ABOUT THIS EPISODE
“To record well, you have to be listening well.”
This episode, part two from Endless Fields 2025, features a further selection of interviews between Earth.fm curator Melissa Pons and her fellow artists-in-residence. You can listen to part one here.
One of the co-founders of the event, Stefano Arrigoni, spoke to Melissa alongside Cameron Randall.
Stefano is a sound artist and anaesthetist from Italy, who lives in Marseille, France. His practice explores how sound can shape consciousness and open spaces between the inner and the outer. For Stefano, field recording is a form of healing, attention, and surrender. In his compositions and improvisations, recorded sounds trace paths that question authorship and reveal what lies beyond the first layer of hearing.
Cameron, a multidisciplinary artist, field recordist, and DJ, composes through an assemblage of field recordings, electro-acoustic sound, sampling, synthesis, AI models, and digital processing. Previous work has involved sculpture, algorithms, sound, moving image, text, and installation, while his monthly series Listening With is broadcasted on Resonance FM.
Together, Melissa, Stefano, and Cameron discuss:
- The origins of their interest in sound. Cameron’s arts background means he approaches the sonic world through a visual lens, while, despite being brought up in a family where music wasn’t a priority, one of Stefano’s earliest memories is of playing guitar with his father. He also describes himself having been a “sound-contemplator” from an early age
- How important it is, for those who wish to make music but don't have a musical background, to realize that if you “step back and [...] just listen quietly and [...] wait patiently”, inspiration will come. And to remember that an “unmusical mind” can even be beneficial, by “pull[ing] [...] work into a [...] different space”
- Whether engaging with sound requires more effort than the visual world does - or whether this engagement is “just different”, and simply requires a different kind of attunement
- The way that Stefano “find[s] sounds that call [to him]”, while Cameron “morph[s] and combin[es] sounds” to create a “quality that's partly in this world and partly in another”
- How negotiating one particular, secluded environment with a microphone, over an extended period, can increase the experience of intimacy with that environment, enhancing the listening experience
- Whether listening in such an environment provides opportunities for imagining a better world, and to consider how creative practices can create outcomes that oppose the values of mainstream society
- How being “acutely” present in a natural environment can allow an appreciation of the “entanglement of species”, and of the “interwovenness” of the bodies of land and water which make up these spaces
- The way that time seems to “collapse” into a “continual flow” in such spaces - compared to the more structured interaction with time that most of us experience in day-to-day life
- The importance of remembering that “ecstasy [can] come [...] from very simple feelings like the warm breeze on your skin when you walk at night”
- How “liv[ing] in a crazy global situation [...], [means that] it's a very mixed feeling to be able to [...] just connect to [...] [things like the sound of a] grasshopper” - but that being in a natural space can also bring “a lot of those conversations to the fore”; taking the time to listen allows more mental clarity than the constant state of agitation within which many of us live. “By listening, we are moving peace energy. [...] It's [...] [a] political act” - so, “make your listening sacred”.
Melissa also spoke to Anna Clock, who co-founded Endless Fields with Stefano. Anna’s work as an artist, composer, and musician centers ways of listening, and encompasses theater, film, radio, installation, text, and live music. They also find the time to play the cello and offer affordable, gender-neutral hairdressing in the queer community.
In their conversation, Anna talks about:
- How moving from London, England, to Ireland at young age and entering “a completely different aural environment” led them to start making recordings - something that initially felt distinct from their background in music, before they came to the realization that they were part of the same practice
- The importance of reciprocity when listening, including the way that music can allow one to connect with both oneself and the world
- The connection between field recording and deep listening - but also the reluctance, as someone with a cynical nature, to sound too New Age by talking about spirituality in a flippant way
- The idea that, “If you can't listen to yourself, then you can't listen to anyone [...] or anything else.” Plus, the importance of finding the “special zone” which enables you to “feel comfortable enough to give and receive”... But also the acknowledgement that, if you're never uncomfortable, you're never “reaching towards anything new”
- How being present in order to listen can be a disconcerting experience, since “it’s not what we're trained to reward ourselves for” in a world built around capitalistic productivity
- The beauty of “listening [rather than] fighting with time”: a valuable act in a world where “every action you take is a vote for a way of life”
- The experience of listening as part of a group of people - including how recordings made on a night walk while taking part in one of Pauline Oliveros’ sonic meditations (where the intention is to tread so softly that the feet become ears) captured not only the surroundings but the sound of people listening.
You can contact Stefano here, and follow Cameron and Anna.
And check back for upcoming episodes! These will feature conversations with Jakub Orzęcki, an acoustic ecologist and field recording artist who lives in Wrocław, Poland, and the Berlin-based sound recordist and electronic music composer Gina Lo.
