Fergus McNeil: This spoken word/audio piece explores the relationships between imprisonment, family and time. It was inspired by collaboratively analysing (with the Distant Voices Core Group) materials from a Vox Session that took place in HMP Castle Huntly (Scotland’s only open prison). We noticed that time, timing and temporariness were recurring themes in that session; and in many others. Discussing this in the group prompted the recognition that reintegration after imprisonment is not just about who and where people return to, but also about when. The separation produced by imprisonment isn’t just spatial — it is also temporal — and that means that coming home often involves a struggle to re-synchronise lives that have been marching to different drums, sometimes for many years. Fergus developed these ideas further by reading work by criminologists Ian O’Donnell, Azrini Wahidin, Sarah Armstrong and Kirsty Deacon; he summarised some of their ideas and some of his own in a short paper which he shared with Louis. Those ideas also found their way into Fergus's creative writing, recorded here; and into Louis thinking about a soundscape that might complement those words.

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  Louis Abbott: In its early stages the musical ideas I was working on and the text Fergus had written were living separately. We had discussed the ways in which I could manipulate recorded sounds on Protools using plugins like ‘Time Expansion / Compression’ – the ability to stretch or squeeze a soundwave. I experimented with a simple, repeated pattern of notes and played about with them at different tempos, keeping the pitch the same. Doing so reminded me of a piece written for string orchestra (and bell) by Estonian composer, Arvo Part, which is essentially a canon; a cascading melody line starting at different speeds and octaves as it passes through the orchestra. This became the basis for the punchline of the piece (3.45s) with several, differently paced, descending lines played on a synthesiser. I also manipulated some ‘field’ recordings of household objects and time stretched those; a ticking clock, a burning candle. The piece finishes with the pulsing of an ultrasound recording of a baby’s heartbeat.