Hearsay Festival is the Coachella of creative audio

The home of creative audio can’t be found in a conference centre. It’s not by the shore of a beautiful harbour. It doesn’t fit in any of the buildings along a big city skyline.

The home of creative audio – the place that inspires and celebrates the best audio from around the world – is in a small Irish mountain village called Kilfinane.

It’s a beautiful house, with a well-kept garden and a soccer net out the front. Walk inside, past the kitchen, into the living room and sit by the fireplace. There’s no television – the chairs face each other here.

The house belongs to Diarmuid O’Leary. He has nothing to do with audio really, except every two years he opens his house to audio makers from around the world. The audio people get warm, talk, share, laugh and listen to stories while he makes them soda bread, coffee and elderberry juice.

Surely here, by the fire at Diarmuid’s place, is the centre of the creative audio universe. For an hour or so, his home becomes our home, for no other reason than his generosity. It’s home because it’s where we come to be in each other’s company.

The open house event was just one unique experience in the packed 2019 Hearsay International Audio Arts Festival schedule.

#audioheaven

The four-day celebration is a truely international event. Producers from every corner of the globe made the pilgrimage to a space that’s becoming legendary for making friends, dreaming up collaborations and getting #inspired.

The magic and charm of Hearsay is palpable. Indeed, the festival has started using the hashtag #audioheaven. 

I was here in 2017 and this time around it felt different.

Despite being the biggest it’s ever been with over 500 attendees, the festival felt remarkably relaxed. The Hearsay team have worked hard to iron out the logistical challenges of hosting an event of this scale. For the first time there was a printed program, the venues were closer together, and an extra BBQ made a big difference when racing between sessions.

With a strong emphasis on performance this year, and the addition of The Sunken Garden tent, Hearsay 2019 felt like a multi-day music festival. Coachella could be a terrible reference, considering I’ve never been. But – Reading, Woodstock, Splendour in the Grass – whatever your massive music festival reference is. When it comes to creative audio, this has got to be the equivalent (but without the heatstroke, expensive alcohol or thunderstorms). You get the idea.

Where else can you skip between talks by Martin Austwick (UK) on use of music, to Joe Richman (USA) dissecting Radio Diaries, then over to a Chocolate Box layer hosted by Mira Burt-Wintonick (Canada) before hearing Monika Maria Kalcsics (Austria) talk about her experimentation with a radio writer’s room… And then stop by the pub for a Guinness with Scotland’s Marshall McLuhan, Geoff McQueen? 

Only in Kilfinane.

Just a few highlights

On the first morning, when I was looking for wifi, I stumbled into the ‘Cork cabin’ and met musician Daragh Dukes. Off the bat, he was sharing some stuff he was into; Sound Perspective – an Australian(!) podcast about sound in film. Long Live the New Sound – Stitcher podcast that shares experiments, and the TISM of Ireland; Horse Outside (fuck your Honda civic) by The Rubberbandits. It was a perfect start to the day. Open, relaxed, friendly – everything Hearsay embodies.

My first stop in town was to the one and only Diarmuid O’Leary’s house for some coffee, soda bread and a catch-up. Even though it had been almost two years, and it wasn’t an official open house, I assumed it would be cool. Of course, it was cool.

The BBC Sounds commissioning insights with Jason Phipps and the team was fascinating. He discussed how on demand content is breaking down the public broadcaster lifecycle model where audience are seen to ‘graduate’ from one network to the next as they mature. He pondered how public radio makers will remain relevant when new audiences won’t own a radio in their lifetime. Enter  BBC Sounds. New storytellers, new audience, told in a new way. The project is commissioning local and international content targeted at UK audiences 18-34. He acknowledged that it’s a brilliant time for audio makers, with many opportunities. But if your idea aligns with public service values then you should get in touch. Details on their website. When thinking about your idea think about which category it might fall into, whether that’s dramatic storytelling (fiction or non-fiction), ‘Funny, Quirky, Odd’, subcultures and pop cultures or more of a discover and explain model. 

Installations by Lucy Dearlove (Lecker) and Cristal Duhmaine (Love Me) were fresh, brilliantly executed and inspiring.

Lucy (whose podcast is about food) told a new story each day. The story I heard was an intimate portrait of a woman whose partner had died, and why she always set the dinner table, even though she lives alone. The piece raised questions about respect for food, rituals, loneliness and community. Hear all of the stories here.

Cristal tackled ASMR – a genre that, at this point in time, has the potential to be really lame. But wait,  there’s a twist. As the Irish woman does her best to produce the ASMR experience, she begins to have a meltdown. There’s a story of jealousy, and Mum needs to use the bathroom. Oh, it was very funny and produced with that iconic Love Me layered wit.

Scott Carrier is a huge influence on my work. He’s certainly reached legend status. If you’re unfamiliar, start with this entire This American Life episode showcasing his work. Then go subscribe to his podcast Home of the Brave. Seeing him talk about his latest series in central America was fascinating. 

If I was to describe a trend of Hearsay, something that reflected something bigger going on in creative audio right now, it would be the emergence of the live performance. Performing audio and touring is a solid revenue option for international podcasts, yes. And there’s a lot to be said about community listening events (just ask our friends at In the Dark Bristol). But I also think storytellers are drawn to experimenting in this space because of the new creative challenges it presents.

I wish I could have seen more performances at Hearsay, but the two that I did catch blew me away.

The Fresh Prince of Audio, Alex Lewis (from West Philadelphia) teamed up with illustrator Steve Teare for ‘Thinking of a Place’. The piece featured the voices of Kilfinane locals mixed with live guitar, played by Alex. Man, he got some dynamic range out of that instrument. The sounds washed over us, through Steve’s paintbrush and onto the canvas. It was a meditative, soulful performance and a uniquely Kilfinane moment. Afterwards, someone described it as an audio hike, and I could tell they had that post walk buzz.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when Phil Smith (UK) handed me three pages of poetry. ‘The Heart’s Chorus’ blended poetry, pre-recorded voices, an accordion, and a harp (played beautifully by talented local producer, Niamh O’Brien). The audience was asked to read the chorus lines, which we did wholeheartedly. I’m not sure what other people were thinking about during the performance. And maybe that was the point. I think that’s why so many felt personally moved, and for some reason refreshed, after it ended. Phil has an incredible singing voice and some of the harmonies were like an illusion. How did he do it? I don’t know.

My favourite session was ‘What Lies Beneath’ by Andrea Rangecroft (Short Cuts). Her talk looked at non-narrated non-fiction, or what they refer to in the UK as, ‘montage’. I had to go to this because it was a kind of ying to the yang of a talk I had given about gonzo storytelling. Where I had talked about ‘going for it’ as yourself in a story, Andrea was looking at what it’s like to go for it as ‘a ghost’ producer. It’s true that radio producers can struggle with recording their voice, any human trying to be real can find it difficult. But Andrea said in a montage the producer is in the story, even if their voice isn’t. Andrea interviews guests for up to two hours for a short story. Longer if English is a second language. Her key advice was to plan the arc, plan the questions. Cause if you don’t get it during the interview, you’re screwed. So many problems are solved with a line of script. During question time someone offered the advice of asking two simple questions at once. This often forces the guest to speak in full sentences. The crowd gave a spontaneous round of applause.

Getting a big wrap during and after the festival was the 575 – Audio Haiku podcast which was pumping out two stories a day. It’s an ideal place to get a sense of the Hearsay magic.

Shout out to all the producers who contributed to the festival, especially the artists in residence.

For me personally, it was such a thrill to get the opportunity to share a new story and some thoughts about the gonzo genre. Afterward, it hit me just how special it was to be part of this event.

Hearsay is b.i.g.

I’m still processing a lot of what I witnessed. It’s amazing when I think about how positive my experience was, and I only really got to see about 10% of the entire thing. With this in mind, I asked some fellow Australians to share their highlights, here they are.

Jess Bineth, Producer, Audiocraft Co-founder

Neil Sandell handing out Pringle’s and asking us to have a tiny nibble to show how the start of a good story should taste/feel. Check out Neil’s work here. The West Cork team talking about the ethics of telling a true crime story and how they made sure to spend as much time talking about Sophie Toscan du Plantier’s life as they did her death. Joe Richman encouraging us to silence our producer brain and record interviews with no purpose, to see what happens. Running across a soccer field trying not to break my ankle while on the Unheard Walks tour of Kilfinane. A man yelling “don’t do it!” just as Camilla Hannan was about to delete her dreamy soundscape tape during the Audio Wake. A very good conversation I had with Eleanor McDowall just after the Festival finished that was maybe the realest talk of the whole weekend. 

Camilla Hannan, Producer, Field Recordist, Sound Artist

• Andrea Rangecroft: “The producer’s voice in a montage is a ghost”
• Neil Sandell: “Keep asking – ’so what?’”
• Unknown: “You can’t be unhappy when you’re bouncing”

Georgia Moodie, Documentary Maker, ABC RN

HearSay was magical! I felt like an 18 year old going to their first music festival, circling all the sessions I wanted to go to on the program.

Going along to an Open House listening session, eating the soda bread our host Diarmuid had made that morning, and finding out that the surprise sound artist whose work we were going to listen to, Amy Hanley, lives two suburbs away from me in Melbourne!

Lu Olkowski took us behind the scenes of a recent trip she took to the Alaskan wilderness to record a rookie musher (dog sled driver) on her first attempt at a 100 000 mile sled dog race – even showing us a photo of the recorder, with microphones and recording levels firmly taped into place, that she gave to her subject to record diary tape while sledding.

Andrea Rangecroft’s session on montage audio features – or non-narrated stories – was great. She played some of the exhaustive questions she asks interviewees – often asking them to speak in full sentences, or asking multiple similar questions to get what she needs. She had a good tip: ask a red herring question at the start of an interview to try to get people who’ve told their story many times to tell it in a fresh way.

Helene Thomas, The Wayfinder Mobile Storytelling Studio

One of my favourite experiences at Hearsay was the ‘Unheard Walks’ by sound artist/recordist Stephane Marin. Walking in complete silence for over an hour, allowing your ears to take you to a whole other place, you become so deeply immersed in the present that you lose yourself and find yourself and become one with your surroundings all at the same time.

Sophie Townsend, Producer, Fiction ABC RN  

Quite apart from the formal sessions of HearSay, covering such a broad sweep of what we do, for me the highlight, the real joy of HearSay, is the conversations with other makers, in the pub, at Molly’s, on street corners while you stop to admire the neon green hills surrounding the village. That’s where you learn things, share things and generally delight in what we do.

Jess Bineth’s session “Beg, borrow, steal” was superb – a collection of audio makers each sharing their work and the way they make it. It was such a diverse group of makers and I got something new out of each of them – lots of ways of reframing what we do, and redefining the ways we do it.

Also, Jonathan Zenti told me I was an even better dancer than a radio maker, and I liked that. Who doesn’t love a big dance party of audio nerds?

The next Hearsay is scheduled for April 2021.