Nichola Scrutton is a thoughtful composer and performer with a sound/art practice in Glasgow. This month, Glasgow Print Studio is hosting her A Kind of Scoring exhibit, described as “a series of abstract landscapes that evoke experiences of sound and listening.”
Her new LP is a richly detailed sound art work entitled Scenes from the Blue. It features binaural and hydrophone recordings, vocals and a variety of instruments and amplified objects. Water serves as a kind of connective tissue throughout, drawing together what would otherwise be a disparate collection of sounds. It’s a bit like being on the most surprising beach you’ve ever seen (or heard).
“I often gather field recordings (sound and visual) along the way, in daily life or on travels,” she told me in an email. “I wanted to use various kinds of water recordings for the distinct qualities and atmospheres they bring, as well as to suggest different spaces/places in the imagination.”
Scrutton lists musique concrète and acousmatic listening as reference points for her work. She certainly comes at it with the proper training, having earned first-class honours in her undergraduate music degree, and then going on to complete a masters in composition and a doctorate in electroacoustic composition at the University of Glasgow.
“I draw heavily from themes in psychology,” she says. “I’m particularly interested in ideas, experiences and metaphors connecting inner/outer worlds, or landscapes — how we gather knowledge through somatic/sensory experience, extended listening and creative imagination.”
The water focus relates to her interest in “the ephemeral nature of sound, memory and dreams.”
“Change is constant, nothing is fixed or static,” she says. “I resonate with that in my own healing journey. And also, in how my work changes/is changing.”
The album’s eight pieces all carry blue-related titles: “Scene 1 Blue Vista,” “Scene 2 Aquamarine,” etc. Scrutton says she’s been working that theme since 2020.
“I’m interested in its variegated presence and multiple metaphorical narratives: sea, sky, dusk, dawn, twilight, mood, melancholy, music, colour, light, etc.,” she says. “In particular, it evokes ‘liminal,’ … here taken to mean a place of surreal or altered experience. In some philosophies, it’s space where transformation or deep healing can take place.”
More new releases
Sarah Genevieve Burghart Rice – Yet: Three works composed by the director of the Gender and Voice Inquiry Lab at Penn State’s School of Music. Each performed by different artists, and each worth a dedicated listen.
Eva Novoa – Solo (I): Absolutely sublime. This is her seventh release for 577 Records and her first solo effort. Novoa performs piano, Fender Rhodes, vocals, whistling, Chinese gongs and percussion. This is the first release in what will be a trilogy. Fingers crossed she continues to record solo beyond that project.
Cassia Streb & Tim Feeney – Lampworking: Two long-form, ear-tingling beauties. One for the audiophiles.
The Moderns 