Sonic Spindling at 'Playground on Fire'

This is the sound of my sonic spindle spinning yarn, as recorded through my little peavey mixing desk, and 'collected' by my Jez Riley French contact microphones. To explain a bit the context: 'Playground on Fire' was an event co-ordinated by my good comrade Stavroula Kounadea, which involved many artists taking over the Old Fire Station in Oxford for a day, to present myriad performances of all kinds in a day long ART extravaganza. I took this opportunity to develop the 'sonic spindling' concept which I developed in 2012, and set about turning a landing area by the stairs into a spindling performance area. My sonic spindle is a support spindle (i.e. it spins while balancing on a surface) which I made out of a double-pointed needle, some epoxy putty, and a selection of bells. I spin this device like a little spinning top inside a wooden bowl, to which I attach some contact microphones with blu-tack. The spinning action of the spindle against the surface of the wood is the main sound you can hear, but the bells contribute to the sound as they rattle around, wedged in epoxy putty. You can also hear some of the ambient sounds of the Old Fire Station against the backdrop of industry. In the performance, I sent the amplified sound of the sonic spindling to a stereo 7W amplifier which I built with help from my partner, Mark. The amplified sound then traveled to a set of transducers which effectively turned the glass windows into a giant speaker cone, behind me. The idea was to in some way embed the sound of making yarn into the very fabric of the building. This is Sonic Spindling.