecosystem exhibitions. Julia’s work has been presented internationally, including Mexico, Canada, Norway and Italy.
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Black Marsh Sun
The mechanical thrum of planes overhead the London Wetland Centre pulls an all encompassing veil of sound over its avian inhabitants. Every trill, tweet, and warble is accompanied by the prolonged roars, and almost perpetual rumble of noise pollution. Though these reservoir-transformed wetlands symbolise human solidarity against capitalist destruction, a tension remains palpable. Sitting in the hide, looking out over its manufactured vastness, the sonic landscape tells a different story. Plane tones collide, and compound, cutting through the surface of the water, reverberating into the recesses of its aquatic
ecosystems; a sonic eclipse. In this mythopoetic retelling we imagine these wetlands slowly submerged in darkness. The layered drones of passing planes build amidst dense orchestration, masking presence and erasing nuance. The wetlands become a stage for the collective shadow of humanity, and invites the listener to ponder on the shadows they too cast.
Daniel Pakdel is a field recordist, composer, experimental video artist and workshop facilitator whose work lies at the intersection of eco-phenomenology, mytho-poetics, and soundscape ecology. His research and creative practice investigate the nature of perception and psychological self-inquiry in relation to the more-than-human world, synthesising mythic recreation with archetypal symbolism. Grounded in ecological theory, his soundscape compositions explore relational ontologies and interspecies subjectivity, in critique of prevailing anthropocentric rationale. Through his work, he aims to challenge this imbalance in order to reawaken embodied awareness, and ultimately galvanise societal action.
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Tiempo Austral
This piece is a sound photograph of the city of Valdivia, capturing the natural soundscape of a day, from dawn to night. Through a narrative journey, the work portrays the evolving atmosphere of the city’s biodiversity: the early morning filled with birdsong, the afternoon marked by the varied textures of rain, and the night resonating with a rich blend of birds, insects, and amphibians. Using only non-anthropogenic sounds, the piece seeks to offer an authentic and immersive listening experience that reflects the vibrant natural environment of Valdivia. Beyond portraying these landscapes, the piece aims to promote the care and protection of the ecosystems where these species live, such as the Chucao, Hued Hued, Concón, and Bandurrias, as well as amphibians like the Four-eyed Toad (sapito de cuatro ojos) and the Chilean Frog (ranita chilena).
Leonardo Santos is a student of Civil Acoustic Engineering at Universidad Austral de Chile. Born and raised in Lanco, a small town in southern Chile. The constant presence of rain, trains, and amphibians shaped his early perception of the soundscape. Now based in Valdivia, his main interest lies in music, both as a composer and as a producer. While he finds strong connections between music and soundscapes, he seeks to keep these two worlds distinct in his work. His approach to soundscapes tends toward a more purist vision, aiming to interfere as little as possible with the original recordings of natural environments and animal life. Through this philosophy, he explores the interplay between different sound environments, creating immersive experiences that highlight the richness of the acoustic world around us.
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Contested Territory
Composed as a celebration of our partnership with Universidad Austral de Chile, my piece was inspired by the interaction between the natural (biophonic and geophonic) soundscape of the London Wetlands Centre and the human-made (anthrophonic) activity of the surrounding city. Located beneath a flightpath, the natural soundscape of the wetlands is frequently interrupted by the deep roar of aircraft engines. Rather than mitigating this interference, the composition embraces it, highlighting the broader issue of ecological preservation of soundscapes. Through the processing and arrangement of field recordings from both London and Valdivia, I aim to challenge the notion of the ‘natural’ by imparting a digital influence to create a fabricated sonic reality. In doing so, the piece draws attention to the claim of sonic territory that humans impose upon the world through their post-industrial existence. It explores the implications of sonic dominion —the altered sonic realities humans establish through noise, and how this reshapes both ecological and social landscapes.
Max Elmore is a musician, composer, and MA Music Production student whose practice uses sound and music as a mode of inquiry into broader cultural, social, and environmental issues. Drawing on both research and creative experimentation, Max’s interests lie in themes such as sonic environments and constructed sonic ‘realities’, generative composition, electronic music, and countercultural ‘musicking’. Max works towards establishing a symbiotic relationship in which research and musical practice are interwoven, reciprocally informing one another and setting the foundation of his creative work.
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Venus en Valdivia
Venus en Valdivia is a minimalist composition that explores the ancestral sonorities of a couple of double flutes from pre-Hispanic cultures of Ecuador, particularly from the Bahía culture. The piece draws inspiration from the anthropomorphic form of the Venus of Valdivia, an archaeological icon from the coastal regions of Ecuador. The piece aims to create an immersive listening experience that preserves the organic nature of the sound artefacts while placing them in a speculative and contemporary context. It is inspired by the idea of the movement and exchange of sound artefacts and practices across the Andes, and how the sonic qualities of double flutes, present in various cultures throughout the region, might have been shared or travelled beyond borders. This composition reimagines how these Valdivian figurines might have sounded if they were placed within the Chilean soundscape captured in field recordings from Valdivia, Chile, gathered through a project by the Soundlapse project. A Valdivian Venus in a faraway Valdivia.
Diego Benalcazar is an Ecuadorian composer, producer, and interdisciplinary artist based in London, whose work is deeply rooted in sound exploration. His practice focuses on ancestral sound artifacts, the intricacies of archival processes, and the interplay between sound and memory. Pushing the boundaries of audio technology, Diego’s work delves into experimental music and immersive soundscapes, drawing inspiration from pre-Hispanic sound practices. His aim is to evoke reflection on post-colonial themes through innovative compositions. Diego is the Course Leader for BA Music Production at University of the Arts London. He holds a doctorate in musicology and an MA in Audio Production, and his work has been exhibited in Europe, the USA, and Latin America. Currently, he is creating new compositions that incorporate virtualized ancestral sound objects from pre-Hispanic cultures.
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Loss
This haunting audio-visual piece explores the fragility of the Wetlands in the modern age. Through field recordings and video footage captured at the London Wetlands Centre, the work reflects the tension between these protected natural spaces and rapid urbanisation. The London Wetlands Centre is situated on a flight path. The sound of planes flying overhead becomes a centre point of the piece, capturing the irony of the Wetlands position. Through intense colour grading, layered textures and video displacement the visuals capture a nightmarish scene of wildlife stripped of its beauty with the city looming menacingly in the background. The ending captures a lone Robin sitting on a branch, as a busy London road slowly engulfs the scene. Whilst the Robin remains present in the frame, as a translucent silhouette, it slowly merges into the background. This audiovisual work invites viewers and listeners to contemplate the price of rapid urban expansion on these sacred natural spaces.
Jerome Dodd studies Music Production BA(Hons) at London College of Communication. He trained as a musician and his practice ties together sonic and visual material. He has written scores for short films and worked alongside artists to create soundscapes for immersive artwork. Jerome is currently focused on using Ableton in conjunction with TouchDesigner and Da Vinci Resolve which gives him the freedom to explore emotion through composition and artworks.
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Encircled
Arriving at the London Wetland Centre, on the morning of the 11th Feb 2025, I was immediately struck by the relative silence. For over an hour I had battled my way through the bustle of central London, travelling by bus, tube, and train. And suddenly, I was surrounded by stark winter trees. I could hear my feet crunching on the stony paths, and a distant crow cawing. For a moment, it felt like an oasis of calm. But as my ears acclimatised, I realised that London, the great metropolis, was ever-present. I could hear it rumbling in the distance, interrupted only by the roar of overhead planes bound for Heathrow. The more I tried to focus on the sounds of the centre itself, the more aware I became of the monstrous city beyond… We were, I felt, encircled… Initially, this piece set out to traverse city and Centre, transitioning from the chaos of one to the calm of the other. As the piece developed, however, I started to realise that it is not simply the London wetlands that are encircled; although their geographies are vastly different, most of the world’s wetlands are, in one way or another, equally encircled…
Adam Stanović
Adam Stanović composes music with recorded sound. In recent years, his music has drawn from both studio and location recordings, using both digital and analogue technologies. Adam’s music follows in the traditions of musique concrète; it is created through the direct (physical) manipulation of sound in ways that have been compared to the plastic arts, such as sculpture, painting, and pottery. His music always employs a fixed medium, but is sometimes accompanied by instruments, electronics, film, and animation. To date, he has won prizes, residencies, and mentions in over 40 international composition competitions, had his music performed in over 700 international concerts, and published works on 16 different albums, including three solo albums (on the Sargasso and Empreintes DIGITALes record labels). Adam is Director of the Sound and Music Programme at the University of the Arts, London. For more information, visit: www.adamstanovic.com
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CD2
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False Awakening on a Mediterranean Island: Type 2′
False Awakening on a Mediterranean Island is a personal journey through the experiences of being born and growing up on an island with complex cultural, political, and historical roots. Identity crisis, the hegemonic competition of political actors over culture, political narrative, and collective subconscious, with their consequent decay, contrasted strangely with the beauty of the island and its warmth. After leaving the island at 18, this became further problematised through the questions of what home is. I felt strong connections and disconnections between where I grew up and where I lived afterwards, feeling like I did not completely belong in both. What struck me recently, after an intense period of travel through different parts of the world, following a period of injury, rest and healing, is that identity and belonging can keep growing in micro-means by tiny moments in life. Making every moment of interaction with the space and culture dynamic, as the individual affects the space, and in turn, it affects the individual. As this piece is about transformation and journey, my goal with Wetlands Project has been using the materials recorded in our trip to create a dream-like false awakening state, with contrasting familiar, unfamiliar, hyperrealism, and abstracted senses filled with moments of beauty, tension, and stress.
Berk Yağlı (born 1999) is a Cypriot guitarist, composer, and producer. His mission with his music has been to talk about social, political, and philosophical matters interestingly to invite the listeners into reflecting on the topics. He is working on hybridisation between electroacoustic music and metal as part of his PhD at the University of the Arts London. He has been active in the UK since 2017. His works have been presented internationally. He is regularly invited to compose his music in studios throughout the world. He received numerous awards for his compositions in competitions around the world.
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Lemai
Lemai, based on the island of Mancera located on the coast of the Los Ríos region, Chile, incorporates elements of the soundscape of the area in order to simulate a tour around the island and the feeling of home and family. This piece is a homage to all the experiences that the composer has had in this place, her family and to the local people, who bring life to the island every year. To represent the nature of the place, it includes sounds of beaches, wetlands, rain, animal sounds of chilean frogs, insects, bird songs from Chercán, Trile, Fiofio, Concón, among others. These natural sounds blend with a trombone that simulates the sound of the boats that take you to the island.
Valentina Mariana Valderas Segura was born in Valdivia, Chile on February 14th, 2004. She did her elementary and high school education at the german school “Carlos Anwandter” and now she’s studying civil acoustic engineering at the Universidad Austral de Chile (UACh). Her interest in music began at a very early age. At 4 years old she started to play the violin, hence she has a special liking for orchestral pieces. She has always lived surrounded by the flora and fauna of the south of her country, which is why she likes to pay attention to the sounds of these environments.
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TQ 228770
The title of this piece of music is TQ 228770, a name which comes from the grid reference of the WWT London Wetland Centre, where the various recorded sounds I used for the song were recorded; the name also felt appropriate in how it relates to the sound of the song overall. This track is almost entirely made with said recordings of nature and wildlife, the only exception being an electronic drum kit which I used to add more impact to the percussion I made with the recordings. The track that I have created alternates between sections which are focused on the atmospheric recordings and those which contain more solid beats and more artificial-sounding instruments. Sometimes effects such as distortion, bitcrusher, and pitch shifting are used to transform the natural sounds into more warped and noise/industrial-inspired sounds. This piece is 14 minutes and 40 seconds long and utilises sounds from the bat recordings, bird recordings, and Adam Stanovic’s recordings.
I am Robert Colman, a music producer who creates electronic and experimental tracks in many different genres and styles; I release my music under the artist name of ixzo. I have released over 100 albums and 50 EPs since 2019 consisting of hundreds of hours of music. My music often explores both hardcore and more ambient sounds, complex rhythms, high tempos, and conceptual elements such as overarching themes and storytelling. As someone who almost always creates music on my own, I was interested in a more connected and collaborative experience, hence why I decided to take part in this project.
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2420 ft
Taking its title from the average altitude of the aircraft on their final approach to Heathrow that were logged by a noise monitor in the middle of the wetlands nature reserve, 2420 ft comes straight off the SD card, its only edits the fades that top and tail the recording. If the aircraft engines measured by the Bruel & Kjaer 3639-A Type 1 sound level meter might represent sounds that travelled furthest to my microphones, in descending order of elevation there are also buffets of wind (that I probably should have EQ’d away), a skein of Canada geese, a flock of parakeets, tree-perched robins, coal tits and great spotted woodpeckers, mouths that scream, laugh, hush, whisper, exhale and stifle giggles, the jangle of charms on backpacks and keys in pockets, the swish of school uniforms, stones crushed by shoe soles and coots calling from the drainage ditches below the path.
Angus Carlyle is the Professor of Sound and Landscape at London College of Communication, University of the Arts. His research explores what sound can reveal of the conditions and perceptions of environments under stress. His creative work shifts between a documentary impulse and a more poetic register; often collaborative, it deploys writing, moving image, photography and compositions based on field recording. With Rupert Cox and Kozo Hiramatsu he has been exploring what it means to listen to overflights in the sky and taxiing on runways, whether the aircraft are civilian passenger planes or military jets, turboprops and helicopters.
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Naiad
Naiad is an acousmatic composition that explores the hidden sound ecologies of the littoral zone—the shallow, near-shore area of wetlands—through a fictional journey from the perspective of a naiad. Created in collaboration with the WWT London Wetland Centre, the piece turns attention away from the familiar symphony of birds and insects overhead, and instead bends low to listen to the often overlooked vibrational soundscape around and beneath the water’s surface. Using hydrophones submerged in ponds and attached to emergent vegetation, I captured a lively vibroscape—sounds only accessible through direct contact. These recordings reveal subtle conversations between amphibians, insects, and fish. They also include the crackling and fizzing of submerged plants during photosynthesis—a sound world largely inaudible to the unaided human ear. The composition adopts a minimalistic approach to preserve the natural rhythm and sonic detail of the recorded material. Abstraction is used with restraint to enhance spectral colour and shape the musical narrative. Naiad invites listeners to inhabit an alternative model of listening, attuning to the neglected micro-sonic dimension of the wetland—an ecological space felt more than heard, vibrating with submerged life and unheard presences.
Zhao Jiajing (family name-given name, b. China) is an electroacoustic composer, sound designer, and interdisciplinary artist based in London. Zhao holds an MA from the Royal College of Art and is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of the Arts London (CRiSAP) under the supervision of Adam Stanović. Zhao’s artistic practice encompasses sound, installation, and new media, exploring themes such as temporality, technology, digital cultures, and nature. Since 2019, he has been deeply engaged in spatial sound, creating multi-channel compositions and installations. His works employ space as both an expressive medium and a responsive instrument.
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Sensibilidad Natural
The goal of this piece is to encapsulate the powerful feeling of nature and its mesmerizing beauty with simple musical elements blending with the soundscape recordings of Valdivia. The piece relies heavily on the recorded samples, and the music elements latch onto this, trying to imitate the same sound quality of the recordings of nature, such as background noise like the wind or the rain, or animals such as birds, amphibians, or insects. The final product ended up feeling cinematic and it does add a nice layer to the objective of the song. A heavy inspiration for the creation and theme of this piece was the constant bicycle trips between the place I am staying for my studies and the university campus, passing through patches of nature that were uncommon in the city I came from.
Nelchael Recabarren Vargas was born in Santiago, Chile on July 6th, 2003. Since growing up as a child he was very interested in mathematics, physics, and music. For these reasons he decided, in the year 2022, to enter the career of Civil Acoustic Engineering at the Universidad Austral de Chile in Valdivia. The beginnings of his career were difficult due to the distance between the university and his home. Still, he managed to adapt to the new lifestyle in the city and grow his interests in the field of acoustics.
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Parque Etéreo
This piece features recordings provided by Professor Felipe Otondo, those being wetlands (Parque Urbano, Parque Oncol), chilean frogs, and ducks. The purpose of the song is to transmit a relaxing feeling. The word “etéreo” means “ethereal”, which can be associated with a dream-like environment, where elements are constantly moving, and you never know what could appear next. This song was heavily inspired by the style of the Silent Hill soundtrack. It features a mixture of textures, and a funky style, with electric guitars that provide a rhythmic pattern, giving the song a groovy feeling, along with the percussion and bass guitar.
Sebastian Ubeda Mardones was born in Arica, Chile on the 7th of January, 2003. His interest in music began once he started playing the drums at the age of 10. His passion for sound and music led him to pursue a career at Universidad Austral de Chile, where he joined in 2022 to study Civil Acoustic Engineering. The areas where he wants to develop his career are sound design, music production and immersive audio.
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Changing the Balance
A Haunting Sonic Deconstruction of Wetland Collapse by PYTKO Changing the Balance is an experimental electronic composition created from field recordings at the London Wetland Centre. The piece explores themes of ecological degradation, climate anxiety, and environmental loss. Using birdsong, wind, water, and ambient noise, captured with contact microphones and hydrophones, PYTKO transforms organic sounds into fractured, synthetic textures through distortion, EQ manipulation, and erratic delays. The result is a dissonant soundscape that mirrors the instability of fragile ecosystems under human pressure. The piece includes minimalist spoken-word lyrics functioning as a mantra and resembling a fragmented climate report. The title reflects the destabilisation of wetland habitats amid rising sea levels and biodiversity loss. PYTKO’s work, merging glitch textures and pop, serves as both sonic protest and emotional response to climate change. Changing the Balance invites listeners to engage with environmental grief through a raw, immersive listening experience.
Julia Pytko: London-based, Polish-born PYTKO is a producer, singer, and songwriter whose musical journeyunfolds at the intersection of experimental soundscapes and intimate songwriting. Fascinated bytreating music as material, PYTKO blends glitch-inspired textures with baroque pop through anintuitive approach to sound design. PYTKO released three EPs on Phantasy Sound, her debutalbum The Way We Blush and six independent singles last year. Her creative sanctuary is amakeshift studio, tucked away ‘in a cupboard somewhere in South London’, where she continuesto craft musical landscapes that are both intricate and ethereal.
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Adam Stanović 