Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Volcanologist and Cambridge professor studies volcanoes and collaborates with Werner Herzog on films about their role in Earth's evolution.
On the island
Eight records
And this was one part of my mother's collection. So I get my love of music and words, I think, from my mother. She had quite an eclectic collection. She had old 78s, she had musicals, she had Gilbert and Sullivan. And she had this, this one of the jazz greats, Blue Rondeu Allaturk. And I think I loved its rhythmic qualities, its changes, and just the sheer virtuosity that you hear in jazz.
This takes me to the area of of Sussex around Hastings, where we used to go on holiday every summer in a village called Fairlight.
This is Kraftwerk's Autobahn. I love it, and it's quite a long track, so it'll be good on the island. I get my value.
This is the first gig I went to when I was maybe just turned 15 or so, and it was at the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town, and maybe one of the first shows that this band had played. It's the B52s. And none of my friends wanted to go. I went along, and of course, you know, your first gig, it's unforgettable. It was so exciting, the sound. And this particular track turned out to be quite prophetic for me. It's lava.
DebaserFavourite
This is another game changer. This is going back to PhD days. It's a track by the Pixies. And it's one of those tracks when I first heard it, I just instantly keyed into this and I thought... That's good and the Pixies changed everything for me and this is debaser.
Well this has some resonances for me for Indonesia. It has some gamelan, Indonesian gamelan-like motifs in it. And it's also by a composer whose work I adore. It's Olivier Messiah and it's the Trungalila Symphony. I think this piece actually captures everything about humanity and the human condition. It's a love song. It's a hymn to joy. And it's got complex motifs and moments of extraordinary beauty. And it has these gamelan sounds. It has bird song. He worked, he was passionate about bird song. The piece we hear has got blackbirds, nightingales and garden warblers.
Well, this is by an Ethiopian musician Bezwerk Asfaw. It's a song called Tizata, which every Ethiopian musician has performed, and it means longing or memories or remembrance. I didn't really know Ethiopian music until I first went there, and I was immediately struck by its kind of waltz rhythms and this Ethio jazz. I was staying next to a cassette shop, and they blared out music every morning that woke me up. This will remind me of travelling in Ethiopia, and it will also, through its theme of remembrance, help me think of home.
Hymn for the Dormition of the Mother of God
The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christophers
This is a track by John Tavenagh, Hymn for the Dormition of the Mother of God, and it has a line in it, something like O ye Apostles assembled from the ends of the earth. So that reminds me of Antarctica and also in the films that I've made with Werner Herzog we've used Russian Orthodox music which has some similarities to this, its voices. And I do love just the sound of the human voice. I think that will be something that will entertain the wildlife on the island after they've heard the pixies.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:48They're dangerous, mysterious, exciting... Is there something addictive about [volcanoes]?
I think there is. I mean, for me, there is. I've spent my whole life almost looking into them, but I think it's not for everyone. I mean, I've been with people who've been absolutely freaked out by the multi-sensory experience that you get near an active volcano. I mean, it really is assailing everything. The sight of the lava lake roiling in the bottom of the crater, the gases rolling out, stinging your eyes, and you can taste them at the back of your throat. The smell of sulphur, like a struck match. These gases are very acid, so your eyes are streaming. You can hear the detonations and pistol shot-like sounds, or the roar of a jet engine. And maybe you'll even feel the vibrations of the ground through your feet, or these sounds resonating in your chest.
Presenter asks
2:43You write and talk about volcanoes in very poetic almost human terms... Carl Sagan observed that we're made of star stuff but it was actually volcanic activity that shaped those elements into us.
That's right. I measure volcanic gases and one of the the things I noticed is if you look at the composition of gases, it's not that dissimilar to the composition of a human. They've got a bit more sulphur than we have. We're ultimately made of the breath of volcanoes that's been cycled countless times through the earth through the action of plate tectonics and volcanism.
The keepsakes
The book
Patrick White
I think I'll choose one of his books, The Vivisector, which is about the life of a great artist. And I just loved some of his descriptions. He wrote about the human condition with tremendous intensity and insight.
The luxury
To listen to the earth, to listen to the music of the earth. I will just enjoy those vibrations.
Presenter asks
9:41How much do you actually know about [your father John]'s story, his past?
Not a great deal. His father was an artist and was already working in London, had a studio in London. He was looked to for painting people in high society, politicians. Einstein sat for him in 1931, I think. That's the closest I get to an atomic physicist, by the way. Don't ask about Robert Hoffman.
Presenter asks
11:14Were you scared of [your father]?
I don't think I really knew to be scared or anything. You as as a child you just roll with it. He he was very not threatening to me, but he was very threatening to people that had helped my mum, for example, supported her when she left him. I mean, I I soaked it up, but I didn't really know how to process it.
Presenter asks
15:23Tell me about that love of geology then. How did it actually start for you?
That began in the Geological Museum in London, which I dunno, I must have visited around 8, 9, 10. It's part of the Natural History Museum now. I was just in awe at the the wonder of these gems and minerals, huge opals, big gold nuggets. There was a radioactive mineral with a Geiger counter clicking away. And I think just the the aesthetics of these specimens really captivated me.
Presenter asks
35:03The time has come, Clive. I'm going to send you away to the island. I'm giving you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book, your own selection. What will it be?
I'm going to take a book by Patrick White for no other reason than he was one of my favourite authors. A number of his books were historical fiction, but based on real characters who are pitting themselves against the desert, or one was indeed in a shipwreck, actually. But I think I'll choose one of his books, The Vivisector, which is about the life of a great artist. And I just loved some of his descriptions. He wrote about the human condition with tremendous intensity and insight.
“I think I'd see myself as an a aversion to it, yes. I found him to be very hypocritical. I mean, we're all hypocrites, but it's a quality I try to, I hope, I haven't got. He also couldn't really control himself. He hoarded, he had lots and lots of lawnmowers. He was living in a flat in London, and they were, you know, in a warehouse somewhere. And he ate a lot and couldn't control that. And I think these are all things he couldn't really control spending money. My mum set the opposite example of being frugal, of being independent, of being resilient and resourceful.”
“Oh, my spirit soars when I'm on a volcano.”
“I didn't just see the ordinary things, I saw them. In a flash I saw them and I couldn't help saying hello boys and yeah, it was like looking across time a hundred years earlier.”
“I distinguish between being lonely and being alone, and I I'm quite happy alone. I I quite like aloneness and I've I've really felt that with great intensity in Antarctica. If there's no wind, And it's a sunny day. You feel the sun warming you up. And all you can hear is your breathing and your own heartbeat, and there is a great serenity in that.”