Performed by and written for Heather Roche.

As if on a hunt for matsutake mushrooms—which can only grow in areas disturbed by humans—the faltering but desired pitches only reveal themselves as a result of precarity between agencies. Heather must allow her instrument to bloom, but dismiss or restrict any promising buds. As a result, the porousness of the instrument and Heather is highlighted; the two become entangled, an ever-transitioning assemblage of plateauing possibilities, encouraging a mode of being that delves into the contextual nature of instability.

...to notice autumn aromas, through...

A work for ‘cellos and water sounds. Written for and performed by Anton Lukoszevieze. Water sounds from Fewston Reservoir and Adel Dam Nature Reserve.

'dancing in the wash'

—

Programme note:
Water offers rigidity to plants, carves landscapes, and nurtures both human and non-human beings. But this aquatic life-giver is not a stable entity: it flitters and dances between states of liquid, gas, and ice. These states are always moved towards, but upon their arrival, the motion of changing to another is already underway. Indeed, even within larger bodies of water that might seem contained, such as reservoirs and lakes, water is rarely stable but lining up the next line of flight: this substance that is so crucial to shaping experience—to the point that it becomes embedded in its definition—is in a state of permanent liminality. 

Indeed, in much mythology, these bodies of water are understood as portals to other worlds that are often guarded by gatekeeper spirits. However, if water might not be understood as a stable entity—rather a substance that highlights and propagates a sprawling web of transient connections—this potential for teleportation and transformation might be embedded in the world and world-making activities. 

This piece uses the ’cello to draw attention this transitory process that prioritises ongoing transition over destinations, and imagines this potential of portals to be omnipresent but often ungraspable. Importantly, stability is always aimed towards—dancing on the precipice of becoming—but collapses as it emerges. One might be guided by spirits to look through portals to alternatives, but as they’re moved towards, they transition from the visible and aural ‘real’ to the imaginary.

...murmur upon murmur upon murmur...

"In fact, what doesn't show, really, is more important than what does show" — Louise Bourgeois.

Created across a few days of simultaneous isolation, these fragments explore emptiness and the potential importance of what is not heard.

Roxanna Albayati — cello and voice
Ed Cooper — guitar and editing

Image: Untitled, no. 5 of 14, from À l'Infini by Louise Bourgeois

In fact, what doesn't show, really, is more important than what does show

An infinitesimal jostling of a body to itself. Bass clarinet, voice, and audio.

Written for and performed by Alex Lyon. Recorded in Leeds, October 2022.

THE FOUNTAIN (... through your wooden spine...)

Their arrhythmia, they hear, so I listen. I hold them through me, awkwardly, more for me than them. Arms clumsy, entangled, I hear myself, through them. I share my pulse, just, knowing it will be heard but, likely, not listened to. But I still hold, they are still, I am not still. Aural spectres hold sub eclipse blood work. So I listen, hoping they hear. They can't hear my pulse, because I hold them, arms clumsy. A heard pulse, not listened to, I hold in my awkward hands. My blood work, sub itself, listening to its spectre. Work is spoken, but, not heard, and not listened to. My ears wane. I hear them and they try to hear each other as they eclipse. Blood work rushes from them, through them, between them, as an arrhythmic moonlight mobile. Spectres hold me, they hear, more for me than them, awkwardly, so I listen. I hear, their hold, a spectre, so I can't listen, but I don't mind. My pulse through their pulse, spectral, I hear and hold, I am not still. My ears wax. I hear, I do not need to be heard to listen.

———

Written for Gunnhildur Einarsdóttir and Sarah Nemtsov's harp composition class at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse 2023. Performed by Jenna Vergeynst.

For Kari x

SUB ECLIPSE BLOOD WORK

Nostalgic ears listened through their selves, finding orbit in each other; muted, anonymous noise welcomed.
An intimate resonance sheltered through seclusion,
contorted sounds of adolescence only recognisable to earlier modes of auscultation.

Subdued expression through elongation, hiding and revealing saturation through blankness.

Still lifes turning their selves inside out, then.
I repeatedly echo: ‘Can’t you write your own songs?’
Momentarily filtered through Hekate, the disintegrating duo find rhythm, pulses and beatings of resonance, some feasibly owned but mainly borrowed.

Muted, anonymous noise in the hotel room; not mine this time. I knew my ears would be dislodged, now they whir, unable to listen to each other, but their suspension is held. 
They listen with, I listen with; orbits of fragile resonance now creating chambers within each other.

((They hold, I hold;
they tend, I tend;
they resonate, I resonate;
they listen with, I listen with)).

———

Written for Luxembourg Composition Academy 2023 as part of rainy days festival. Performed by United Instruments: two violins, bass clarinet, bass flute, piano, and tape. Premiered at neimënster, 25 Nov 2023, and produced by Tritone Studios.

Undoing

Performed by Lotte Betts-Dean. Live recording taken from Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, 20 March 2024.


Electronics adapted from a piece originally for Stephanie Lamprea.


Artwork is a detail of 'Christ Among the Doctors' (1506) by Albrecht Dürer.


A setting of text adapted from Gillian Rose’s memoir Love’s Work. Below is the original in full:

'Hands no longer marvel at the beauty of hands: they cease to stroke, slowly, repeatedly, the long, speechful fingers; her hands can no longer reach their short, maladroit, childlike friends. Palm no longer paddles in palm, kissing with inside lip.

Lips still meet lips, full enough for breach of promise, unlike the lipless organs of politicians. Lip no longer sucks in lip, tongue roving around the songlines, greeting whorl upon whorl of inner ear. The embrace of face by face is the true carnival of sex beyond gender.

He no longer calls my name. (He no longer even uses my name.)

‘Loss’ is a loose description. The movement from eros passion through the passion of faith to the everyday and the ethical, enhanced when together and, equally, when apart, is missing. In place of the unselfconsciousness of mutual love, its berth of listening stillness, a hateful self-regard is unleashed to gnaw the Beloved, the disappointed one.'

They no longer call my name. (They no longer even use my name.)

Written for Leeds Lieder Festival 2017.

Poem by Ralph Dartford. Performed by Jacqui Wicks and Jonny Best. Recorded live at Leeds College of Music, 22nd April 2017.

On those early mornings
we would meet the others gaze.
The Cornflake Kid.
The Marmalade Marvel.

I would tell you that you’d
make it through.
You always said the same to me.
We hugged when we confessed.

We had but a little time
to laugh and dance.
To show our best
behind closed doors.

It was when they were
flung wide open again.
That’s when terror rushed in
to pull you under.

When your gaze dropped.

https://memoirsofadiscodancer.wordpress.com/

Written for LSTwo. Performed at the University of Leeds, 8th December 2018.

https://livestream.com/uol/lstwo-19?t=1544396044&fbclid=IwAR05jndrV-pBVcol-k_AirYwSsvntW0d4zr_3Guk2-NbGKLoj4FVFdlieJc

places/place divides the performers into two groups. The outer performers listen to different soundscape recordings and work through a prose score indicating how to react to the sounds that they hear. As the piece progress, there is an ever stronger cross-over between the sounds coming from their headphones and those produced by other performers, to the point that they can no longer hear the recorded material. The abstraction of place has been used to a new, otherwise unachievable ‘composite place’, a conglomerate of the simultaneous interpretations of several soundscapes including the one that is being created.
	The central ensemble function as an ornamentation of the process going on around them. The conductor is given sonic cues and brings in the group’s ‘fragmentary ripples’ accordingly. These ripples go on to affect the listening experiences and subsequent playing of the outer ensemble.
	Through setting up both of these groups, an unstable social creative force is momentarily brought to life before gradually seeping back into the ambient sounds from whence it came.

places/place

falling in and out of itself; perpetually uncertain; directionless; bewildering expanses

Performed by Beth Vaughan (flute), Ruth Harris (bass clarinet), Antonio Yao (double bass) and Matilda Lush-McCrum (cymbals).

from which, falters and withers

Performed by Reanimation Orchestra. Rehearsal recording 19/06/20.

JD Zazie (turntables, CDj), Ingólfur Vilhjálmsson (contrabass clarinet), Caroline Cecilia Tallone (prepared hurdy gurdy), Elo Masing (violin) and Jack Adler-McKean (tuba)

Ed Cooper

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