The musicians turning bat calls into club music

A new musical project invites audiences to experience the echolocation calls of bats in an entirely fresh way, shedding light on one of the UK’s often misunderstood creatures. The album, titled *Echo in the Dark*, is the work of artists Hanna Tuulikki and Tommy Perman, who have transformed the ultrasonic sounds made by eight different bat species into electronic compositions. Combining recordings of bat calls with human vocals, the artists create a unique soundscape that bridges nature and technology.

These bat calls, usually inaudible to humans, have been rendered audible through the use of heterodyne bat detectors. This technology captures the intricate clicks, buzzes, and rhythmic patterns of echolocation, revealing pulsations that bear a resemblance to electronic dance music. The project first took shape in 2022, after Hospitalfield, an arts venue in Arbroath, Scotland, invited Tuulikki to develop artistic work inspired by bats, following a series of community bat walks during the Covid-19 lockdown period. Tuulikki proposed creating dance music from these echolocation sounds and brought Perman on board to contribute to the endeavor.

Tommy Perman described his enthusiasm for the project, explaining, “It was an easy yes from me. What you hear is extraordinary – clicks, buzzes, rhythms and warbles that could easily be mistaken for samples from electronic dance music. That realisation felt like an invitation we couldn’t ignore.” The artists sourced recordings from their own sessions, open submissions, and collaboration with the Tayside Bat Group, ultimately capturing audio from 13 of the UK’s 18 known bat species. Eight of these species’ calls are featured on the finished album, with their sounds skillfully processed into beats, melodies, and textures. Tuulikki’s voice is woven throughout to create a novel hybrid sound experience that merges human and bat elements. Perman noted his surprise at the diversity of bat vocalizations: the lesser horseshoe bat, for example, creates “the most beautiful rippling calls that wouldn’t be out of place on a dub record,” while the Daubenton’s bat produces “amazing syncopated rhythms that sound like a jazz drummer.”

The initial phase of the project culminated in a series of outdoor “silent bat raves,” where participants wore headphones and danced at dusk beneath flying bats. Building on that concept, the music has now been expanded into a full-length album, available on vinyl and digital formats, which was released on August 28 by Glasgow’s independent label KIN-TU. Beyond its artistic ambitions, the project aims to foster a better understanding and appreciation of bats, creatures that play vital roles in ecosystems but are often viewed with suspicion or fear. Perman shared that a recent survey by the Bat Conservation Trust revealed nearly half of the UK population harbors negative feelings toward bats. Rather than offering a didactic message, *Echo in the Dark* seeks to engage through the shared energy of dance music. Perman said, “Dance music has always been a space where people can come together, lose themselves in the moment, and feel part of something bigger. We hope the album can use that power to nurture a different kind of relationship with the more-than-human world – one rooted in curiosity and care rather than fear.”

The ultimate hope for the project is to inspire listeners who might never have given much thought to bats to reconsider their impressions. Perman concluded, “If it sends even a handful of listeners out into the night to listen for bats, or to support bat conservation, that feels like a genuinely positive outcome.”

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