Common Current
Field recordings & printed matter
A two-person studio listening to estuaries, harbours and rain on tin roofs. Everything we make and every evening we host is gathered on this page.
About this page
One page, kept short on purpose. Open any row below to read what it holds before you go looking for it. Nothing here tracks you, and the order changes when the season does.
Newest Estuary Tapes, Volume III Nine recordings made in the low-tide hour.
Mastered from quarter-inch tape in the harbour studio and issued in a small run with folded tide notes. The third volume runs fifty-one minutes, mostly at walking pace.
Listen
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Low Tide Radio A slow hour, remade at every new moon.
One continuous mix of our own tape and whatever the harbour offered that month. No talking over the top of it.
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The Hydrophone Archive Underwater recordings, sorted by harbour.
Short clips from beneath the waterline — mooring chains, shrimp, distant engines — each filed with the date and the weather.
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Rain on Tin Twelve loops for working quietly.
Recorded under the studio roof across one wet autumn. Each loop sits between four and nine minutes and is meant to disappear.
Printed matter
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Currents Zine, Issue Six Essays, charts and two fold-out maps.
Forty-eight pages on the estuary in winter, set in metal and printed on paper that takes a pencil well.
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Riso Tide Charts Hand-pulled prints of the monthly tide lines.
Two-colour prints, one sheet per month, drawn from our own readings. Editions are small because the drum is slow.
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The Shoreline Notebook Blank, gridded, and built to get damp.
The notebook we carry ourselves: a stitched spine, a soft grid, and a back page of tide and weather abbreviations.
Gatherings
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Open Listening Evenings Seasonal sessions in the harbour studio.
We play an hour of unfinished work in the dark, then talk about it. Bring a coat; the room is warmer than the walk there.
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Shoreline Recording Walks Small groups, borrowed microphones.
A morning of walking slowly and recording less than you expect. Equipment is provided, and no experience is assumed.
Keep in touch
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The Slack Water Letter One short letter a month, nothing else.
What we recorded, what we printed, and when the next evening falls. Usually under four hundred words.
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Studio Notes Work in progress, in plain language.
Rougher than the letter and more frequent: microphone placements, failed takes and the occasional photograph of a wet cable.
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Commissions & Licensing How to put our recordings to work.
We take a handful of commissions each season, and licence from the archive for film, exhibition and radio. Terms are short and written plainly.