In each episode of Open Ears, podcast host and producer Alain McFadden invites a guest to listen to a recording from Crash Ensemble’s catalogue. Together, they share first impressions, personal reflections, and explore the ideas, emotions, and stories the music inspires. For the fifth episode of Season 4, Alain is joined by Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist, Jófríður Ákadóttir (JFDR). Together, they listen to TERRARIUM (2025) by Ann Cleare. TERRARIUM maps the evolving geological strata of Ireland’s Midlands into sound. From ice to lake to bog to industrialisation to contemporary hydrology, a landscape of time is sonically constructed from the memory and myth that emanate from within this post-industrial terrain. The Midlands have always existed in a flux between land and water, and TERRARIUM explores a unique site that encapsulates its ever-changing terrain. Nestled deep within Boora Parklands in County Offaly, one can find the ruin of a Mesolithic shoreline, which, dating to between 6800 and 6500 BC, is thought to be one of the earliest sites of human activity in Ireland. Situated a few miles from the main entrance to the park, the only way to access this site is by foot and the scenic route takes you through varied landscapes of bog, wood, and water. The site itself is like a puzzle that every visitor must interpret for themselves. Having lived so many lives from prehistoric to modern times, the land there is a time and energy sponge, and has an important story to tell. This episode features an extract from TERRARIUM - the third movement ‘Meolitchic Lake’ through to the fifth movement ‘Lake’. TERRARIUM was co-commissioned by Crash Ensemble, November Music, and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. About the composer: Ann Cleare is an artist working in the areas of concert music, opera, installation, and site specific work. Described as “an altogether different artform” that draws from musical traditions, but pushes against and beyond them, articulating something that is at once about sound, but that is equally concerned with energy, motion, space, and the world itself”, her work explores the sculptural and expressive nature of sound, expanding the possibilities of timbre, texture, and form. Often exploring poetries of place, time, communication, and transformation, Cleare’s work aims to animate ideas through sound, immersing an audience in both the wildness and intimacy of sonic expression. Find out more about: JFDR ~ https://jfdrcurrent.com/ Ann Cleare ~ https://annclearecomposer.com/about-2/ Crash Ensemble ~ https://www.crashensemble.com/about Presented by: Alain McFadden Music featured: TERRARIUM (2025), by Ann Cleare, performed by Crash Ensemble Host: Alain McFadden Guest: Jófríður Ákadóttir (JFDR)
