Before establishing Incidental, David Gunn was a founding member of The Folk Songs Project.

The project began in 2005 with Folk Songs for the Five Points, supported by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Commissioned to explore issues of immigration in Lower Manhattan, this project debuted FSP's soundmap interface.

This was followed by a CD release created entirely from audio recordings made on location in New York's Lower East Side in the dog days of summer 2005.

The album remixes the sounds of passing cars, crab salesmen, preachers etc, intertwined with excerpts from compositions created by Victor Gama for the web project of the same name. Package design by the very great Joe Marianek.

"The audio itself buzzes with the energy of the neighborhood that inspired this project, featuring clips of cars driving by, kids playing, street corner soundsystems, aspiring emcees, and discussions of Puerto Rican nationality. It's a document of the fabric of this time and that place" Other Music, 2007

The CD is available online via Other Music.

Folk Songs for the Five Points was followed by Manchester : Peripheral, commissioned by Futuresonic 2006. Reversing traditional focuses upon city centre, the team worked in four outlying wards of the city to document and celebrate traditionally under- and mis-represented areas of the city. Asked by the Manchester International Festival and Futuresonic to expand this work in 2007, a month-long, networked audio installation was developed.

In 2007, the final FSP work, Cinco Cidades, was also completed. The most ambitious of our soundmap projects, this work covered five cities across Portugal. In addition to the online component, the project also featured site-specific live performance in each city with musicians William Parker, Guillermo Brown and Victor Gama.

The Folk Songs Project is now closed, although Incidental continue to pursue a variety community-led sound projects. Contact us to find out more.