(2015)
Stereomix of 6-channel original.

Astrocyte (Astro from Greek astron = star and cyte from Greek “kyttaron” = cell) are characteristic star-shaped glial cells in the brain and spinal cord. Recent research (2015) has shown that these cells have a important role to help the brain to remember. They have also been showed to occilate.

In this electro-acoustic piece, which forms part III of a larger piece for cello solo, electronics and visual performance, I have imagined this “cell – world”; how these cells sends information and how that may sound like.

Formally the piece contains 10 “phrases” of different lengths. (These different phrases; their lengths, construction etc. are connected to the piece in its whole and could be regarded as a way at looking into the brain and see, through the astrocytes, how it treats the memory (and pre-memory) of the piece… a kind of information flow of every part… but condensed).

astrocyte

On a pure musical level this music is about contrasts.
Two ‘themes’; one melodic, looping restatements, obstacles and ornamented planes, tentative lattices of simultaneity, networks forming and diffusing with a fine tread running between the instruments;
the other like a broken machine, jolting and splattering. But also ‘themes’ against ‘no-theme’, or development against ‘staticness’ and so on… (Meaning against No Meaning).

Maybe what I am after with this music is what’s between these contrasts, leaving the music for itself, “being by itself”.
But in the moment that is created between these contrasts a new thought can be formed by the listener.
When you turn your attention to it, the meaningless meaning assumes a meaning that defeats its own purpose.
There is no more meaningless meaning.
Meaning now has some meaning. It points to something else.
But when we become meaning itself, we need not talk about meaning anymore.

Meaning Of No Meaning

A simulacrum (from Latin: which means likeness, similarity) is a representation or imitation of a person or thing; copies that depict things that either had no original to begin with, or that no longer have an original. This piece largely deals with constant repetitions of ‘damaged’ materials and their potential expressiveness. The simulacrum is the content which affect or ‘modifies’ these repetitions; the system in which different relates to different by means of difference itself. ‘It is not the same which returns, it is not the similar which returns; rather, the same is the returning of that which returns, – in other words, of the Different.’ [G. Deleuze]
While it is a truism that music is an art of time, most of my pieces are concerned in some way with time and its perception which, in this piece, determines the formal principle of fragmentation in each case. Between each fragment is a simulacrum and the return of material affirms difference, dissemblance and disparateness, chance, multiplicity and becoming.
The original (virtual) material could be categorised as:

1. Texture (recognisable consistent quality field)
2. Gesture (semantically energized emotive signifier)
3. Figure (conglomerate of potentially independent formal markers)

and

border-states (time transformations): glissando, static texture, slowly changing texture, ‘coloured silence’, complete silence.
The piece ‘flirts’ with two types of time: the faster, highly figured material and; a ‘frozen’ sustained texture (border state). These border-states also create (in my perception) a “macro-rhythm” within the piece. But qualitatively perceived states can overlap, rather than being organized into a distinct succession as concepts; creating a (vision of) ‘confused multiplicity’. This is perhaps most apparent in the ‘insert’ of the percussion solo where figures occur against a timeless backdrop of ‘ethereal slow motion’.

A ‘concerto for ensemble’ Simulacrum is written for players often momentarily deployed in small chamber groups or, more rarely, as soloists. Although, because the wind section is populated with different register instruments (i.e. piccolo, flute / Bb clarinet, Bass clarinet / bassoon, contrabassoon) and the range of percussion is sizeable, my intention is that the piece’s colour-spectrum is richer still than the 23-strong ensemble suggests.

Simulacrum (excert)

‘Whereas in the symbol destruction is idealized and the transfigured face of nature is fleetingly revealed in the light of redemption, in allegory the observer is confronted with the facies hippocratica (totenkopf) of history as a petrified primordial landscape. Everything about history that from the very beginning has been untimely, sorrowful, unsuccessful, is expressed in a face – or rather in a death’s head.’ (W. Benjamin)

This piece started off as what could perhaps be labelled a ‘transit piece’ in the context of the cycle einbahnstraße. This is even (somewhat naively) represented in the work by the transitions in register in the 2 instruments: the piccolo beginning with its very lowest note and always aiming upwards; and the other instrument’s opposite route. But this allegorical transit is constantly unsuccessful; other material breaking through and piling themselves up and what could be simple becomes complex and fragmented.

totenkopf

fluchtlinien – With this concept Deleuze and Guattari points at possible alternatives to the dominating approach. One example is how the music sends out lines of flight (fluchtlinien) when it multiplies and spreads like a diverse weed of sound. Fluchtlininen thus indicates the potential for something different to take shape, for example, the opportunity of re-thinking.
Every form of life – a body, a social group, an organism or even a concept – consists of links and connections. Genes come together to form cells; cells are collected to form tribes. The term ‘human being’ is an example of such an interconnection of reason, a certain type of body (white, male), speech, and so on. But every connection also allows a fluchtlinie; there is always the potential for genetic mutation. The definition of man as rational also enables a dispute about what constitutes humanity: e.g., is it rational to put up a stock of nuclear weapons? Thus, every definition wears, every territorialisationtorium or body, the opportunities that opens up for a fluchtlinie that could turn it into something else.

In fluchtlinien-E the piece gets another dimension by setting the extremely thoroughly notated flute material with a semi-improvisation part for electronics that just has to obey some simple rules. The electronic part is in many ways also an extension of the percussion part from fluchtlinien-D.

fluchtlinien-E

The Latin title has a dual meaning: uncertain (art)work and a term for a Roman masonry where the wall consists of irregularly placed stones of different sizes and materials.

The piece can be divided into 9 “blocks” of material placed next to each other. Parts of these blocks are clearly linear and through the progress of the piece gradually reveal an underlying acceleration. Others are more sublime, fragmentary, atomized, grumbling, private and uncertain: intensely focusing on details.

The different blocks may also be heard as different types of time: “now-time” which is divided ad infinitum into something that has just happened and something that will happen, constantly flying in both directions simultaneously; “cyclic time”, filled with states and movements of objects; “material-bound time”, the temporality of the concrete figure. Sudden changes in structure, perspective and direction.

The work as a transition between solely imperfections.
The fragment attracts and promises something else.
Layers are laid over layers, “strata super strata”.

OPUS INCERTUM

This purely electronic piece acts as a beginning of an upcoming chamber-pantomim-ballet based on the poetry collection ”The Tale of Fatumeh” by the Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf (1907-1968).

It is the tale of Fatumeh, a girl sold into prostitution by her mother, then for a while kept as a concubine by a prince, abondened but surviving by force of spirit. Although the story is conventionally tragic, the vitality of Fatumeh brings a completely new dimension to the story.

The collection of poems are devided into two parts; the first naming the poems Naẓm 1-29, the second Tesbīḥ 1-29.

Naẓm, literally meaning “stringing (pearls, beads, etc.)” early acquired the meaning of “versifying” and became almost synonymous with “poetry”. The comparison of a poem to a necklace, or verses to pearls, is apt in view of the relative independence of the individual verses, held together on the string of the uniform metre and rhyme.

The string of beads is usually made of 3 x 33 beads. Between these groups of 33 a distinguishing bead is inserted, often in the shape of a snake’s head. This special bead goes by many names, one of which is ”dasta”.

As mentioned above, Ekelöf doesn’t use the number 33 but instead the prime-number 29, which he thought would get a better ”sum” in the finished work. And just as with the pearl rope, he inserts special poems in-between.

The material of the electronics are made in two different ways: by electronic synthesis and by modified recordings of various objects such as bells, piano, violin, etc. In the end of the piece the first ”Snakehead” poem, in a fragmented version, can be heard (in the voice of Kazuko Ihara).

In autumn or in spring –
What does it matter
In youth or in age –
So what?
Still You disappear
In the picture of it All
You have disappeared, You disappeared
now, just now
or a thousand years ago
But Your disappearance itself
remains.

dasta

for electronic music for 8 speakers
(stereo version)

first performance: 23 March, 2009; Malmö, Sweden

ROTATIONS – The piece consists of 48 different voices whish all has its own shape, range, dynamic envelope, sound composition, tempo and rhythm. Every one of these voices rotates at different speeds around the room; the slowest taking 21 minutes for one rotation, the fastest 0.5 seconds. An unbelievable room-polyphony is created. Obviously not all 48 voices are heard all the time, but in the most dense part, at 15 minutes, they all come together.

SHADOWS – “As the ideas are the principal forms of things, according to which all is formed … so we should form in us the shadows of ideas … so that they may be adaptable to all possible formations. We form them in us, as in the revolution of wheels. If you know any other way, try it.” (Giordano Bruno: Shadows (De umbris idearum))

Rotations-Shadows

Das Ende Eines Wintermärchens, Part III from Cycle 1 of "syntheric fragments" recorded by Ensemble Aleph @ Abbaye Fontevraud 2014

DAS ENDE EINES WINTERMÄRCHENS

Nazm 7 – no different from birds the souls speak
from chamber pantomime/chamber balett "Fatumeh"

for piccolo solo with, or without, electronic music

piccolo - Kazuko Ihara
recorded in Tokyo 2024

Nazm 7 – no different from birds the souls speak

Rhizom - live in Vigo November 30, 2014 with Vertixe Sonora

Rhizom (2014) - Vertixe Sonora

Recorded by Karen Heath in Melbourne, august 2024
Score published by Babelscores

Tesbih 17, for bass clarinet, as quasi-concert version, from the chamber-pantomim-ballet based on the poetry collection ”The Tale of Fatumeh” by the Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf (1907-1968).


It is the tale of Fatumeh, a girl sold into prostitution by her mother, then for a while kept as a concubine by a prince, abondened but surviving by force of spirit. Although the story is conventionally tragic, the vitality of Fatumeh brings a completely new dimension to the story.


The collection of poems are devided into two parts; the first naming the poems Naẓm 1-29, the second Tesbīḥ 1-29.


Your head breathes heavily, slowly, Fatumeh
it swells and contracts
as if it felt the burden of
its own weight on the pillow –
of the long threads of the thoughts
of the fringes of the thoughts
Your spring was blue, with a sprinkling of red
Red your summer was
Blood red now in autumn
You are like the jellyfish, blooming
before its end with long threads
Your head tries to breathe
where you lie where the waves hit the sand
with scarcely enough water
to move up or down
There is no depth anymore
and no hope – or is there still?
Yes, to sink into one’s own depth of jelly
when the sea pulls back
and you lie left on the sand
and shrivel
Turn to stone.

Tesbih 17 – Your Head Breathes Heavily, Slowly, Fatumeh

UŠḪUM.GAL (/uʃˈxum ɡal/) (Akkadian: 𒍑𒄷𒅗𒃲) is a concept from Mesopotamian mythology and linguistic tradition, referring to a powerful mythological serpent or dragon. The name literally means "great serpent" or "great dragon" in Akkadian. In akkadian art and literature, such creatures often represent chaos or the cosmic struggle between order and disorder.

Recorded by Jack Adler-McKean

UŠḪUM.GAL

from the chamber-pantomim-ballet based on the poetry collection ”The Tale of Fatumeh” by the Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf (1907-1968).
It is the tale of Fatumeh, a girl sold into prostitution by her mother, then for a while kept as a concubine by a prince, abondened but surviving by force of spirit. Although the story is conventionally tragic, the vitality of Fatumeh brings a completely new dimension to the story.
The collection of poems are devided into two parts; the first naming the poems Naẓm 1-29, the second Tesbīḥ 1-29.

Avgó

Before the 29 Naẓm, inbetween the Naẓm and Tesbīḥ poems as well as after the last Tesbīḥ, Ekelöf have inserted 3 poems which he calls “ormhuvud” (Python-head). Avgó refers to the last one and the music serves as an outro of the chamber-pantomim-ballet. Avgó means “egg” in old Greek and is a symbol for rebirth. The poem reads:
Avgó! Avgó! So she sees you
the poor peasant wife
who when the wooden plow has made a row
lifts her face
and wipes the sweat from her forehead
before she starts on the next
– Are you an egg in space
that the hen laid with a rough shell
or are you a wind-egg, a faded mirror
for our plots and mountains?
But the angel grabs her arm
and points to the side
There a Star just fell and left a space
in the crescent Moon
The material of this electronic piece comes completely from recorded flute and clarinet parts from Fatumeh. 


Avgó

The title of this work, seals, comes from the Italian philosopher, mathematician, poet, Dominican friar and astrologer Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600). Although not widely recognized he is celebrated for his cosmological theories, which went even further than the then-novel Copernican model. Bruno also correctly proposed that the Sun was just another star moving in space, and claimed as well that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds, identified as planets orbiting other stars. Because of his, at the time, radical thinking (including supporting Galileo Galilei) Bruno was forced to leave Italy in 1576, first to France and later to England and Germany. In 1591, in a time when the Inquisition seemed to be losing some of its impetus, and Venice seemed especially safe as it was the most liberal state in Italy; therefore Bruno was lulled into making the fatal mistake of returning to Italy. In 1592 he was arrested by the Venetian Inquisition, sent to Rome and charged of blasphemy and heresy. After 7 years of trial the Inquisition found him guilty, and in 1600 Bruno was burned at stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori. Bruno’s case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the future of the emerging sciences.

In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles and it is these writings that the title of my piece refer to. Early in 1583, soon after his arrival in England, Bruno published the massive volume on memory which is referred to as Seals, though it really consists of four items, as follows:


     Ars reminiscendi
     Triginta sigilli
     Explanatio triginta sigillorum
     Sigillus sigillorum


So, 30 seals (Triginta sigilli) and the seal of seals (Sigillus sigillorum). What then are these seals? The art of mnemonics tradition, e.g. Fra Agostino del Riccio’s work Arte delle memoria locale (unpublished, but the manuscript exists in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence) uses the idea of presenting the principles and various techniques of the art through little symbolic pictures, with titles. This is exactly what the Seals are, statements of the principles and techniques of the art – but, magicised, complicated with Lullism and Cabbalism, blown up into inscrutable mysteries.

The seals are not confined to any one system. On the contrary Bruno states that he is trying every possible way; perhaps something for which he is not looking may emerge out of this, as alchemists who do not succeed in making gold sometimes hit on other important discoveries. In the later Seals he is trying variations of astrological arrangements, devices of a Lullist nature (or what he supposes to be Lullist), infiltrations of Cabalist magic in the unending search for a really operative organisation of the psyche. And the search always brings in the tricks of the memory trade, the old techniques of which can be recognised in Seal after Seal, though now presented as occult mysteries.
If we drop the word ‘magical’ and think of the efforts of an occult memory artist as directed towards drawing out of the psyhe combinations of ‘archetypal’ images we come within range of some major trends of modern psychological thought.

There is something, to my mind, profound in the Seals, as though in its inner moulding of significant memory statues, this drawing out of tremendous forms by subtraction of the inessential, Giordano Bruno, the memory artist, were introducing us to the core of the creative act, the inner act which precedes the outer expression.

The work seals I is one of eleven works for solo instruments which form cycle III of “synthetic fragments”.

seals I (version for violin solo & ensemble) Odysseia Ensemble - Brussels

A. Rombolá (flute), N. Andorrà (perc)

fluchtlinien-D is fluchtlinien with a structured improvised percussion part.

fluchtlinien – With this concept Deleuze and Guattari points at possible alternatives to the dominating approach. One example is how the music sends out lines of flight (fluchtlinien) when it multiplies and spreads like a diverse weed of sound. Fluchtlininen thus indicates the potential for something different to take shape, for example, the opportunity of re-thinking.
Every form of life – a body, a social group, an organism or even a concept – consists of links and connections. Genes come together to form cells; cells are collected to form tribes. The term ‘human being’ is an example of such an interconnection of reason, a certain type of body (white, male), speech, and so on. But every connection also allows a fluchtlinie; there is always the potential for genetic mutation. The definition of man as rational also enables a dispute about what constitutes humanity: e.g., is it rational to put up a stock of nuclear weapons? Thus, every definition wears, every territorialisationtorium or body, the opportunities that opens up for a fluchtlinie that could turn it into something else.

fluchtlinien-D

Live at Embassaden, Århus Mars, 2016 with
Curious Chamber Players (Dries Tack, Karin Hellqvist, Frederik Munk Larsen, Rei Munakata).

http://curiouschamberplayers.com/

Beyond The Quintessential Quincunx

matheme (2015-16) for double trio (bass flute, bass clarinet, contrabass – violin, alto trombone, piano) Each trio can also be performed separately as: - Meaning of No Meaning (bass trio) - myokonin (violin, alto trombone, piano)

The matheme indicates a relationship, where the relationship is problematic, unstable and continuously open to re-negotiation.
Two separated trios playing separate music. The ambiguity of where this music can meet seems to endorse the notion of a ‘transitive’ space – a matheme, creating an invisible third space perhaps.

Live recording from Sound of Stockholm festival, 10 November 2016 peformed by ensemble mise-en

matheme

Does shock have term limits? How disconnected are we? Or: Are we disconnected at all? – our supersaturated time may be hauling us inside death. With our senses and spirits fatigued, our incited souls nevertheless continue to reel from what we see. The cosmopolis of images thrives in our hiving minds. We are far from the realities of tanks, refugees, smart-bombs, bleeding. Yet we are engulfed by images that leave people (us, undone) bruised, ignited, hardly voyeurs, more like bewildered participants in a sensory conflict whose domain is also the psyche. We welcome clarity in speech yet still can't sort out our confusions. War, rarely in our interest, yet sometimes necessary: but what is the necessity now?
Yet even after reverberations of disaster, the images repeating, we appear to know no other way except to start another war. National consensus means that tragic images "haunt," but some priority compels us to override those impressions. Our lives are touched, and yet killing doesn't stop.

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