*200 copies limited edition* Nestled at the center of Natalia Beylis’ music is an intertwined practice of listening and creating. She regularly foregrounds both field recordings and found instruments, building worlds around the curious sounds she comes upon and letting the process of recontextualization create meaning out of unexpected meetings. The picture that emerges is one of her having a profound connection to her environment, whether that is a community of human beings or the vast non-human living world that surrounds her.

That sense of connection pervades 'Lost - For Annie,' a collection of recordings made alongside artists working across various mediums from Beylis’ extended community in Ireland. She has lived in County Leitrim for 18 years, listening intently to its sounds and documenting them as they change around her. 'Lost - For Annie' is a singular document of ecological activism, community engagement, and artistic expression that gracefully implies questions of how folk – human and otherwise – understand and cope with ecological and sociological changes. Beylis’ source material ranges from spontaneous group vocal improvisation to documentary-style interview recordings, from solitary instrumental performance to sampled birdcall. These are the sounds of Beylis coming to know her home (and the others that live there alongside her) more deeply.

The titular piece, stretching out to over 19 minutes, occupies the entirety of the collection’s first side and was written to accompany an installation by visual artist Annie Hogg. Hogg’s installation, first shown in 2023, explores the environmental destruction brought on by large-scale commercial farming, a phenomenon Beylis has experienced firsthand living surrounded by an industrial, monocultural forest. “Lost - For Annie” is abundant with birdsong – recorded by Beylis around her home and sampled from LPs released, ironically, by oil multinationals – until it isn’t. What begins with lush electronics and familiar chirping descends into an extended recording of Beylis walking through the recently clear-felled forest notable for the absence of any sound except that of her feet trudging through soil and detritus. When the birdsong reappears, it’s been electronically manipulated, thrown into reverse, sounding warbled and uneasy. As Beylis writes in the liner notes, “When the birds on this list are gone, it will only be through these types of recordings that we will remember their voices. For now, we eagerly await the imminent return of the birds to the young woodland at Drumnadubber.”

In mid-2022, Beylis, alongside artists Laura Gallagher and Kate Murtagh Sheridan, collaborated on a multimedia work titled 'Monumental Healing,' which itself was conceived in conjunction with a wider group of volunteers comprising The Leitrim Sweathouse Project. The three pieces on the second side of this collection were created as a part of that endeavor, an attempt to understand the origins and uses of the many hidden (and now defunct) sweathouses scattered around the margins of populated zones in Leitrim. The wide-eyed fascination with these sites of healing and recovery, which fell out of use generations ago, is captured on “Interviews with Participants of The Leitrim Sweathouse Project,” which echoes Annea Lockwood’s Sound Map of the Danube. After an interlude where we hear the sonic properties of a ceramic object made and played by Murtagh Sheridan, the heaving organ drones of “The Roots of the Mountain Ash Embrace the Stone '' enfold the listener. The piece echoes the profound, enigmatic sense of solitude and unity that can be felt when inside one of these near-ancient structures – the past and the present melt together into one continuous cycle of rupture and repair.

Beylis’ work is rooted in place and perspective, her ears attuned to their surroundings and aware of their unique position within the sonic tapestry. 'Lost - For Annie' sees her tracing each point of connection between environment and observer with sensitivity and compassion. There’s a gentle insistence that when we, as listeners, give ourselves over to these sounds, we gain a greater understanding of the role we play in co-creating them.