“Folly Tower Blooms” is widely considered a standout track on the 2025 centenary album Vari/ations – Ode to Oram. Co-created by sound artist Magz Hall and musician Mieko Shimizu, the piece is a “plantronica” composition that literally translates the environment of Daphne Oram’s former home into sound.
Key elements of the track include:
- Plant Bio-Data: Hall used a MIDI Sprout to record bio-data (subtle electrical vibrations) from the actual plants in Oram’s former garden at Tower Folly in Kent. These vibrations were turned into melodies that guide the track’s structure.
- Pollution Absorbers: In a nod to her own Radio Air Garden project, Hall specifically chose plants known for being high-performing pollution absorbers, such as geraniums, lilac, elderflower, and coltsfoot.
- Archive Integration: The track blends these organic plant melodies with unheard samples from Oram’s archive at Goldsmiths. Hall also applied “music stretching”—a technique Oram herself used—to pitch-shift Oram’s voice into a horn-like instrument.
- Conceptual Connection: The artists discovered Oram was deeply interested in plant communication, finding underlined sections in her copy of Lyall Watson’s Supernature.
The track has been described as “shimmering memories” and a “living, breathing tribute” that unfolds organically through the seasons.
Mieko Shimizu and I co created a special track, called Folly Tower Booms, for the album Variations: Ode to Oram made to celebrate Orams 100 centenary and published by non classical.
https://nonclassical.bandcamp.com/track/folly-tower-blooms
We recorded plants using my midi sprout, which turns plant bio data into music, and in keeping with my radio air garden project used the the best pollution absorbers from Daphne Orams Tower Folly garden, as well as having access to unheard samples from her archive, which we mixed into the track, we used the melodies made by the plants to shape the track. Whilst making we found out Oram was intererested in plant communication, as she left underlined sections across her copy of Supernature which was amazing to find out.
It was interesting to hear Orams work via the samples pack from her archive and hear the techniques she used, one was music stretching to create new instruments which is something I replicated with her voice. I’ve really enjoyed working with Mieko as we have different approaches to this so it was fun to combine ideas, we used the melodies generated by the plants and let that guide the work which unfolds and changes like the seasons. The track we made is called Folly Tower Blooms after a photo of her garden in the archive, the track features the melody made by 8 plants including, geraniums, coltsfoot, lilac, elderflower and others. We listened through to the sample pack alone and then together and choose what we found to be the most engaging samples of Oram, I wanted to focus on a gardening theme as Oram talks about building a green house in her kitchen and the more obvious sample of her talking about distant dream worlds, which I guessed others would use which has worked well as a motif. Listening to the samples given gave me a good understanding of the techniques Oram used often slowing down or speeding up records and recordings of instuments to make them sound like other things. I loved the idea of turning her practice on her and pitchsifting her voice into an instument so it sounded like a long horn. Mieko produced wonderful sounds and composition around the plant melodies letting them guide the structure, she also made an instument which she fed in Oram samples so they played specific notes and a bit of her voice , the over all track is constantly unfolding by each plant, which has given it a very organic feeling of growth and garden life cycle.
Magz Hall 
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