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Transcript
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In Search of Captain Cat of Llareggub
by Colin Black
1. SOUND: WAVES (RECORDED CLOSE TO THE MICROPHONE)
2. SOUND: UNDERWATER HYDRAPHONE RECORING FROM NEW QUAY
3. SOUND: BUBBLES
4. Sea Shanty Singer:
O Santiana chwyth dy gorn, ai-o, Santiana Gyrr wyntoedd teg i
rowndio’r Horn, Mae nghartref i yng Nghymru bell.
[ O Santiana blow your horn – ai-o, Santiana; Send fair winds (for us) to round the Horn; My home is in distant Wales. ]
Mae ty fy nhad yn wyn ac yn hardd, Ai-o, Santiana,
A rhosys cochion yn yr ardd, Mae nghartref i yng Nhymru bell.
[ My father’s house is white and fair, ai-o, Santiana, With red roses in
the garden. My home is in far-off Wales. ]
5. SOUND:PUB CROWD SUPERIMPOSED ON UNDERWATER SOUNDS
6. SOUND: UNDERWATER HYDRAPHONE RECORING FROM NEW QUAY
7. SOUND: MAN SNORING
8. SOUND: BIRD MORNING CHORUS RECORDED AT NEW QUAY
9. David Jenkins:
Smack. Catch. Brig. Brigantine. Barquentine. Schooner. Topsail-Schooner. Mersey Flat. Spark and Full Rig Ship. [repeat and randomise the list of aforementioned historical ship types]
10. SOUND: ROPE
11. SOUND: BELL
12. SOUND: INTERIOR OF DYLAN THOMAS’ HOUSE IN LAUGHARNE
13. SOUND: BEACH FRONT LOCATION RECORDING
14. SOUND: FOOTSTEPS ALONG BEACH FRONT
15. SOUND: FOOTSTEPS MONTAGE
16. SOUND: BEACH FRONT LOCATION RECORDING
17. SOUND: WAVES
17. SOUND: LOCATION RECORDING OF NEW QUAY
18. Yasmin Evans:
And it use to be a green field coming out for about a mile to my right. And, last sixty years, that’s gone with the erosion [Yasmin Evans was interviewed at the Beach Café in New Quay]
[repeat above story in Welsh]
And a, they use to have a lot of little cottages there with very odd characters living in them, some of them.
[repeat above story in Welsh]
And, one of the little ladies was called Shani-pob-man, which means everywhere Jane. And um, all the sailors use to call her that, years and years ago, and she would entertain them
[repeat above story in Welsh]
19. SOUND: WAVES
20. Yasmin Evans:
And then at the end of the pier over there, there use to be a little lighthouse called “The Pepper Pot” because it looked like a pepper pot. But that blew down, quite, mm, maybe sixty, seventy, eighty years ago. Ah, in a storm, and so that was the end of that.
[repeat above story in Welsh]
Oh, in years ago as well, going back about forty years again, before all the mines all closed in Wales. Sunday they would all, all the miners would come from all over Wales, south Wales, and they would come down and they would all gather on the pier over there, dressed in their Sunday best; and they would be singing hymns and, on the pier over there. It was a lovely, lovely lovely place one time, you can imagine, can’t you.
21. SOUND: FADE UP MARITIME RADIO WEATHER REPORTAGE
22. SOUND: WAVES (RECORDED CLOSE TO THE MICROPHONE)
23. SOUND: MARITIME RADIO WEATHER REPORTAGE (CONTINUES)
24. SOUND: ALARM BELL
25. SOUND: SHIP IN MOTION
[Audio recording made on board HMB Endeavour]
26. SOUND: FADE DOWN MARITIME RADIO WEATHER REPORTAGE
27. SOUND: DISTANT SHIP HORN
28. Winston David Evans:
[Laughing] One old boy. Anyway he went blinded. [… more laughing]
29. Sea Shanty Singer:
Yn Harbwr Corc yr oeddwn / Ryw fore gyda’r dydd – gyda’r dydd
Roedd yno bawb yn llawen / Doedd yno neb yn brudd – neb yn brudd
O Hogie bach, doedd yno neb yn brudd.
[ I was in Cork Harbour / One early morning – early morning,
Everyone there was happy / Nobody was sad – none were sad,
O dear fellows, nobody sad. ]
30. SOUND: DISTANT ORGAN PLAYING BACH’S “FUGA SOPRA IL MAGNIFICAT”
31. SOUND: SHEEP
32. SOUND: BLACKSMITH
33. SOUND: CAR
34. SOUND: WAVES
35. Archival Radio Reportage:
(Two people discussing adder stones, also known as serpent's eggs,
snake's eggs, or Glain Neidr in Wales,. Adderstones are believed to have magical powers such as the protection against eye diseases and blindness [spoken in Welsh] )
36. SOUND: CLOCK TICKING
37. SOUND: CLOCK TICKING MONTAGE
38. SOUND: SHEEP
39. SOUND: BLACKSMITH
40. SOUND: FOOT STEPS
41. Male Voice:
Hello Smiley!
42. SOUND: BELL
43. Captain John Dikkenberg:
Stand by for cannon, Fire in the hull.
44. SOUND: CANNON FIRE
[Audio recording made on board HMB Endeavour]
45. SOUND: WAVE
46. SOUND: WIND IN MASK RECORDED IN NEW QUAY
47. Winston David Evans:
Everything is different in a gale wind. [repeat]
48. David Jenkins:
How difficult things where on sailing ships [continues story in Welsh]
49. David Jenkins:
The dangers of working up in the rigging, in the dark in the storm, an so on. [continues story in Welsh]
50. David Jenkins:
It was a hell of a hard life, and the fact that you might be away from home for as much as two years. [continues story in Welsh]
51. David Jenkins:
That the food was poor, it was all dried and all salted food. [continues story in Welsh]
52. SOUND: WIND IN MASK RECORDED IN NEW QUAY
53. David Jenkins:
By the time he finished his career at sea, things were rather better in that on a tramp steamer sailing from Cardiff down to Buenos Aires; and then loading grain to bring back to the UK or northern Europe, you were talking about a round passage of about twelve weeks or something like that.
54. SOUND: WIND IN MASK RECORDED IN NEW QUAY
55. SOUND: NEW QUAY BAY AT LOW TIDE, SOMEONE TRYING TO START HIS BOAT AND CHILDREN PLAYING
56. MUSIC TRACK: “Y Wasgod Goch” [“The Red Waistcoat”]
Fel yr oeddwn yn fy ngwely
Yn troi a throsi'n methu â chysgu,
Ond mi welwn ferch 'run lliw â'r lili
Yn anfon siwt o ffarwel imi.
Di rei di re i...
[As I lay in my bed
Tossing and turning, unable to sleep
I saw a girl the colour of the lily
Sending me a suit of farewell
Dee ri dee ri ... ]
(Captain’s Voice: Oh my poor dear. )
Rhôth imi glôs o felfat lowddu
A leinin gwyn i gofio amdani;
Rhôth imi gôt liw du o'r pandy
A chrys yn frith i lwyr alaru …
[She gave me black velvet trousers
With a white lining to remember her by;
She gave me a black coat from the fulling mill
And a speckled shirt to mourn her …]
(Captain’s Voice: Forward two spokes! )
… A gwasgod goch o doriad calon
A'i botyma i gyd o ddagrau heilltion …
[… A red waistcoat made from a broken heart
And all its buttons made from salty tears …]
(Captain’s Voice: Starboard two spokes.)
Di rei di rei...
(Captain’s Voice: Mid-ships!)
Rhôth imi het garlein wedi ei thrimio â
mwynder
A ffon o gollen ffeind o ffarwel …
[She gave me a Caroline hat trimmed with
sweetness
And a farewell stick made of willow …]
(Captain’s Voice: Starboard two spokes.)
… Rhôth imi gadach sidan gwyrddlas
A llun ei harch oedd arno'n fflowars …
[… She gave me a blue-green handkerchief
And on it in flowers was the image of her]
(Captain’s Voice: Mid-ships!)
… Di rei di rei...
(Captain’s Voice: Stop boat! )
Rhôth imi sane o wlân crydeddig …
[She gave me stockings of wool …]
(Captain’s Voice: Slow on stern, both
engines.)
… Ac wedi eu gweu â saethau'r Ciwbig, …
[… Woven with Cupid's arrows, …]
(Captain’s Voice: Starboard four spokes.)
… A sgidia o blwm â dur yn fyclau, …
[… And lead shoes with steel buckles, …]
(Captain’s Voice: Slow on stern on port.)
Wel, byth 'r anghofia i'r …
[I shall never forget …]
(Captain’s Voice: Forward two spokes!)
… trymder oedd arna-i.
[… how heavy-hearted I was.]
(Captain’s Voice: Stop starboard.)
Dir rei di rei ...
(Captain’s Voice: Slow on stern on port.)
(Captain’s Voice: Head slow, head port.)
(Captain’s Voice: Stop boat! )
Wel, dyna'r siwt i gyd i fyny, …
[Well that's the suit all made up, …]
(Captain’s Voice: Stop boat!)
Ond fod eisiau'i gwisgo i fynd i'w chladdu
[Except for wearing it to her funeral]
Di rei di rei...
57. SOUND: WAVES AND WOMEN MOANING
58. Captain’s Voice:
Stop boat!
59. SOUND: THUNDER CLAP
60. SOUND: WAVES
61. SOUND: BOAT HORN
62. SOUND: NEW QUAY, STREET
52. Captain: [ Sobbing ]
53. SOUND: WAVES (RECORDED CLOSE TO THE MICROPHONE)
about
New York Festivals Awards Gold Trophy Winning Work for Best Sound Art Work
"It’s a gorgeous piece. Stunningly vivid and evocative sounds and voices woven together with real artistry.” - John Biewen (Audio Program Director at Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, USA)
"What a wonderful programme. Enormously impressed. I'm not surprised you got gold at the New York Festivals for this." - Tim Crook (Professor of Broadcast Journalism, Goldsmiths, University of London)
"Fantastic! Sonic adventure at its best!" - Dixie Treichel (Minneapolis, USA),
"Bravo Colin! A great audio portrait! ... very moving and evocative of Dylan Thomas! Great work! " - Peter Flanagan (Southampton, UK),
"I think it's an incredible piece and I think it scared the crap out of any would be radio artists listening" - Bernard Clarke (Nova - RTÉ lyric fm, Limerick)
"Great stuff, Colin. I can but quote Bernard's [Clarke] introduction: 'A piece of radio art to envy.' ... " - Gerald Fiebig (Augsburg, Germany)
" ... 'In search' is so beautiful and moving" - Meira Asher (Tel Aviv, Israel)
About The Work
Inspired by the fictional blind character of Captain Tom Cat in Dylan Thomas’ classic Under Milk Wood, this new sound composition unearths the captain’s secret soundworld that is based both on actual location recordings and constructed dreamscapes. It is a soundworld full of the lyrical, sonic charm of Welsh fishing villages, nuanced from Captain Cat’s melancholic and nostalgic yearning for the past. In a sense we are travelling along sonic pathways into memories that dissolve into acoustic dreams; as in Thomas’ work, ‘the long drowned nuzzle up’ against our ear and tease the living, in this new auditory experience.
In Search of Captain Cat of Llareggub crosses existing borders and genres … it’s a kind of musical work constructed chiefly from sound, but not exactly music concrete, nor is it a radio drama or documentary. It is a sonic painting, infused with the tantalising echoes of Cardigan Bay (West Wales) and the breath of Dylan Thomas’s Captain Cat. In fact after Douglas Cleverdon produced Under Milk Wood for radio in 1954 he stated that it [Thomas’s work] ‘… has no rules determining what can or cannot be done. And though it may be in dramatic form, it has no need of a dramatic plot’ (British Radio Drama 1981: 9). In a sense Black is exploring this possibility in his new work … it has no rules but the goal of developing a language out of sound, from recordings gathered in Welsh fishing villages on Cardigan Bay. Moreover, it is a hybrid audio work that takes the listener into an exotic and imagined composed soundscape, a space where the sea sings.
Some key elements of this work include radiophonic arrangements of sea shanties sung by Gerald Morgan in Welsh, the traditional folk song “Y Wasgod Goch” [The Red Waistcoat] that tells the story of being haunted by a recently deceased lover, as sung by Mr Robert Pierce Roberts and Bach’s “Fuga sopra il Magnificat” that has been augmented with a chiefly stratified texture of the sounds of sheep, the sea and a blacksmith at work. In addition to these, the work contains location recordings from Thomas’ house in Laugharne [Welsh: Talacharn], and New Quay [Welsh: Cei Newydd] (which are believed to be the inspiration for Under Milk Wood), sparse interviews with locals describing New Quay, Welsh maritime historian David Jenkins describing life at sea, archival recordings from the audiovisual archive at St Fagans, National History Museum including Mary Jane Rees’ interview explaining the Welsh myth of adderstones that are believed to cure blindness, sounds from aboard various ships in motion and other coastal locations in Wales. Finally, an acoustic theme that runs through this work is that, in sonic reality, the boats are heard as beached or docked and tethered by ropes to the quay, or attempting to start their motors. It is only in Captain Cat’s dreams and day-dreams that the boats are free to set sail on his emotional sea of nostalgia.
credits
released March 7, 2020
Credits
Produced, Composed, Recorded and Mixed by Colin Black
Interviewees: Gerald Morgan, David Jenkins, Winston David Evans and Yasmin Evans. Sea Shanty Singer: Gerald Morgan Captain’s Voice: Clive Woosnam
Archival recordings courtesy of Meinwen Ruddock-Jones and the audiovisual archive at St Fagans, National History Museum. Archival recordings include “Y Wasgod Goch” as sung by Mr Robert Pierce Roberts and Mary Jane Rees’ interview about the Welsh myth of adderstones.
Location recordings from Wales, edited, compiled and mixed at Frequency Oz (Australia) by Colin Black
In Search of Captain Cat of Llareggub première broadcast was on RTÉ lyric fm, Nova programme, 12 October 2014.
Selected for broadcast on: RTÉ Lyric FM, Nova, 12 October 2014
Resonance 104.4fm (London), 21 October 2014
Soundart Radio 102.5fm (Totnes), 12 October 2014
ABC Classic FM, New Music Up Late, 8 November 2014
RTÉ Lyric FM, Nova, 9 November 2014
Radio Campus Paris, Récréation Sonore, 30 November 2014
WGXC 90.7-FM, Radio Theatre, (Hudson, USA), 11 December 2014
106fm קול הקמפוס [Kol HaCampus], אמנות רדיו [Radio Art] programme, Tel Aviv, Israel, 28 December 2014
Radio Campus Grenoble, part of the Week of Sound festival, 7 Feburary 2015
HRT Hrvatski Radio [Croatian Radio], Glazba i obratno, 2 October 2015
Selected for performance/presentation at:
Gaîté Lyrique, Paris, 25 January 2015
Full of Noises, The Nan Tait Centre, Cumbria (UK), 31 July to 2 August 2015
Awards
2015 New York Festivals International Radio Program Awards, Gold Medal, Sound Art Category
2015 Prix Phonurgia Nova Award (France), Final Round Selection
Special thanks to: Bernard Clarke, Yanna Black, David Jenkins, Winston David Evans, Yasmin Evans, Meinwen Ruddock-Jones, Ian Heights, Mair Humphreys, Kevin Sumption, Captain John Dikkenberg, Clive Woosnam, Stephen Adams, Peter Gage, St Fagans, National History Museum, Ceredigion Archives, Dolphin Spotting Boat trips (New Quay), The Australian National Maritime Museum and the crew of the HMAS Advance and HMB Endeavour.
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, it's arts funding and advisory body.
"… amongst the most significant Australian creative artists of his generation, a composer/sound artist who has created a
significant body of important work in a relatively short time, work which spans installation, sound art, fìlm, radiophonic works, and beyond, with many of these works having gained international attention."
- John Davis, CEO Australian Music Centre, 25 February 2011...more
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