I filmed NYX and Laura Misch performing their Songs of Epping Forest :: Dreamscapes for Voice, Saxophone and Trees at Kings Place, alongside a live painting by Dora Lam and Matthew Rosier’s projections of Hornbeam, Oak and Beech.

 

I made my first trip to Epping Forest in the summer, off the central line and up to Staple’s Hill, scorched grass underfoot, seeking out the shade beneath the ancient Beech trees that seemed to collapse under their many-fingered trunks. With a camera and tripod balanced across my back, I felt like an explorer, capturing something rich and strange (forgetting the City was only a few miles away).

 

Months later, coming across these Songs, I found an expression of that same other-worldly atmosphere (and have had it on repeat for a while now!) In its layerings of voices, saxophones, ambient soundscapes and intimate field recordings, there lies a truth – an atmosphere, even – about Epping Forest which lies beyond words, and it is this atmosphere which I have tried, however fleetingly, to convey in this film…

 

Check out some stills below: