Part 2

How important is sound for our overall well-being and in how far do you feel the "acoustic health" of a society or environment is reflective of its overall health?

I think our relationship with sound is incredibly important for our well-being, but perhaps not in the way we often discuss it. Modern life surrounds us with sound constantly. Much of that sound is information, and information overload can be deeply unhealthy.

What feels healthy to me is being in tune with sound rather than simply being surrounded by it.

Music has traditionally been woven into the most important moments of human life. Celebrations, harvests, funerals, religious ceremonies, rites of passage, moments of grief and moments of joy have all been marked by song, rhythm and collective sound-making. In those contexts, music isn't a product. It's a way of helping people process emotion, connect with one another and find meaning.

When music is embedded in community, ritual and shared experience, I think it's one of the healthiest things we have.

What concerns me is that we're increasingly encouraged to consume music rather than experience it. Many of the spaces that allow people to gather around music grassroots venues, community spaces and informal cultural spaces are under pressure. At the same time, technology often pulls us further away from direct experiences of both nature and one another.

I also think we've forgotten something about the origins of music. Before there were concert halls and venues, there were caves, forests, coastlines and stone circles. These were our first places of gathering, celebration and ceremony. A cave with extraordinary acoustics or a stone circle aligned to the movement of the sun and moon wasn't just a place  it was part of the experience. Sound, landscape, ritual and community existed together.

For me, the acoustic health of a society is closely connected to how much space it makes for listening, participation and community. A healthy sound culture isn't just about reducing noise pollution. It's about creating opportunities for people to sing together, make music together, gather together and feel connected to one another and to the world around them.

Sound, song and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds?

The most profound experiences I've had with non-human sounds have often come during periods of grief.

When I've lost people close to me - my father, grandparents and others - I've found myself turning instinctively towards nature. During those times I seem to hear the world differently. Sounds become sharper, more vivid and more emotionally charged.

I remember moments of sitting by the sea, listening to waves breaking against the shore, or simply being still outdoors and becoming aware of layers of sound that would normally pass unnoticed. Grief seems to heighten perception. The natural world becomes both a companion and a witness.

Paradoxically, some of the greatest feelings of connection and beauty I've experienced have emerged from those moments of sadness. Nature doesn't remove grief, but it can help hold it.

Many animals communicate through sound. Based either on experience or intuition, do you feel as though interspecies communication is possible and important? Is there a creative element to it?

I think it probably is possible, although I don't pretend to understand it fully.

I've had small glimpses of it. Anouska from our band has sung with her dog(spirit) before, and Spirit sings back, matching and responding to the sounds being made. It was funny, moving and surprisingly musical.

I've always been fascinated by birdsong too, particularly species such as nightingales, where the complexity of the communication seems almost unimaginably rich.

More broadly, I think communication isn't always about language. Sometimes it's about resonance, attention and presence. If you've ever sat quietly in a landscape long enough, you start to feel less like an observer and more like a participant in a larger conversation.

Tinnitus and developing hyperacusis are very real risks for anyone working with sound. Do you take precautions in this regard and if you're suffering from these or similar issues – how do you cope with them?

I probably should be more careful than I am.

I use earplugs when appropriate, but the reality is that a lot of the music-making I do isn't particularly loud. Much of our writing process happens at relatively low volume. We'll spend hours exploring rhythms, jamming, arranging and developing ideas without needing to play at full concert volume.

Even when rehearsing, we're often conscious of managing volume and creating space within the music rather than simply making everything louder.

We can surround ourselves with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

I think silence is more important than ever.

The challenge today isn't a lack of sound. It's an excess of information. We live surrounded by notifications, social media, advertising, voice notes, algorithms and endless streams of content competing for our attention.

That's very different from the sounds of the natural world. Hearing birdsong, wind in trees or waves on a shoreline doesn't feel overwhelming to me. Those sounds often create space rather than consume it.

Silence allows us to create boundaries around all the noise. It gives us room to think, feel and reflect. If you sit quietly in a forest at night for ten minutes, you'll hear more and more sounds emerge from the darkness.

Silence isn't an absence. It's often an invitation to listen more deeply.

Seth S. Horowitz called hearing the "universal sense". How would our world be different if we paid less attention to looks and listened more instead?

I think we rely on our eyes far more than we realise.

Listening isn't just something that happens in our ears and gets processed by our brains. At its deepest level, it feels like something that passes through us. It becomes emotional rather than intellectual.

That's one of the reasons music can be so powerful. The most meaningful listening experiences I've had aren't analytical. They're experiences where thinking falls away and feeling takes over. When I listen deeply, I often feel more connected to the natural world and less separate from it. The boundaries between myself and my surroundings become softer. You stop observing life from a distance and begin participating in it.

Listening encourages presence. It slows us down. It reminds us that we're part of something larger than ourselves.

For interested readers, what books, websites, articles or other sources of information do you recommend?

Two books come immediately to mind. The first is Anam Cara by John O'Donohue. It's not a book about sound specifically, but it profoundly shaped the way I think about connection, place, spirituality and attention. The second is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It's a beautiful exploration of indigenous knowledge, plants, ecology and our relationship with the living world.

The more connected I feel to nature, the more I notice. The more I notice, the more magical the world becomes. For me, listening is a huge part of that process. Sometimes an instrument can be sitting quietly in the corner of a room and I know that if I pick it up, a song will emerge.  It doesn't feel like I'm inventing something. It feels like I'm receiving it from somewhere.

I'm deeply inspired by communities around the world that still maintain strong relationships with ritual, landscape, ancestry and collective music-making. Many indigenous and traditional cultures understand music as something that is listened for rather than manufactured.

I don't know exactly where songs come from, but I think the more attention we give to the world around us, the more likely we are to hear them.