32 Sounds: Exploring the Most Mysterious and Profound of the Senses

Factual America

It’s March 2020 and the pandemic has just begun. All of a sudden, director Sam Green has a lot of time on his hands. He uses it to read a book, which mentions Annea Lockwood, a composer, who has spent fifty years recording the sound of rivers. Intrigued, he contacts her.

Their conversation leads Sam to contemplate sound. The result is 32 Sounds, a documentary that he describes as a ‘meditation’ upon a subject that is both ‘mysterious’ and ‘ephemeral’ but yet can still make a powerful impact on us.

In his conversation with Matthew Sherwood, Sam discusses the challenge of using a visual medium to explore sound. He affirms that watching a film at home with headphones can be just as intense as watching it in the cinema, and he opens up on his relationship with the film’s composer, JD Samson: before their meeting of minds, there was a tension between them born of different ideas about the role of music in the film.

32 Sounds is not your typical documentary. Be warned. By the end of this podcast, you may, like Matthew, start hearing all the sounds around you in a new and intense way!

Watch the episode at https://factualamerica.com

“... opening your ears can be incredibly pleasurable and can bring you back to the present and root you in your body.” – Sam Green