︎︎︎Info
Title
Dead In The Water
Inventory
b fl, fixed media (4ch)
Year
2014
Duration
8’30”
Commission
Margaret Lancaster
Publisher
Adrian Knight Music
Recording
Premiere
September 29, 2014
Gallery MC
New York, NY (US)
Margaret Lancaster, b fl
Gallery MC
New York, NY (US)
Margaret Lancaster, b fl
︎︎︎Note
I wrote ‘Dead in the Water’ for Margaret Lancaster in 2014. The piece is an exploration of stasis in four adjacent sections:
1 an opening
2 a reduction of the opening material using only ‘black keys’
3 a series of palindromes
4 a return to the opening, a half step up
The prerecorded electronic track uses samples that Margaret recorded: a hidden, virtual consort, accompanying the soloist. Harmonic planes intersect each other and combine to form strange chains of partially recycled components. There was a kind of persistence to follow these chains to their logical conclusion, but in doing so, the piece ‘sacrificed’ its inner mobility, becoming a slave to the harmonic current. I was not satisfied with these limitations, so the piece evolved through an organic, intuitive process: bits and pieces chopped off, new ones attached, overall attributes and individual events altered. I wanted ‘Dead in the Water’ to evoke the feeling of stasis by tracing a meandering pathway along a straight line: not quite settling, repeating but never exactly, advancing and retreating, promising an exit only to immediately close it. I was lured into the maze by a surreal sense of possibility against complete rigidity, a witness to two opposites absurdly negotiating, or, as my laconic former self stated in an early note: ‘a waltz in 4/8’.
I wrote ‘Dead in the Water’ for Margaret Lancaster in 2014. The piece is an exploration of stasis in four adjacent sections:
1 an opening
2 a reduction of the opening material using only ‘black keys’
3 a series of palindromes
4 a return to the opening, a half step up
The prerecorded electronic track uses samples that Margaret recorded: a hidden, virtual consort, accompanying the soloist. Harmonic planes intersect each other and combine to form strange chains of partially recycled components. There was a kind of persistence to follow these chains to their logical conclusion, but in doing so, the piece ‘sacrificed’ its inner mobility, becoming a slave to the harmonic current. I was not satisfied with these limitations, so the piece evolved through an organic, intuitive process: bits and pieces chopped off, new ones attached, overall attributes and individual events altered. I wanted ‘Dead in the Water’ to evoke the feeling of stasis by tracing a meandering pathway along a straight line: not quite settling, repeating but never exactly, advancing and retreating, promising an exit only to immediately close it. I was lured into the maze by a surreal sense of possibility against complete rigidity, a witness to two opposites absurdly negotiating, or, as my laconic former self stated in an early note: ‘a waltz in 4/8’.
︎︎︎Score Excerpts
