Wild Track: Sound, Text and the Idea of Birdsong

In the rarified world of film and television sound a ‘wildtrack’ is a non-synchronous recording not connected directly to an image. Seán Street has re-imagined the term in this book and guided the reader/listener from times when sound was ‘recorded’ solely through experience and then replayed from memory, imagination, poetry and prose. Wild Track engages us with an impressive cast list of artists and their creative works, speaking clearly across time and harnessing text with the developing role of technology to create a narrative flow as affecting as a woodland chorus in spring. * Chris Watson, wildlife sound recordist * Seán Street is an extraordinary listener: he listens hard but he also listens softly; he listens, like no one else, to how we all listen. This remarkable book should be translated for the birds. Surely they’d be keen to hear it. The dawn chorus might take notes. Certainly to human ears after Wild Track, birdsong will sound forever different. * Tim Dee, author of The Running Sky and Greenery (2009), former BBC radio producer and birdwatcher * An eloquent plea for us to listen to the natural world – to the birdsong that is disappearing. This poetic text illuminates the attempt to capture the sound of the natural world in words and is a celebration of the mystery of birdsong. * Richard Shannon, Head of Radio, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK * An elegant meditation on the surprising and inventive representation of birdsong in poetry, from the Middle Ages to the present. Ultimately, Wild Track offers a fascinating exploration of the role of sound at the intersection of nature, text and machine. * Kevin Gardner, Professor of English, Baylor University, USA *