Earth Cry x Lobe
July 2023
Earth Cry - A Sonic Immersion On The Frontlines Of Climate Change
Earth Cry is a collective of sonic storytellers giving an aural platform to people, communities and cultures who are both facing the brunt of our planet’s environmental wrath, and also fighting back against the politicians and executives responsible for the damage. We use 4DSOUND technology to take listeners on an immersive journey into neighbourhoods affected by climate change and listen as residents narrate their own stories.
This immersive sound piece takes place in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and Mott Haven in the South Bronx, two of the most polluted neighborhoods in New York City. Against a sound tapestry of freeways, delivery trucks and power plants, as well as recordings capturing the joy, diversity and swagger of each neighborhood’s street life, community activists explain how decades of racist decision-making has reduced the life-span of the city’s low-income Black and Latino citizens while heating the atmosphere.
We hear from Melissa Barber, an organizer with the environmental justice group South Bronx Unite, which has been fighting to undo a legacy of health-harming fossil fuel infrastructure placed next to elementary schools, public housing and parks. We also hear from Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of Brooklyn’s UPROSE, a community organization led by Puerto Rican and Chinese women that is among the country’s most effective fighters for climate justice at the neighborhood level.
Earth Cry first premiered at New York University’s 2023 Pop Conference, the “world’s premier music-writing and popular music studies gathering.”
The team is comprised of:
Geoff Dembicki, an investigative climate change journalist based in Brooklyn. He is a frequent contributor to The Guardian and VICE and author of the new book “The Petroleum Papers: Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change”.
Grace Scott, a writer, editor and audio producer based in New York. She is currently an editor at CREEM Magazine, and has produced audio books for Sacred Bones Records, as well as reporting for Canadaland podcast, the Toronto Star, the National Post, and VICE.
Edo Van Breemen, a composer, immersive sound producer and the founder of Lobe, a 4D spatial sound studio in Vancouver. He is also one half of the film-scoring team Transatlantic Film Orchestra, and spent over a decade touring with the band Brasstronaut.
Sam Potter, an artist, musician and writer based in Berlin. His work looks to translate complex nonhuman processes like artificial intelligence into expressions of emotive art. His work has been featured in and supported by the likes of The BBC, The Science Museum, Secret Cinema, Rough Trade Books and The Barbican.