Artist Spotlight is our regular feature introducing you to Cities and Memory artists around the world with an in-depth interview. In this edition, we introduce you to Toronto’s Michelle Breslin, a field recordist, musician and composer working under the name Lostworldsounds, whose favourite sound to record is the “soothing and terrifying” sounds of the wind.

I’m a guitarist and vocalist and I love experimenting to make new or interesting sounds with both, and I love to explore nature and the sounds that constantly surround us.

I love to work with Cities and Memory because it offers a chance to work with sounds that I might not have access to. For instance, two of my favourite projects with Cities and Memory have been Space is the Place and Polar Sounds.

The interview continues below ⬇️, and this map collects together all of Michelle’s contributions to Cities and Memory: 

It changes a lot over the seasons. Right now a lot of birds, and wind, even right downtown, you can tune your ears to hear the cityscape, trains, trucks, sirens, hums, jets or to the nature, birds, winds, tree branches.

I recall listening to all of the hums in my house as a child, and other times escaping into some of my favourite soundscapes, wind in the treetops, waves at the beach, rain falling on leaves, or a tent.

My Dad had a rock band that played in our living room, so music was also a huge part of our lives, and how we communicated. We would listen to records and dance while we did housework.

I love it all. Coming up with a composition that expresses something I’m trying to get across really excites me, and then I love mixing it all, and finding that moment when it all comes together, usually a little sound, winds its way in, and really makes it for me. I also just love to play and to get out with my recorder and wander around recording sounds.

I’m very happy with the album that I released on Bandcamp this year.

I think my absolute favourite is Space is the Place. Lostworldsounds started out as a sound collecting project, and imagining the sounds of space and our collective sounds echoing on forever, so this project really appealled to me.

Having access to the the sound of Juno entering the magnetosphere was really exciting.

Kim Gordon, Can, Eiyn Sof, Dark Bird, Brian Ruryk, Man Meets Bear. Joe Strutt. Brian Eno. Michael Palumbo/Exit Points. Picastro.

My list is massive, and I’m so grateful for it.

Wind. I love listening to it and recording it.

It’s often really soothing, but also at times terrifying.

I have a Roland R26 recorder that I love to record with. It’s a bit old school, with knobs to turn, and you don’t have to entirely rely on the digital screen.

As a guitar player, I still love my Line 6, and a new pedal recently is my Roland Space Echo.

A new record, but I never really know what it’s going to be till it’s well on its way and I’m just kind of in the gathering stage.