Output details

Nebula Sequence

Nebula Sequence. 5.1 surround acousmatic work. Duration 19:44.

Creative motivations: Wednesday 30th November 2011 was the first day in my working life that I went on strike. I thought I was being hypocritical taking my recording equipment with me but with hindsight I experienced a sense of place, a feeling that I was personally doing the right thing, and an enormous sense of the support that those on strike were giving to their colleagues under pressure.

I also captured elements of the primary sound source of this piece and in so doing continue to reflect upon the reasons why I was out that day.

The vast majority of this work was made during April 2012 at the Visby International Centre for Composers, Gotland, Sweden in their 5.1 Studio Alpha. Being away for a month allowed me work consistently and freely: I was able to take stock of a wide variety of materials and develop a number of spectral surround sound manipulations. I was also able to pay homage to composers whose music has influenced the way I work.

Secondary sources included stones and bricks (after Jonty Harrison and Alistair MacDonald), and ball bearings (after François Bayle's majestic Tremblement De Terre Très Doux) - and my thanks to simplybearings.co.uk for accepting the fact that I only needed to buy two of each size (ranging from 0.5 to 2 inches in diameter). For the 'dissolve' at the close of the piece, I am always reminded of Andrew Lewis' Scherzo. Finally, thanks to the Groupe de Recherches Musicales for producing some great new tools that helped me deliver some very unique (if easily identifiable) sound nebulae.

And it is these sound spaces that drive this work. Nebulae present us with the sense of the unknown, a sense of the future. There is a space that is vast and distant and within the nebula a cloud of swirling dust and gas. Vast, but not a void. We can place ourselves inside this space and explore its very details.

Nebula Sequence explores the creation of a work of significant duration (around 20 minutes). Moreover, it attempts to be considerably slower than previous works. This objective was set during writing 'Sustain' (2009) but not achieved. The work drew very consciously upon historical sound sources and techniques as identified in the programme notes. The 5.1 version serves to expand the space and introduce very limited loudspeaker polyphony but on the whole remains true to a cinema-style use. Consequently, the collapse from 5.1 to stereo is somewhat easier to make. Notwithstanding this restriction, the work is scored for sound diffusion as frontal scenes suggest multiple spaces and characters. In searching for an increased duration through sustaining elements, layered time stretches and evolutions tied very closely to one pitch drawn from the primary source (a vuvuzela sampled from a Trade Union march) are prominent. It is hoped that a certain delicacy with additional materials contextualises elements that could be taken for cliché (or too rooted to a popular transformational process). Nebula Sequence has been performed in Sheffield and Brussels and has received online streaming from Electrocd.com.