Sylvia Hallett - Tree Time (2020)

Tree Time is a reflection on the derelict Tottenham garden, now a forest, next door to me, full of sycamores, holly, walnut, horse chestnut, hazel, elder, jasmine and ivy where the birds nest and the bees go for nectar, and the squirrels chase and chatter along their aerial runways. Underground in the root system a family of foxes dig out their tunnels and palaces.
During this time of pandemic lockdown, I have been fortunate to have time to listen to the wind soughing in the trees, and get drawn into a different time dimension - the trees speak slowly and ponderously, over centuries, rooting down to the memories that are stored in their fibrous trunks. There is a huge canopy of Russian Vine at one end, and every year it advances further into my garden until I deal with it.
I used some of this vine along with other small branches - beech, ash and sycamore, to make sound, using a violin bow to bring out their resonant qualities. They behave like something between a string and a tongue of wood, then in real time I processed the sounds using simple guitar pedals - delay, pitch-shift and looper. The tracks are all improvised and edited, but no overdubbing.