Output details

husk

husk was commissioned by Okeanos and [rout]. It was premiered at the Cutting Edge series at The Warehouse, London on November 19th 2009. In 2010 it was performed by [rout] and Okeanos at the festival: Sonic Art Oxford, in 2011 by CoMA at St. Leonard’s Church Shoreditch with film projection by Paul Whitty, and on October 12th 2012 by Apartment House in the Sonorities Festival Montpelier France.

husk is part of the researcher’s continuing investigation of new timbres, in this case approached through combining the instrumental resources of [rout] - amplified western instruments, and Okeanos - amplified traditional Japanese instruments. Here, amplification is used as a research process through which particular combinations of timbres can be revealed within or against the wider context of the piece as a whole. In this sense amplification is a microscope that moves across, and into, the slabs of material framed by silence that together form the work’s principal large-scale structure.

A second research process introduces a significant spatial element: the players form a circle round the audience, so that the location of a sound becomes as significant as the sound itself. The aim is to create an immersive sonic environment that facilitates the audience’s focus on the timbres presented, the main research goal of the piece. The use of repeated patterns, unchanging textures and sparse material - often restricted to single notes held for extended periods - further refines the listener’s attention.

But husk is not an unchanging shell incapable of evolving new timbral forms of life. The degree of creative responsibility owned by its performers allows husk to accept – and indeed welcome as beautiful – the invention of the moment in much the same way as the traditional Japanese craftsman accepts the inevitable but unpredictable scoring in the glaze of his/her Hagi yaki pottery.