The original field recordings is symphonic in its beautiful showcase of nature at its finest, with birds, frogs and insects interweaving in the atmosphere of a spring evening - a perfect recording to choose as part of the annual Spring Project. Wanting to keep that feeling of the natural soundscape being a live performance, this composition is also a live performance, with various different synth and instrument parts laid down onto a Torso S-4 sampler, then performed live in response to the natural sounds. Its aim is to embellish and sit alongside the natural sounds, and to create an immersive nine-minute experience in which the listener can lose themselves equally in the natural or the synthesised sounds (and their interaction). The title comes from this wonderful Tomas Transtromer poem: In February life stood still. The birds refused to fly and the soul grated against the landscape as a boat chafes against the jetty where it’s moored. The trees were turned away. The snow’s depth measured by the stubble poking through. The footprints grew old out on the ice-crust. Under a tarpaulin, language was being broken down. Suddenly, something approaches the window. I stop working and look up. The colours blaze. Everything turns around. The earth and I spring at each other. Spring soundscape in Terranova, Italy reimagined by Cities and Memory.

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