Alice Boyd

And the song itself, I think it explores the idea of grief for these environments that we're in.

So there's a term called solastalgia, which is like nostalgia.

But yeah, it's that feeling of loss for the environment changing around you and how...

the environments we know dearly how they might change in the future so it explores both Martin's experience of how the world has changed over his lifetime and also I guess my experience as someone who is in their 20s and is looking into the future and wondering what's going to happen.

I think also in my work it's always been a key part of it increasingly because I think I was going to these places and getting field recordings and getting frustrated that there were the sounds of cars and planes and there was always this disruption even when I travelled quite far.

But increasingly I've realized how important it is to bring the human into that story and to not cut us out, not edit us out.

It's the reality of our world now that we are as noisy as we are, we are as messy as we are, but we also have such power to make change and to tell stories and to work towards a more hopeful future.

So I think that's been a huge part of it too, is learning about the projects like the white-tailed eagle or say, for example, bitterns have come back.

They were on the brink of extinction in the 90s.

Now they're back in their hundreds.

And there are all these different species which have come back in their numbers.

So it's definitely possible.

So I think on the one hand, it's really important to

look at how our soundscapes are changing, both to have the reality of, okay, things are declining, but also to have those moments of hope where you go, oh yeah, this is a bird that wasn't in this soundscape 50 years ago or 30 years ago, and now it is.

So I think listening has been both a tool for me to get outside and then in return has given me much more of an appreciation for what we have.