Ines Marlow’s studio take

IThe looms start before the light does, a low knock under the floor, then the shuttle finding its lane. I counted forty beats a minute and lost the thread twice before breakfast. Marta says the room tunes itself by ten, that the cotton drinks the damp and the noise settles after that.

We walked the carding room once the shift changed. Nobody talks over the machines, so the whole floor runs on hand signals and a chalkboard nobody has wiped since spring. I recorded eleven minutes of it and the best part is a gap — the second the belts cut out and you can hear rain on the north skylights instead.