It’s the 15th of October and my local park cafe stopped selling ice cream today. It seems, therefore, that we have to finally accept it: London Summer 2026 is now officially over.
It has been my favourite summer of recent times, starting back at the end of May at an emotional Watching Trees, paying homage to the late, great JD Twitch (for those who don’t know read this-)
My summer covered Scotland’s fleeting time at the World Cup; a four date residency at Kew Gardens; spending two weeks hosting a tent at the Fringe By The Sea; a 10 day installation at Sonica Sound Arts in Glasgow where I got to witness stunning performances by Suzanne Ciani and Steve Reich’s Music for 18 musicians by the Paraorchestra; my own performances at the likes of We Out Here, Wildwood, Tropical Pressure and more; hosting field recording hikes at Love Trails; music and whisky tasting in Inverness; two trips to Cornwall and a trip to the Alps to record the melting glacier at Mont Blanc melting in the heat.
Have a listen to the raw recording of the glacier here. As you can hear it’s not a mere trickle :(
For a rose-tinted review of a few festivals I visited read here:
I also had a nice time recording mixes for Erol Alkan’s Phantasy Records and for the Grounded Series, both of which seem to have resonated with a lot of you. My deep dive post into my Grounded selection continues to receive praise and it has been one of those rare times when it is actually worth checking the comments section on YouTube. Thank you!
The Flipside
It would be hypocritical of me - with the stated climate motive that underpins A State Of Flo - to simply bask in the glory of these past few months without a mention of the principle culprit.
Climate change might give us Brits a few good years of consistent sunshine but clearly that isn’t so welcome if your geo-lottery places you in South Western Europe, the Amazon basin, Sumatra, many parts of south east Asia and so many places around the planet that have been adversely affected by storms, rising temperatures, wild fires and more.
A regular glance at the global newsfeed (outside of the other horrors) casts a particularly ominous shadow that can’t fully be ignored, even when sitting in an Argos paddling pool with a cool beverage in hand in North London.
What can we do?
A State Of Flo has donated £1220 to Earth/Percent to cover the first half of the year, which is a direct contribution of 10% from the revenue the label and this Substack generates. Thank you to you all for buying and supporting. Will this divert us from climate collapse? Barely, but the money is dispersed around many amazing organisations - every little helps.
Soniferous and Plants Can Dance
In the next few months I’ll reveal the next stage of the plan to support the planet by way of our new ‘Soniferous’ project. Sign up here to register your interest and you’ll be the first learn what it is all about. I’ve been slowly plugging away at it for the best part of six years so very much looking forward to throwing it into the wind and seeing if it will take root.
In the meantime, I want to take the opportunity to thank everything who has come to check our Plants Can Dance events, workshops and performances over the summer. We started by releasing the Plants Can Dance compilation - a compilation that I hope will be a marker to the growing global interest in connecting music to nature, and the creation of a new genre that Dr Helen Anahita Wilson has christened ‘Bio-phillic Music’.
I think we can safely estimate that over 10,000 of you experienced Plants Can Dance over the summer, with 6500 attending our installation and workshops at Fringe By The Sea alone. We’ve loved connecting with groups of all ages, exploring this fertile terrain of nature-inspired music.
Back in June we hosted a launch party at Hideout, the recordings of which are now up on YouTube:
Plant Can Dance - 8th November, London
Next up we return to our residency in East London’s Hideout by Number 90 on 8th of November. There are cheap tickets available for £10 only. So if you missed out over the summer, or if you are craving more plant related bio-musical fun - do join us!
Our usual residents Lamine, Pierre Paslier and myself will host a workshop showcasing the biosonification devices that are available to play with. We’ll then hook up our triple modular set up to some of Lamine’s Living Ecosystem terrariums, which are still going strong despite two trips to Scotland this summer!
We’ll also be premiering the final cut of ‘Nature’s Orchestra’ a piece that charts three epochs of planetary listening - the world out of tune, extinction level events and a hopeful future. We worked with Martyn Stewart OBE of The Listening Planet, using some of his most treasured field recordings captured across his 50 year career. We then asked the likes of Cosmo Sheldrake, Jack Penate, Brother Spirit, Leo Abrahams and many more to respond to the natural recordings, contributing their very human, musical responses to the recordings.
The results will featured on Earth Percent’s Sounds Right campaign this Autumn. More new on this coming soon.
Other dates for the diary:
7th November - Auntie Flo (Vinyl DJ Set) at Altar, London
8th November - Plants Can Dance at Hideout, London
13th November - Mushroom Music at Being Human Festival, London
20th November - Plants Can Dance at SVA, Stroud (performance and workshop)
27th November - Auntie Flo DJ at Jazz Cafe, London
Get in touch if you’d like to book! I’m now being represented by Andre at Earth Agency