Action Pyramid & Jack Greenhalgh - Mardle: Daily Rhythms of a Pond - CD + booklet

Musician and field recordist Action Pyramid finds magic in the everyday on Mardle, a compelling and confounding suite of hydrophone compositions revealing the sonic 24-hour cycle of the UK’s freshwater ponds.

Rooted in Jack Greenhalgh’s sonic research on pond biodiversity, Mardle brings to the surface the delicate sounds of aquatic insect stridulations, plant respiration and photosynthesis - an ecology of otherworldly rhythms and alien hyper-sounds that feel more like early synth experiments than biological processes.

As Greenhalgh explains, “It's so exciting that we've discovered the woodland bird song dawn chorus equivalent for ponds, in the form of nocturnal aquatic insect choruses at night-time, and the whining of aquatic plants as they photosynthesise like busy factories during the midday sun.”

In doing so, Mardle takes the daily cycle as its compositional cue. Beginning above water, the listener is plunged into a “strange and mysterious” world, peaking in the frenzied, pulsing activity of midday and midnight, before the calm of the early morning rain returns above. Inspired by Jana Winderen’s creative underwater soundscapes, the result is quietly breath-taking.

“To actually consider the living presence of plants with direct sonic evidence is quite profound,” Action Pyramid says. “It's such an evocative way to capture people's attention and highlight these fragile and maligned habitats. There have definitely been moments where I think I can’t believe I'm listening to this.”

Accompanied by detailed liner notes that explain Greenhalgh’s findings and the implications of acoustic ecology in freshwater monitoring, Mardle is a perspective-shifting, mind-expanding missive from the shallows of one the most familiar and overlooked ecologies on Earth. 

Released in October 2023

Field recordings by Action Pyramid/Tom Fisher and Jack Greenhalgh
Music and composition by Action Pyramid/Tom Fisher

Photographs by Jack Greenhalgh, Amanda Sosnowski, Jon Rulton
Liner notes by Jack Greenhalgh

Mastered by Filip Johánek
Design by Ján Solčáni

Annotation by Anton Spice

Thanks to Carl Sayer and Helen Greaves at University College London for bringing us together and guiding our curiosity of pond soundscapes. Additional thanks to Gareth Jones and Martin Genner for supporting the research that this album draws inspiration from, and to the GW4 FRESH CDT for providing research funding.

Release is produced as a collaborative project of the friendly labels Skupina and mappa.