I selected a section of the workshop from the very end where there are no instruments playing, and where the energy is at its height. For the end of workshops the participants put down their instruments; everything is simplified; many people are standing, drawing closer; using just voices; focussing in on sound; bringing the group together. This was a large group – say 50 – 60 people, so I was amazed that the pitch – E flat, the Joy of Sound key of choice was held and maintained even without instruments. The rhythm is likewise solid, driving. This made it easy for me loop some sections and to put instruments back into the mix! Using mult-itracking, I added three harp tracks, a bass drum, tambourine and vocals.

It was impossible to write this track without acknowledging not only the influence of the people I have met through JOS, but also the vibrant musical heritage of London itself. After hearing the Redmond Concert File, I picked out a short segment consisting of vocals and percussion then cut it into a series of loops, proceeding to build up the entire song around them. This was my first experimentation with writing around a sample, a practice I would normally eschew. It was an interesting and enthralling way of writing as I had no idea how the end result would turn out. I give thanks to whoever bought or listened this compilation, James for helping with recording the vocals, William and the rest of the JOS team and most importantly to the participants of JOS who made this possible. You have shown me that music making has no barriers. Consider this a gift in exchange for your knowledge, time and patience. Thank you, Daniel Armstrong

This work is mainly transformed from the cheers sounds in the original recording, combined with the repetitive ambient phrases and field recordings to connect the rhythm from interactions between intrinsic and extrinsic influences on individuals. Rhythm, could be considered as repetitive movements, but not just any repetition. It is also the regulation on our behaviour and will. By observing the repetition, rhythm enters into a general construction of time and consequently into its philosophical problematic: repetition and becoming, the relation of the Same to the Other. The repeated dialogs and soundscapes concealed behind these evolving drones are just like a footages of personal life experience as well as the inescapable cycle that represent the efforts we made but in vain.

Art is an immanent function of my existence, is a natural way of communicating with myself and others. Sound and movement are the most direct and primary forms of emotional, mental and physical manifestation of our being in / perception of: joy, hope, despair, doubt, pain .....known and unknown...

‘Our Minds to Wander’ was composed to highlight the experience we all have of mind wandering. During the act of listening or even performing music it is not uncommon for the mind to wander, allowing our own thoughts and feelings to enter while being influenced by the music. While having this experience, the person will at times refocus and veer back to reality. ‘Our Minds to wander’ was composed using only the Redmond File allowing elements of the original recording to come through and be heard to provide this link back to reality.

// ABOUT THE TRACK At first I found it difficult to approach creating a new work from the Redmond files as they sounded so amazing as they are. I wanted to keep this original aesthetic and avoid detracting from the power that can be heard. As a Joy of Sound volunteer I have experienced what goes into creating these moments of group improvisation that can be heard on the Redmond files, and I decided that in my piece I wanted to somehow represent the process of a Joy Of Sound session – the tuning of the instruments, the social environment and the culminating collective sound creation. To achieve this I recorded sounds during one of the weekly JOS sessions in Hackney, cutting and sampling the sounds of instruments and conversation. I latched on to the sound of the tampura drone which is used to tune the instruments at the beginning of a session, and decided to use this as a base and constant element to link the different sounds and sections throughout the piece. Others had requested that I include my clarinet in the piece as I have used it in JOS sessions. I conceived of the beginning of the piece as an 'alaap' improvisation as found in Indian classical music, where the notes and mood of a raag (mode or scale) are established. I then took some rhythmic elements from the Redmond files, and expanded this groove by recording live tabla rhythms. The piece culminates in an ecstatic section, with the clarinet, tabla and other elements eventually fading to leave just the powerful original Redmond recording.

The piece was created to reflect the feeling of vulnerability that emerged from the ‘Redmond File’ recording. In order to produce the joyful sound of the ensemble, each individual had to accept their own limitations and overcome the fear of making mistakes. Often, composers face similar moments of intense vulnerability and freedom at the start of a project, where they let go of all fears to sketch down loose shapes, unstable and imperfect ideas from which some little details will emerge as beautiful motifs to be developed in the future. Esquisses attempts to capture this personal moment through the use of piano and specific elements from the original recording, offering the audience a glimpse into the artists’ intimate creative process.

VOISIN VOISINE (neighbor neighbor) As a starting point of bringing together the subtle sounds we make with the rather loud and joyous chorus of the Redmond files, we imagined us as neighbours, existing and improvising in adjacent spaces. After careful listening to the full recording, we selected a few sections to lay randomly over the last recording of Bouche Bée live performance (Lucy’s lounge, London, February 2015) imagining that the door between us is sometimes opened and sometimes closed, allowing the dynamics of the two simultaneous improvisations to mix and merge, until they part again. PS the title is inspired by Cousin Cousine, a classic French romantic comedy from 1975 telling the impossible love story between 2 distant cousins meeting at a wedding banquet.

‘To work together and to strengthen each other’ When I first encountered the ‘Redmond Files Album’ I was delighted to hear such a great breath of musical expression and versatility. I wanted to keep that essence in my track, not to go astray from it, so I believed the best option was to make a compilation of my favourite moments of the long sound file I was given. What also interested me was the way the workshop leader conducted the sessions, what he asked or pointed at, and the great responses obtained from the participants. My track is inherently investigative in nature, clearly displaying its construction devices, with the edits to each sound fragment being minimal. The track is structured by various sections, these being split between the voice clips of the workshop leader, relating what he mentioned each time with the sounds that followed. The title itself derives from one of these spoken clips, stating: “this isn’t easy for anybody, but the way to success is to work together, to work together and to strengthen each other”. This stroked me as something important to retain and keep in the track for the value of its message in that particular environment, but also to everyone else who listens to it. I wanted to expose the collaborative and open-ended nature of the activity and how the group gathered to create such music, revealing also the fact of it being a recording of an actual organic event. From the warm-ups to the building of the musical sections and soundscapes, one of the core ideas behind the track was to show the great development of the group’s modes of relation and interaction, and to create this perception also for the listener.

I found the original file quite enticing to work with for I had never heard anything so alive (even if statically crystalized in the shape of a digital audio file). I gladly accepted the challenge to craft something meaningful out of the original recording, although this was done not without a substantial amount of worrie s from my part. Aiming at a ten-minutes concise sonic art piece, that which I had in hands was surely way too much material! I asked myself “what would certainly be of higher important, both to me and to them?”. Without finding the answer to this, an idea came up: Cataloguing! Categorizing things for their aesthetic properties, not for their sociocultural meaning. In this way, I would achieve something by means of paying a distant and rigorous respect to the material someone came up with, without presuming I would definitely or deeply understand the value they wanted me to find in it (which I believe I would really never complete manage to do).I discovered a handful of interesting things whilst composing this track. On was that categorizing things for their aesthetic characteristics and listening back to them out of their contexts doesn’t quite destroy the practice’s meaning but rather redefines it. The new trails of apparently senseless blocks of sound start imposing a new meaning onto each particle it is composed by. Laughs, applauds and loose words then become means to say something else than what they were once part of. I would not call this appropriation, as this piece I made really for them and for you! Not for myself. I believe there is something interesting here which, if listened back by the creators of the primordial material, can be of a somewhat abstract, although clear special value.Upon the emergent network of meanings, I decided to further organize the sound clips I had collected by noise-levels and/or loudness. The whole piece started then following a very simple structure of decreasing loudness and noise, from joyful and strong applause to barely perceptible little utterances and parasonic events, maybe just intentions. Finally, as an intersectionist, I could not hold my urge to intersect this clear direction-full narrative with something else: bits of the more musical kinds of sections, whichI had not used for the first narrative. This is gained the shape of a quite thick wave of sound gradually making its way in, taking charge of the middle points and eventually fading away, pretty much as an emotional swelling burst that lasts, but eventually goes away. Perhaps the very Joy of Sound.

Toeʼtally Poet in his well oiled, Turn of phrase. Dancer as she skipped, And cheekily winked. Musician during Grandad’s balls, Of laughter. Artist in how she washed up plum thick of Night, Leaving her troubled Day to drip away on the draining board. Propped up by a row of Flying Saucers, Heavily disguised as kitchen plates, Waiting to transport her to a dream of wonder. We are all Poets, Musicians, Artists and Dancers- In every movement, Of the Arm. Every tap of Toe, Teeth to smile, And smiling Feet. Look, my Toes! Speak Egyptian Sarcophagi. Royal Mummies, In shape and majesty. Embalmed in sock and shoe, Entombed to help footpath, Fragile Toe, Through swirling Earth Spin.