Sound Beneath the Arches – The First Radio Lear Sound Assembly Recording

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An archway holds a space open. People can pass through it, pause beneath it, or gather within its shelter. On Wednesday 16th September 2026, the Braunstone Gate arches became a place for gathering through sound, as Radio Lear’s Sound Assembly brought together a live mix of electronic performance and shared contributions.

Paul Conneally performed using a mobile version of GarageBand, incorporating a loop from Miffy Ryan. Sound contributions from Traci Howard, John Coster and Rob Watson filled the archway space, bringing several people’s creative impulses into a shared setting.

This is the first recording to emerge from the Sound Assembly sessions, with others to follow. It will be broadcast in its unedited form on Radio Lear at 9pm on Friday 18th September 2026, with a podcast available after the broadcast.

There is something fitting about beginning this series beneath an arch. A threshold is a place of possibility: somewhere between arrival and departure, between the familiar uses of a space and whatever we might discover there together. Sound Assembly opens that threshold to listening.

The tools can be portable and everyday. A mobile device running GarageBand becomes an instrument for live performance. A loop supplied by another artist becomes material that can be carried into a new situation. Each contribution enters a space already occupied by other people, other sounds and the possibilities of an encounter.

Authorship becomes a conversation. Paul’s performance, Miffy’s loop and the contributions from Traci, John and Rob belong to the account of how this recording came into being. Together, they suggest a way of making in which an individual gesture can become part of something that no single participant fully possesses.

For Radio Lear, this is an important part of what an emergent arts practice can offer. A session creates an opportunity to find out what happens when people bring their attention and imagination into a shared space. Its value includes the act of listening to what someone else has introduced, and allowing that contribution to change the possibilities of our own.

The philosophical writing of Arthur Schopenhauer offers one way of thinking about this attention. He understood aesthetic experience as a temporary release from the restless demands of wanting, pursuing and achieving. In encounters with art, we can become absorbed in something beyond our immediate concerns.

Music occupied a particular place in his thinking because of its capacity to express something fundamental without first having to describe an object or tell a story. Sound can move us before we have found words for what it means.

Sound Assembly invites a modest, practical exploration of that possibility. What happens when we give sound time to occupy our attention? What becomes available when we loosen our grip on the need to reach an immediate conclusion?

These questions do not require everyone to share a philosophical outlook. They can remain open within the experience itself. One listener may attend to texture, another to repetition, another to the relationship between a sound and the space around it. Meaning can take shape differently for each person.

Broadcasting the recording unedited preserves the session’s unfolding duration. It gives listeners the opportunity to encounter the live mix as a continuous process, following its development rather than hearing a selection of excerpts. The invitation is to spend time with a first recording from a practice that is still taking shape.

Radio extends that gathering beyond the arches. A sound made in one place travels into another: a kitchen, a bedroom, a pair of headphones, the quiet of a Friday evening. The circumstances of listening change, and the work acquires another setting in which to be heard.

This first Sound Assembly recording marks the beginning of that journey. Further recordings will follow as the sessions develop and more contributions find their place.

Listen to the unedited live mix on Radio Lear at 9pm on Friday 18th September 2026. A podcast will follow after the broadcast.