New immersive work captures the soundtrack of Northern Rivers farms

NORTHERN Rivers farm sounds, from cattle calls and gates to wind and machinery, will become the soundtrack of an immersive new performance premiering at the Tweed’s upcoming LAVA Arts Festival.

Acclaimed electro acoustic duo Zemzemeh will premiere Sounding the Farm, a surround sound performance built entirely from field recordings captured across working properties in the Northern Rivers and Tweed.

Created by sound artists Siyavash Doostkhah and Greta Kelly, the work transforms the sounds of weather systems, animals, farm machinery and landscape rhythms into a live performance combining field recordings, instrumentation and real time electronic processing.

For Doostkhah, the project began after moving from the city to the Tweed Valley.

“In cities, many people have become disconnected from deep listening,” he said.

“Industrial noise is so constant that we often stop consciously hearing the world around us.”

“When we moved from the city to the Tweed Valley 13 years ago, we experienced not only sonic relief but an entirely different relationship with sound.”

“We realised that many people rarely experience this kind of rich acoustic environment anymore, and that became the starting point for Sounding the Farm.”

Doostkhah said living near the foothills of Nightcap National Park had changed the way the pair experienced sound and inspired them to focus on the overlooked rhythms of agriculture.

“Living on a farm near the foothills of Nightcap National Park means we are constantly immersed in an ever changing natural sound world,” he said.

“Farms also contain incredibly musical rhythms if we truly listen, gates, tools, cattle calls, insects, wind, water systems, distant machinery, and the daily cycles of labour and rest.”

The recordings were gathered over several years and expanded from sounds captured on the pair’s own property at Doon Doon into a broader regional collaboration.

Doostkhah said neighbouring farmers and landholders across the Tweed had opened their properties and helped shape the project.

“We began recording sounds on our own property in Doon Doon over many years, often capturing moments spontaneously,” he said.

“Neighbouring farmers generously allowed us to record on their cattle properties, giving us access to sounds we would never have encountered otherwise.”

“The process became highly collaborative, with local knowledge playing a big role in helping us understand the rhythms and sonic character of the land.”

Rather than treating farm sounds as raw material, Doostkhah said the performance aimed to reveal the musicality already present within them.

“The musicality already exists within these sounds, our role is to reveal and shape it,” he said.

“We use a 12 speaker immersive sound system that surrounds the audience, allowing sounds to move throughout the space and create sensations of distance, movement, openness, and intimacy.”

For audiences unfamiliar with immersive sound art, Doostkhah said the experience was designed to be accessible and deeply sensory.

“It’s less like attending a conventional concert and more like entering a living sound environment,” he said.

“Audiences will be invited to close their eyes, and experience sound moving around them from all directions.”

Sounding the Farm will be held at The Murwillumbah Citadel as part of LAVA Arts Festival on 28 June, with sessions at 2pm and 4pm.

The free sessions require registration through Humanitix.