Old Chapel Farm is an adventure in living which aims to bring people closer to the fundamentals of human existence: the creation of food and of shelter. It is a bridge reaching forwards into a newer, more sustainable way of being in a rapidly changing and highly populated world.
As a family we have been visiting this place every year since 2011. In 2017 I decided to produce a piece about Old Chapel Farm as part of my series which focuses on personal experience of a space.
On our trip in 2018 my daughter Bea and I collected objects we found around the site and gathered them together in a straw bale hut suspended over a stream in a wooded valley which the farm’s owners made available for us to use. We recorded small performances with them, brushing, scraping and rubbing them to produce a wide range of intimate sounds. We also made field recordings around the site, including using a piano which had been exposed to the elements for some time.
Back in the studio in Brighton, I arranged the recorded sounds into a new work. I wanted to try and communicate some of the mystery and revelation I’ve experienced on my visits, and the connections I feel with the land and people I encounter when I visit the farm.
Tracklist:
- Walking from the hut to the piano (11:55)
- Rumbled at the gate, escaping to the barn (7:13)
- Emerging from the valley into a rainshower (8:10)
- The piano grits its teeth (3:56)
Recorded at Old Chapel Farm, Wales, 2016-2018 by Dan & Bea Powell. Composed and produced by Dan Powell, Brighton, 2019. Mastering and cover by Miguel Carvalhais with photos by Dan Powell. Thank you to Fran, Kevin & Merlin Blockley, the Powell, Parker and Henderson families.
“Four Walks at Old Chapel†is now available as a limited release tape, and for download or stream.