Interview: SHHE on ‘THALASSA’, Sinking Cities, and Giving Voice to the Mediterranean

Dundee-based sound artist and producer SHHE, otherwise known as Su Shaw, has a new album, THALASSA, out mid-May, with an Edinburgh gig upcoming. The album is a six-part ambient work that gives voice to the Mediterranean Sea at a moment of ecological crisis; it’s an evocative listen.

This intriguing project was inspired by a British Council-funded trip to Egypt. SNACK spoke with Su about the realities of creating this wonderful work.

Can you tell us what your original concept for the album was when you originally set out to write and record?

It was a project that was born out of a commission – it was a creative climate commission. I got a chance to be a musician in residence, remotely, with a wonderful studio in the city of Alexandria. I had been really fascinated and done quite a lot of research around the city and the fact that it’s fated to be underwater within our lifetimes. I wanted to try and make a piece or new sound work that responded to the rising sea levels of the Mediterranean.

There was also another British Council fund that opened, which made it possible for me to travel there – a three-week residency in the city. I work often with these underwater microphones called hydrophones, and so planned all these recording sessions. When I arrived in Alexandria, I realised that it wasn’t possible to do sound recording because it’s prohibited.

It’s a heavily militarised coastline. It’s also a heavily polluted water body, and it made me also think about how I create a space within a project that welcomes the unpredictability of that, that welcomes in the urgency, the uncomfortableness, and the acceptance that in some environments these impacts are affecting people daily. It was the moment the album started to develop in my head.

I wondered how I could create something to give voice to this silent sea. And I’d already been thinking about developing an instrument, a modular synthesiser, as I had thought about using my own voice to kind of modulate and manipulate in a way to create that voice of the Mediterranean. And that was the foundation for the album.

So you had to move from site recording to a more insular process of modular synth recordings to create these impactful sounds. Did this vastly change the LP from what you initially thought it would be?

I did not know what it would sound like because I had no prior understanding of modular synthesis. It was a huge learning curve for me. The instrument that I’ve built is mainly analogue modules, which means they’re responding to humidity, to their environment.

It also means that they are occasionally unpredictable. It’s quite a new way of working for me. It felt representative of the time in Egypt, where I arrived with the set plan of what I might record and realising that was not possible.

Do you think you need your listeners to understand your intention to get the most out of the LP?

In 2020, I was part of a workshop which introduced UK artists to Egyptian artists, organised by Cryptic. This was when I became aware of the impact of climate change across Alexandria. It is also predicted that parts of Dundee will also be under the tideline in my lifetime, and I started to explore the commonalities between both cities, and the relationship that we have with water.

During the time there, I was introduced to the work of some amazing artists, including Alexandria-born muralist and painter Aya Tarek. They’ve designed the album artwork for THALASSA, based on their own interpretation of the Mediterranean. I was also introduced to the Cairo-born artist Nurah Farahat, who has shaped a beautiful visual video world for THALASSA. Both collaborations have been important to me.

The album is an invitation, a journey that anyone can take, although the album was made to be listened to in its entirety. The hope is that each time you listen, you discover or experience something different.

The album has moments of real fragility. Was that intentional, to reflect the current state of the environment?

One of the areas that I was really interested to learn more about was how it feels to live in a city that you know is sinking. I kept trying to create a space of comfort, and perhaps moments of opportunity. I hope that comes through.

I wanted it to be open to interpretation. It loosely charts six stages of a dive, as I became really interested in diving. Despite being fascinated by the water, I’m also terrified by it.

I’m not a good swimmer. I’m not very good on boats. Yet, like most of my projects, there is this tie that I have to the water. I spend so much of my time sitting with it, looking out at it, trying to be on it, trying to work with it. But there’s also so much that it’s quite overwhelming.

It has an other-worldly, healing sound to it. Were you deliberately putting in these healing qualities to the music?

Actually, that was a lovely reflection. Obviously, my experience of spending time in Alexandria is very personal and I wanted to put that into a record, but I also wanted it to be accessible to as many people as possible.

Though there’s something interesting that I have learned through working so closely with water, especially in these environments – the quite hydro-political environments. Water has always been a source of healing, of relaxation, almost like this liminal, meditative space for me.

And it’s titled after the Greek sea goddess?

Thalassa was the primordial goddess of the sea, specifically the Mediterranean, but the word itself also means ‘the sea’. The personification of the sea and how that alters our relationship with it was an interesting area of research while I was developing the project. When you give something an identity, it encourages us to care for it more.

You have a show coming up that will be rather unique. What makes it special and where are you performing?

It has been a dream to work with The Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. For the album launch on the 30th of May, I will perform THALASSA in quadraphonic – an immersive spatial sound system. This will be performed using a custom-built instrument, which has been in development for four years.

This will be the first time that The Queen’s Hall is presenting a project in quadraphonic, which will make it incredibly special.

THALASSA is released on 15 May via One Little Independant

The album launch takes place at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall on Saturday 30 May

Photo credit: Zac Mahrouche