Field recordings, with a beat.

Overview
In 2022, singer-songwriter SIRUP and producer-guitarist Shin Sakiura teamed up with Greenpeace Japan on the Nature Sound Project. The result is “FOREVER,” a track whose streaming revenue goes toward protecting Japan’s satoyama, the patchwork of villages, fields and woods shaped by people and nature together.

Question
How do you get people to notice what climate change is doing to satoyama, without giving them a lecture?

Challenge
Nature recordings tend to end up as ambient music. Songs with a message tend to sound like messages. We wanted neither. We wanted a track people would put on because it’s good.

Approach
So the artists went to the satoyama of Omachi, in Nagano, and pressed record.

Leaves in the wind.
Birdsong.
Running water.
The creak of a wooden door in an old farmhouse.

They talked with local growers about life on the land. Then they built those sounds into the rhythm and melody of the track, right alongside the beats. A key visual, a web page and a series of interviews carried the campaign further.

Outcome
“FOREVER” hit the charts soon after release, and the proceeds went to conservation. People came for the song. The message came with it.