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I read Bodies of Sound: Becoming a Feminist Ear, edited by Irene Revell and Sarah Shin, published by Silver Press. It’s a messy, rich, and rewarding anthology that explores sound not just as music, but as an embodied experience, a political strategy, and a site of resistance. If you care about sound as something more than entertainment — this one’s for you.

The book gathers over 50 contributions by women and non-binary writers — essays, interviews, poems, fables, fragments, text scores. It’s expansive, chaotic, and intentionally so. The pieces range from personal reflections on listening, to sonic memories of war, to speculative writing on what sound does to and in the body.

You’ll find Ella Finer writing about the sound of a swan’s beating heart. Gascia Ouzounian reflects on how Turkish soldiers drowned out the screams of Armenian genocide victims with drumming — sound as deliberate military strategy. Composer and DJ Ain Bailey discusses her “sonic autobiographies,” where strangers gather to play each other the music that shaped them — and people often end up crying. That’s the power of music, says Bailey.

There are also texts on feminist amateur radio networks, percussion and trans identity, and the aesthetics of silence in contemporary Nordic music. Belarusian Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich writes about women’s experiences of war in the Soviet Union — asking why suffering never seems to lead to real freedom. And Christina Hazboun, a London-based Palestinian writer, contributes a powerful reflection on the sounds of the May 2021 uprising in Palestine. I found myself hoping she’ll write more about what’s happened since — sonically and politically.

Sarah Shin, who together with Irene Revell has edited the book »Bodies of Sound«. © Vanda Playford

The book isn’t all politics and trauma, though. There are reflections on gossip, the sound of dreams, how elders in Anishinaabe communities listen to their surroundings, and listening with a “third ear” in conversations. The recurring image across the anthology is the ear — listening as an act of survival, of care, of protest.

It’s not all perfectly curated. There’s very little contextualization — the editors drop you straight into each text without much introduction. It can feel disorienting, but also stimulating. Personally, I would’ve appreciated more connective tissue between the contributions. Then again, the chaos is part of the point.

Some of my favorite contributors show up here — Sara Ahmed, Pauline Oliveros, Annea Lockwood, Daphne Oram. But I did wonder why Oliveros, whose deep listening practice is a clear inspiration for the editors, is only represented by a short letter to the writer Kate Millett. Including her conversation with Fred Maus on feminism and music from 1994 would’ve added useful context.

The book claims a feminist lens throughout, but I sometimes questioned how it was being applied. For instance, does including Oram, a pioneer of British electronic music in the 50s, automatically make the text feminist because of her gender? She may not have framed her work that way. The editors don’t really unpack this tension, nor do they define what they mean by feminism in this context.

That said, Bodies of Sound is still an important and inspiring collection. It’s less a book to read front to back and more a collection to return to — a reference, a logbook, a prompt for thinking differently about sound and listening.

If I taught musicology, I’d tell every student to get a copy. Anyone interested in sound — as politics, memory, body, and space — should read it.

👉 Bodies of Sound: Becoming a Feminist Ear, Silver Press, £14.99.

Several of you have asked about my album "Echoes", saying it holds a special place in you, so I wanted to unfold a bit of the story behind and my thoughts around it.

When I recorded Echoes, I never thought it would become the record people would remember me by. To me, it was meant as a collection of teasers, backward “echoes” of music still to come. Yet, for many listeners, it became the defining work. Sometimes music decides its own destiny.

Late nights composing "Echoes"

Things were clear in my head: it would feature any kind of pieces, some African, some jazzy, and some more romantic ones — a way to display the visual potential of my palettes. Chris Blackwell insisted it should be instrumental, quite a departure from where I thought I was headed with Barclay Records. Looking back, he was right.

More than a set of songs, I imagined Echoes as a soundtrack — the imaginary journey of a little boy traveling the world. That’s why the tracks crossfade into one another, something I had admired so much in Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book and Innervisions. On a trip back to Nassau, Chris made me listen to Trevor Horn’s production of Malcolm McLaren’s Duck Rock. Its dynamic and variety convinced me I was on the right path. All I had to do was pick the right fragments from my demos.

Most of my demos back then (and still today) were not complete songs. They were sketches — “pierres d’attente,” little fragments waiting to be developed, sometimes just a drum machine and a synth-bass, sometimes only a chord progression. The more melodic, harmony-driven ones (the more “Western-sounding” pieces) were the only ones fully fleshed out before entering the studio.

Andy is working something on those Linn-Drum percussions,while the Prophet V is momentarily put to rest.

And so Echoes came to life. It was never conceived as an “African” album, nor as “new-age,” nor as an “experiment.” It simply was what pre-MIDI technology allowed me to create at the time, a way to express the multicultural roots I felt inside: an African-born Parisian who had grown up with Brahms, James Brown, João Gilberto, The Beatles, Myriam Makeba, Jacques Brel, and Celia Cruz all at once. I was no exception — many with open minds could embrace this eclecticism.

But the industry always needs categories. With Hi-Life, I became an “African artist” overnight — meaning, to some, that I was bound to make only African music. In the US and UK, Chief Inspector pushed me into the hip-hop lane, thanks to the explosion of the remix phenomenon.

All this at a time when an album like Echoes — today more easily defendable — was nearly impossible to promote. It crossed too many genres. But that was the whole point: it was meant to be like a dream, where a fierce jungle scene (Jungle) could fade into a melancholic one (Rain). A score for an unshot movie.

Remember the phone 'clang'in between Endless Race and Chief Inspector ?

At first, Echoes went mostly unnoticed in own country France, except within Black communities. In the UK, immigration officers at Heathrow would greet me with “Hey! Mr Chief Inspector is back!” In Africa and the Antilles, Hi-Life became an anthem. The album resonated in unexpected ways, across borders I hadn’t drawn myself.

That may be why Echoes still travels today. It wasn’t built for one genre or one place. It was built to wander. Would love for you to leave a comment, if you have anything you wanna ask?

SINGLE RELEASE: LARGO FROM CONCERTO VIII AFTER BWV 525
LISTEN HERE

Concerto Copenhagen rediscovers Bach in their coming album ‘New Brandenburg Concertos’. 2NDmovement, Largo, from Concerto VIII after BWV 525 is the first taste of their ‘historically informed fiction’.

To all our circle members we are sharing the booklet of our coming album 'New Brandenburg Concertos'. This booklet is normally only shared with the press and available with the CD!
We hope you enjoy it.
You can read and access it here...

I’ve been carrying this piece with me for a long time.

From Havana to Jerusalem was born in 2017, after long conversations about Cuban music and hours of listening to recordings with Cuban musician Yohan Ramon. Somewhere in that exchange, I started hearing connections—Cuban rhythmic patterns weaving into the shapes of Middle Eastervn scales.

I recorded it in 2019, between Denmark and Cairo. And then… I left it. Not because I didn’t believe in it, but because I never found the right moment—or the focus—to finish it. In the meantime, it’s lived its own life on stage. I’ve played it with The Fifth String Ensemble, with Ensemble Storstrøm, and once even heard it carried across the airwaves on a live radio broadcast. Audiences have always responded warmly, but the recording itself remained in limbo.

Now, I’m finally back with it. I’m mixing it myself and plan to release it this winter. Before that, I want to share a few raw sketches from the process here—unfinished, but full of the journey that’s brought the piece this far.

Here’s the live version with ENSEMBLE STORSTRØM:

Concerto Copenhagen rediscovers Bach in their coming album ‘New Brandenburg Concertos’. 2NDmovement, Largo, from Concerto VIII after BWV 525 is the first taste of their ‘historically informed fiction’.

Presave now: https://BC.lnk.to/newbrandenburgconcertosIN

What if Bach had composed another set of Brandenburg Concertos – based on his own organ music? That’s the question Concerto Copenhagen seeks to answer in their forthcoming album, New Brandenburg Concertos, in which the ensemble embarks on what they describe as “historically informed fiction.”

In close collaboration with the other musicians, Concerto Copenhagen’s oboist Antoine Torunczyk has orchestrated Bach’s six Organ Trio Sonatas (BWV 525–530) into six new concertos. These are inspired by the imaginative instrumentation and virtuosity of Bach’s original Brandenburg Concertos, and richly coloured with Baroque instruments such as the three kinds of oboes (oboe, oboe d’amore, oboe da caccia), and the three kinds of violas : viola da braccio, viola d’amore, viola pomposa.

CONCERTO VIII AFTER BWV 525 
‘It doesn’t take much to transform a trio into the slow movement of a concerto – just add an extra bass line’ – Antoine Torunczyk. 

And he adds: “In this peaceful slow movement, an ethereal violin and flute duet lull the listener to sleep, while two 8-foot instruments in the continuo draw an intricate meandering pattern of lines that intersect and intertwine, in the manner of the slow movement of the 6th Brandenburg Concerto...”

THE NEW BRANDENBURG CONCERTOS – A WORK OF FICTION 

Following the example set by Bach himself—who never hesitated to transform, for instance, a prelude for solo violin into a sinfonia for grand organ and orchestra with strings, oboes, trumpets, and timpani—this album presents an expanded version of the Organ Trio Sonatas: six new “Concertos for Several Instruments,” echoing the original French title Concerts avec plusieurs instruments that Bach gave to the equally famous Brandenburg Concertos.

The result is a work of fiction—far from any claim to authenticity, a concept usually central to an historically informed ensemble such as Concerto Copenhagen. 
But, as Antoine Torunczyk puts it: “I have come up with an attempt at ‘Historically Informed Fiction’ (..) At the end of the journey, the music seems unquestionably transformed, yet strangely familiar – like meeting an old friend after many years. My only wish is that the listener will take as much pleasure in rediscovering these pieces in a new light as I have enjoyed spending these years in their company.”

The album will be released on Berlin Classics on October 24th and will be available on CD and all major streaming platforms.

Dear friends,

I’m excited to share that I’ve joined Sleeve!

Through Sleeve, I’ll be taking you backstage into my world—sharing the journey, stories, and creative process behind my music. From how each track comes to life, to the inspirations and production details, this will be a space where I’ll be more open, nerdy, and share news.

Right now, I’m working on my debut album, which is primarily a collaboration with Corey Campbell based in Charleston, South Carolina. The project is supported by grants from the Danish Arts Foundation, KODA, and Dansk Artist Forbund.

I’ve always been inspired by American indie, shoegaze, and dream pop—and with Corey I’m exploring how to blend those influences with my Scandinavian roots and sound, adding an American edge.

Can’t wait to bring you along for the ride.

Signe

In the studio, Charleston (US)