Sound in the Blood

Available for over a year

All sound carries an emotional charge: the sea at rest, bird squabbles, wind moving through trees. Nature beatboxer and sound artist Jason Singh registers this emotion in his skin and bones, using his voice to make sensitive, layered and moving soundscapes - for galleries, theatres, and films. To encounter Jason's work is to be astonished at what can be achieved with the human voice. Jason's craft requires a poet's heightened attention; inhabiting the song of a blackbird has been a lifetime's work. In this programme, Jason seeks the source of his fascination with mimicking the natural world, which became very important to him after reading 'The Conference of the Birds' a 12th-century Persian poem. Jason also thinks his fascination with shapeshifting or 'soundshifting' must have something to do with his great-grandfather, who left Lahore to travel and read the palms of the great and the good, always carrying glowing letters of recommendation explaining that he would reveal truths about people 'not commonly known' and reflecting people's stories back to them. He explores the idea that they are both 'listeners' - a kind of family inheritance. Jason bares his process along the way, taking us deep into a soundscape of sea, wind, birds and drones. Contributors: Sophie Scott Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London Alan Williams Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Religion and the University of Manchester Dr Humera Iqbal Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology at University College London Producer: Faith Lawrence Mixed by: Sharon Hughes and Sue Stonestreet