Performed by Trinity Laban's NMRS
Conducted by Gregory Rose
Mixed and Mastered by Kit Venables

The deserter is the bio-political escape artist; the final rejector of the war-aestheticians and the scribes of mythic violence. Those they shot for cowardice are much, much braver than the shooters would ever let us imagine. This is neither an endorsement nor a criticism. Remember their blood flows, inevitably, through our veins.

the deserter (for orchestra)

Performed by Rebecca Burden (cello, soloist), Kieran Crowley (organ), Steph Clark (clarinet) and Mary Bull (flute). 
Recorded on Ava's phone (lol) in St Mary the Virgin, Lewisham for the Music for Organs, Ensembles, Electronics concert.
Huge thanks to the soloistic prowess of Rebecca Burden!

Erin (for solo cello and ensemble)

Performed by myself (vocals), Polina Savicka (piano), Morgan Key (cello) and Iris Rushbrooke (trumpet).

Recorded in a practice room in Trinity Laban (hence the occasionally practisers you can hear!)

Words:

I’m on your bed, ready to sleep. And there’s a brachiosaurus lying next 
to me, there’s Totoro on a chest of plastic drawers and Ganesha is 
watching over from atop your plywood wardrobe. There is a love and a 
sadness here, unquantifiable. It gleams off the face of trinkets and 
teddies like they’re all well-cleaned chrome. As sillyness occupies our 
every waking moment, something flocks through that frail permeable 
dot-line between sleep and sinking. A place where repetition is blaringly 
inconsistent and deviance is blurringly absent. 

Your pain is punctuated in Punjabi with torn pictures of me from your 
wall. Milk Hotels, Adriannes, Elliots, lots-of-plants, men-with-guitars, 
Tarot Cards, Cats, Trees, Moons and Stars. Your posters still up there. 
Your old guitar rusts under dust and neglect, you’re scared when the 
window’s open the wind will catch its strings and fling Oasis on its frets. 
Peering from the pier this morning the seabirds shivered, the wind was 
here. Your mum had made me tea before, and toast. The news was on 
about eightieth anniversaries, people returning to their crumpled flats. 
The cars bunged up through the roadways like my noseways were 
sniffled full of snots. 

You came up this morning from the sofa and lay with me, us scrumpling 
into the prism of a single bed. I wrapped your sleeping sick body with my 
arms as your words of response became grunts became breaths. I 
kissed your poor cheeks to a little smile from beyond the stupored land. 
Before I left to brush my teeth, we exchanged a squeezing of our hands.
 
And now, going home, I’m the water swaying Barking Riverside pier. 
Sillyness has occupied almost everything that’s here. 

billy's manifesto (billy james)

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