Seven songs
Each one carries voices and sounds from the archive — a farmer born up Jordan, a buzzard over the Dart, a man left behind in space.
First listen · Raw mix
A collaboration with the Dartmoor Trust
Susannah and the Noise were granted rare access to the archive of the Dartmoor Trust — recordings of voices from across the twentieth century, witnesses to a Dartmoor that is vanishing from living memory. Teaming up with the Leeds University Archive of Vernacular Culture and the NASA Sound Archive, those found sounds have been woven directly into the band’s characteristically intense guitar music.
Across the record, the songs journey across the moor — from life at the turn of the twentieth century, through to the terrible winter of 1963. From teenage boredom in a prison town in the nineties, to nature-bursting claustrophobia deep in the woods. Swirling snowscapes, whispers and suspicions in a community on the edge, returning astronauts uncovering an untold future. Every song packs an emotional punch.
Every performance is accompanied by a film — Dartmoor imagery, landscape, light, weather, stone — threaded through from start to finish.
Part gig. Part excavation.
Dartmoor isn’t just the backdrop. These are stories the moor has been holding onto. The archive gave us permission to bring them back.
The record
Seven songs
Each one carries voices and sounds from the archive — a farmer born up Jordan, a buzzard over the Dart, a man left behind in space.
01
The Dart babbles, a buzzard mews. Darkness descends across the moor. A skylark sings, light returns. Layered upon melancholic electronica, cycles of Dartmoor, over and over and over…
02
Built from recordings of Ernest Warren — born in the hamlet of Jordan; talking about his life on the moor, leaving school at 13, taking over a farm, recollections from the early 20th century onwards. His voice, his life, woven into the music directly.
03
An astronaut returns to a dead colony, guided only by a voice on a loop — a man left behind, long gone. Climate elegy dressed as science fiction offering a stark potential future for Dartmoor.
04
A town on the edge. Whispers. Rumours. Market town gossip or something more sinister? A girl in the pool, a boy on a car roof. Urgency without explanation — breathe, hold out your hands, then fly.
05
Helix upon helix, helter upon skelter. Nature wins in the end, reclaiming what we leave behind. Is it the forest floor reclaiming what’s hers? Or the slow tightening of something that once felt like shelter.
06
Tender and elemental. Picking someone up, brushing them down, tasting ice, drinking in the sea. A song of fierce, quiet care played out across frozen ground.
07
Just seventeen, sleeping in a car under the stars. A punk dream, a violent home, a community too slow to see. The Dartmoor nobody photographs.
The band
Vocals
Susannah Gentle
Guitar
Dan Pritchard
Drums & samples
Rom Dobbs
Bass
Simon Lee
Collaborators
Huge thanks to our collaborators for this evolving project.
An independent charity established in 1996 to protect and promote the landscape, environment, and heritage of Dartmoor.
Its digital Dartmoor Trust Archive preserves tens of thousands of historic photographs, videos, and audio recordings, including key oral history collections like “Moor Memories”. Go take a look.
Explore the archiveThe professional alias of Paul Harris, a fine art photographer capturing Dartmoor National Park for over 40 years. As a qualified Hill & Moorland Leader based in Devon, he blends deep geographic knowledge with an ethereal, cinematic vision.
Instead of chasing conventional landscape shots, Harris embraces Dartmoor’s infamous mist, rain, and moody light to evoke the raw, untamed spirit of the moor in a signature, mythological style. We love it.
Archive material drawn from the Dartmoor Trust Archive, the Leeds University Archive of Vernacular Culture and the NASA Sound Archive. Photography by Paul Harris.
Seven interwoven songs and accompanying film.
See the film only at our shows.
The Dartmoor Trust is an exceptional charity committed to supporting the people and history of Dartmoor — preserving a heritage that spans thousands of years and actively working to promote its conservation, education, and community engagement.
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