Kate Carr - Vertical London (New Year's Day) - 1CD

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Persistence of Sound presents a new album from one of the world’s leading voices in field recording. 

Kate Carr is known internationally for her work with field recordings, as well as using objects and experimental recording techniques. Her work often probes the ambiguities and perceptions of field recording, notably on her 2023 album, False Dawn.

“Most of my work these days is interested in thinking about field recording as a set of practices which produce a particular version of a location, experience or even species, and the relationships and practices which produce that recording and which also might be amplified or obscured within the recording itself.”

Kate previously developed the idea of a sonic transect - a sound sampling along an axis – for an album made on a Spanish mountain in 2017, From A Wind Turbine To Vultures (And Back). The idea explores sonic niches, the ways they flow into each other and can be stitched together in an attempt to convey the changing aspects of - in that case - the terrain of a mountain and Kate’s journey up and down it

Now, following Midsummer, London, Kate’s 2014 album for Persistence of Sound, Vertical London (New Year’s Day) explores a vertical trajectory through the city she calls home:

“On New Year’s Day this year I set off from my home in Loughborough Junction to undertake a rather idiosyncratic journey. For a long time now I have wanted to try and trace a vertical trajectory in London – and New Year's Day with its connotations of renewal and starting-over seemed just the time to attempt to flee upwards, if you will.

The spine of this album is that journey from roughly minus 20 metres below sea level to 240 metres above on that cold, short wintry day. It was a quiet day, by London standards, but not silent. It was still a London of some bustle and activity. Of overheard moments and chance encounters involving delivery drivers, commuters, tourists, taxis, tubes, buses, retail workers, joggers, crows, pigeons and foxes.

As I traced my ascending route from the depths of the Victoria Line, to the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, Soho, Bloomsbury, and upwards to Kilburn, Hampstead, Crystal Palace, The Eye and The Shard I was struck by how reliant on all sorts of infrastructures this trip was. Electricity, gas, data, food, water, all of these systems, some silent, others audible, were intertwined in one way or another with my movement.

The recordings I took move from the electromagnetic hum of the underground and the DLR, delivery trolleys and bicycles, the echoes of public piano recitals, quiet parks and ambiences from the privatised spaces of the Eye and the Shard.

This is just one moment in London. One journey on one day by one person. A version of London which is entangled with my own identity and recording practice. But it is also, I hope, a rendering of the city which might in its strangeness or familiarity reverberate with the version of London you carry inside of you, whether this is drawn from experience, fantasy or indifference.

My version is by turns fond, exasperated, frazzled, charmed, disappointed, hopeful, engaged and alienated. All the colours of experience for this most intimate and visceral of relations: a journey through the city I call home.”

Persistence of Sound was founded in 2019 by composer/producer Iain Chambers. Its releases span electroacoustic music, field recordings, and the unclassifiable music between these genres.

1. 0-0:40 Early birds and planes in Loughborough Junction
2. 0:40 – 2:54 I am not sure which tube station is the furthest below sea level, but I am visiting quite a few
3. 2:54 – 6:12 Under the Thames with cyclists, joggers and echoes in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel
4. 6:12-8:57 Popping up at Island Gardens
5. 8:57–11:00 The DLR is quite possibly the best sounding London train, electromagnetically speaking
6. 11:00–13:34 Celebrating a squeaky transport barrier
7. 13:34–17:50 Walking through Soho with tourists and delivery guys
8. 17:50– 20:35 Arriving in Bloomsbury: yes I heard my first 'Happy New Year'
9. 20:35-25:29 An inaugural trip to Kilburn, which I have always wanted to visit because Doreen Massey lived here
10. 25:29-27:36 Overground then all uphill to Hampstead, a whispered neighbourhood of private security signs
11. 27:36–29:00 Daydream interlude (eating a not very nice lunch)
12. 29:00-33:00 Dramatic build-up to when I dipped into the shopping centre to find a man playing piano outside Aldi
13. 33:00- 37:04 Why did I decide to go all the way across town to Crystal Palace park?
14. 37:04-38:45 I should never have doubted coming to Crystal Palace, a wonderland of crows and dinosaurs
15. 38:45-41:45 It was New Year's Day after all, and yes someone really was playing this at the overground station
16. 41:45- 44:22 I don't think you can hear but people largely discussed dogs all the way back to central London
17. 44:22-45:49 A very long queue for the London Eye which is quite shit, and has awful commentary, although the view to be fair is beautiful
18. 45:49-47:05 Dramatic drummers on the street as I ran due to being late for my Shard viewing platform booking
19. 47:05- 49:22 Taking two lifts inside the (rather divisive) Shard
20. 49:22- 50:29 ‘Hello everyone and welcome to the View’, a sort of cupboard / bar, with London stretched out and twinkling below
21. 50:29 – 51:38 Said cupboard / bar is closing soon but let's have a cocktail still
22. 51:38- 53:37 Tipsy aboard a Thameslink chariot home on this first day of 2026