Noctule
Summer 2016
“The field recordings are all taken in the cave. My favourite recording is of some cavers emerging from within the cave. We didn’t know they were down there or how far they had come from. We could hear them for a long time before we could see their headlamps… it sounded and felt like they could be from any point in history and made us think about how the cave has been used over the years”
Noctule was an underground performance piece developed by Stefhan Caddick and Farm Hand (Mark Daman Thomas, member of Islet and Shape Records founder) for Eglwys Faen (Stone Church), a cave and former limestone quarry on the Llangattock Escarpment, three miles from Green Man Festival. The piece responded to the unique acoustics, history and habitat of the cave system – one of the biggest in Europe and home to a colony of Lesser Horseshoe bats. Stefhan Caddick and Farm Hand spent a month gathering field recordings in the cave system, recording the ultrasound signals of the bats and transforming them into sounds that can be heard by human ears.
“The treated bat signals were mixed with the sounds of water, rocks, cavers and the natural amplification and echoes of the cave itself. Combined with Caddick’s lighting effects, they’ve created a suite of music with reverent, almost religious overtones.”
On Tuesday 16th August a group of up to 15 Green Man Settler Pass holders were invited on a guided walk through the dramatic Craig Y Cilau National Nature Reserve to experience the performance in the cave and discover the unique ecology and history of the landscape along the way. The performance was recorded and screened at Peak’s Horsebox Studio throughout Green Man Festival 2016 weekend with a related programme of talks and interviews.
Read Emily Bick’s full interview with Stefhan Caddick and Farm Hand featured in The Wire here.
Photograph by Jon Poutney
Limited edition print by Emma Daman-Thomas
Farm Hand is the solo project of Mark Daman Thomas, a practising musician based in Powys, Wales. Active as a songwriter and performer since 2004, he has released music as part of the bands Islet and Attack + Defend. Islet signed to Fire Records in 2019 and the latest album ‘Eyelet’ was released in March 2020.
Noctule was supported by Digital Innovation Fund for the Arts in Wales, Brecon Beacons Trust and Arts Council of Wales.