Interview: Andy Martin pt. 1

In this episode of Earth.fm’s Earth Is the Original Radio podcast - the first of a two-parter! - the site’s curator, Melissa Pons has a wide-ranging conversation with sound designer and field recordist Andy Martin.

The insightful and granular conversation explored the following topics:

• Andy’s relationship with sound throughout his life and career, and what paths led to him dedicating himself to nature field recordings - taking in childhood illness, a love of the Star Wars score, involuntary mimicking of the sounds around him, and a desire for escape 
• Flirtations with piano, violin, and saxophone, which led to music school - where Andy experienced a shift from sound being something he played and listened to actively thinking about it as something with the power to affect the world via feelings and emotions
• Stumbling from film sound design into video games - different ways of using sound to tell a story 
• How being a stay-at-home father for three years allowed him to experiencing the world via his young daughter's curiosity, and how his desire to learn about the place of sound grew alongside his daughter
• Starting to record wildlife for computer games, but initially seeing these sounds as “assets”
• ‘Quietness’ and ‘silence’ and what people really mean when they search for places that offer these things. And what sites without industrial noise, inhabited by more-than-human life, have brought to Andy
• A nature field recordist's identity and its contradictions in a capitalistic system and in the context of ‘content creation’.
• How ADHD feels to Andy, and how his experience of the disorder affects his practice and his life - maybe chaotically, maybe beautifully
• Also: crows!

Listen out for part two of the conversation, which will be released soon!

Also, below are all of the references mentioned during this episode:

• Bernie Krause's acoustic niche hypothesis: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269278107_The_Niche_Hypothesis_A_virtual_symphony_of_animal_sounds_the_origins_of_musical_expression_and_the_health_of_habitats
• Bernie Krause's book, The Great Animal Orchestra: https://eshop.fondationcartier.com/en/products/bernie-krause-and-united-visual-artists-the-great-animal-orchestra 
• Martyn Stewart: https://www.thelisteningplanet.com/alifeinsoundpodcast 
• Gordon Hempton's One Square Inch of Silence: https://onesquareinch.org/ 
• Andy’s official website: https://soundeziner.com/ 
• Andy's SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/soundeziner 

And you can connect with Andy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andymartinnaturesound/ and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andymartinnaturesound/.