Tim Hinman

“Umph, umph, umph, umph, umph, umph…” Tim Hinman is relaxing in his apartment building’s courtyard in central Copenhagen. With a humorous twinkle in his eye Tim beat-boxes along with the distant electronic drum sound of an urban festival that’s just kicked off in the Danish capital – the sound of which will define the city’s soundscape for the coming week. As the evening fades we sip ale imported from his native Britain and speak about the ideas behind Sound Matters, the podcast series he writes and produces with B&O PLAY – with the second season of episodes set to launch in late November. It’s an eccentric way of expressing his love for sound of all types: “I’ve been interested in and working with sound in a number of different capacities for over 20 years now… so when B&O PLAY asked me to work on developing a series with them investigating a shared love for the world, or worlds, of sound, I jumped at the opportunity, especially as it allowed for such a broad amount of subjects to be featured.”

Music is, of course, an important element of Sound Matters, but more often than not it’s just the doorway into a deeper sonic journey. Across the series, Sound Matters meets a number of key figures in the culture and practice of sound, like the influential field recordist and bio-acoustician Bernie Krause who started out studying classical composition and was part of the legendary folk music band The Weavers in the early 1960s; another episode looks at how one musician-therapist uses the music that people love, that is embedded in memories and dreams to help heal them after traumatic events; another investigates how neuroscientists are trying to understand the mystery of what exactly is going on in our brains that makes it possible to hear sounds, filter out only the most important parts, and understand what they mean through all the noise of our world; other episodes listen in on the practices and cultures of sound art, field recording the soundscape, and what exactly makes the difference between a good sound and a bad sound.

This rich diversity of the places, scenes and cultures where sound is an important, even necessary ingredient, represents Tim’s long-running and wide-reaching involvement in all things audible (as well as, of course, B&O PLAY’s love for sound). “I started out playing music and trying to be a rock star but then needed to get a real job, so moved to film, and then radio. I moved to Denmark from London in 1996, and since then I’ve been involved in dozens of experimental audio productions at the Danish National Radio – from sound art and compositions to straight-up documentaries, from poetry and spoken word pieces to radio dramas. From 2009 I also produced my own and others work exclusively for the online digital magazine Third Ear (thirdear.dk). Oh, and I also teach radio and sound to journalists, techies and artists!”

This insatiable interest in sound, how it makes us feel, remember or forget, comforts us or excites us, and how creative practitioners use it, is what got B&O PLAY interested in Tim’s work. And even though it feels like the first series covered a massive range of subjects and ideas, there’s seemingly nothing that sound doesn’t affect. As the evening sun fades over a festive Copenhagen I ask Tim what listeners might expect from a second series? He’s cagey, and says with a mischievous look, “I can’t say exactly, but expect acoustic archaeology, the sounds of the stars, and much more in between…”

Sound Matters Series 1, episodes 1–8

01 THE SOUND OF LIFE ITSELF We kick off our podcast series with the ambitiously titled episode “The Sound Of Life Itself ”. We meet the influential field recordist, bio-acoustician and musician Bernie Krause, and find out how Krause became a founding pioneer in the field of soundscape ecology.

02 MUSIC & MEMORY & ME “Without music we’d simply be something other than human beings.” Birthdays, weddings, festivals, funerals and more – pretty much every important human event is marked by music, and our brains take it all in, no matter how distant or vague those memories become. Meet Paul Robertson, violinist and professor in music and medicine, who has spent years working with people suffering from dementia and brain damage, and find out how he uses music to heal people.

03 ZOMBIE MOVIE PIANO MUSIC A zombie growls, a piano plays – get into a cinematic frame of mind: get comfortable in your seat, take that first handful of popcorn and meet film sound designer Peter Albrechtsen who tells us how he makes movies leap out and grab at you using sound, and musician and composer Neil Brand who plays live accompaniment to early, silent films.

04 BRAINS, CARS & TIGERS There’s a problem with your brain… well, not your brain specifically, but there’s a problem when it comes to neuroscientists understanding how your brain works when you’re listening to things. And the closer we look at the brain, the more complicated it gets. What exactly is going on in your head that makes it possible to hear sounds, filter out only the most important parts, and understand what they mean?

05 NEW EARS & STRANGE ROOMS It’s all too easy to take the sense of hearing for granted. Unless, of course, you were born deaf and never heard anything – just like Jo Milne, who was deaf until she was forty years old when she had cochlear implants and could suddenly hear the world. We visit Milne a year after and find out how her life has changed profoundly.

06 SNOWFLAKES & METAL HAMMERS What’s the sound of snow falling? This might sound like a riddle, but for composer Yann Coppier snow and ice are materials for making music and art. In this episode we focus our ears on the specialist field of sound art – speaking with Coppier about his time recording in Greenland and how he makes that country’s natural sounds part of his art. Also, Danish artist Jacob Kirkegaard, whose interest in the sonics of Chernobyl, our inner ears and Ethiopian metal hammers informs his art.

07 ANIMALS OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW Have a listen to the sounds going on outside your window: a car passing by, maybe an airplane flying overhead, a few birds chirping away in a tree? This episode is a lazy man’s guide to exploring the sounds of the natural world – specifically noises of the animal kind. Meet radio producer Colette Kinsella, who lives in the middle of Dublin Zoo and records the nocturnal sounds of the animals, and Greg Budney, Curator for Collections, Development and Outreach at the Macauly Library – the largest archive for biodiversity audio and video recordings in the world.

08 THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY There’s not much that’s more annoying than to be forced to listen to a bad sound – but what do we mean when we call something a bad sound, and is it understood in the same way by different people? In this final episode of our podcast series, we find out how our brains are wired to differentiate between the good, the bad and the ugly audio of our world.