The title spells the Chinese word 呢喃, which means speaking in a low voice, and can be roughly translated to murmur, whisper, mutter. Hidden behind the simple description of the sonic property, the word itself is often associated with a constellation of sentiments - nostalgia, intimacy, tenderness, to name a few. The piece itself is based on a studio recording of bowing the viola near the bridge with the strings damped. The composition draws from its rich expression, resulting from the physical effort implied in producing the sound, as well as the sonic oscillation between noise, tone, and silence, which in the piece are sometimes kept distinct, but other times transform from one to another, generating ambiguity echoing the title.
The source material was generously provided by Melia Watras (https://www.meliawatras.com/)

ní nán (UHJ Reduction)

Rafał Żółkoś, Bass flute  
Micha Seidenberg, Electronics, Composition
Leandro Gianini, Sound Engineer 

Live-recorded at Ackermannshof, Basel, 27.01.2023
Mix by Leandro Gianini 

Comment: 
Three layers became relevant for this work: collaboration as the guiding principle of my musicianship, the creative work with the material from the workshops, and finally the magical. 
For me, composing has become more and more synonymous with collaboration. I want to develop works for and with people. When composing, I want to think of a counterpart with his or her own voice, gestures and presence and let this influence my work. I recorded all the workshops that went into the development of "At night they listen to all creatures". From these I filtered those sequences in which Rafal Zolkos speaks, comments, sighs or breathes loudly in a way that only the noises remain. This resulted in sequences of different lengths whose sound material consists of very short fragments of noise. To a certain extent, these are the residual sounds of the filtering process. Often they are phonemes or single consonants. 
I used this material in two different ways. On the one hand, as a rhythmic and temporal structure, which I sampled compositionally and put together as a "collage". On the other hand, I have stretched the short fragments of noise into whisper-like impulse responses or transformed them through analysis and resynthesis into coloured spectra with slow envelope curves. This is how Rafal Zolkos eventually resonates in the noises of his own voice. 
In the magical I process above all personal experiences. Often I lie there for hours at night. All kinds of feelings arise and I experience a vast variety of sonic worlds. Little by little, a magical world emerges. In it, small noises become wild fluctuations, sporadic cracking sounds merge into complex rhythms, here and there a scratching or distant humming joins in until everything rushes and rattles, only to immediately change again into the greatest silence. The longer I lie, the more magical this world of sound becomes. 
A magical creature with many shiny scales has emerged from these experiences. They clink and crack with every movement. The voice unites the noises of the earth and speaks the language of longing. By the tender hissing I am embraced and healed, tumble into sleep accompanied by the hissing, get covered by the softly rattling breath. They sleep, wake up, move and dance into the morning.

ní nán (UHJ Reduction)

wei yang

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