Natalia Beylis

My sometimes neighbour Kevin inherited a Koi from his mother when she passed away. The Koi was maybe ten years old when she came into Kevin’s care. They lived together for about a decade with life passing by in its usual way. Kevin would sprinkle daily flakes into the tank and have an occasional one-sided conversation and the Koi would swim in circles upon circles upon circles. One day, Kevin came home from a weekend away and the Koi was floating upside down at the bottom of the tank. Though still alive, this was clearly not a desirable state for this shimmery orange creature.

At the top of the hill between Kevin’s sometimes house and my house, there is a seemingly minute pool of water beside a large sprawling hawthorn tree whose limbs drape over the surface. We’re not sure what the source of the water is but it is always clear and has never had any algae creeping across it. The name of our townland is ‘Ridge of the Wells’ so it might be that the water comes from an underground spring.

When Kevin saw the Koi at the bottom of the tank, he realised that a life of swimming in circles inside the same four walls was no longer a life worthwhile. So Kevin brought the Koi to the pool at the top of the hill and released it into a new existence. Now I'm the one who sprinkles the daily flakes and has the one-sided conversations. I arrive, shaking the food and calling out Coy Koi and sometimes the Koi swims over to say hello and other times it dives beneath the water and shimmies away from me deep down into the mysterious unknown waters.

I often daydream about what it must be like for the Koi to live in the pool after a lifetime in the tank. I wonder how deep the water goes down and whether there's tributaries that the Koi goes off and explores. Do the hares and the foxes that live around us come to visit? Sometimes I wonder does the Koi get lonely? Does it think back to its time in the tank? If given a choice, would the Koi have picked the uncertainty of the pool over the steadiness of the tank? Sometimes I wonder if it will survive a full year of changing seasons. But overall, thinking about the Koi fills me with hope and a deep sense of magic and the possibilities in life.

I wrote this piece imagining Koi’s initial explorations of the pool.

This track was recorded on two pieces of equipment that I hadn’t used previously. I decided to restrict myself to one pre-set on each instrument as I hoped that these limitations would help me focus deeper on the individual sounds.

I have a deep curiosity about how humans engage with our everyday soundscapes.

About the sonic realms where the unseen and unheard come alive. Where every rustle from a hedgerow and every pulsating drone from a kitchen appliance tells a story waiting to be discovered. I’m forever fascinated about what we seek as we capture the melodies of life, the voices of nature, and the echoes of human experience. Why do we feel compelled to preserve these fleeting moments? How do we process the whispers of the world and the musicality of the seemingly mundane?