failure of hope, of morale, of resolve, of support, of materials, of the limited versus the almost unlimited, of the few versus the many, of an international order that wrings its hands and does too little against an alliance of despots who dance and prance and thump triumphal drums made of human bone and skin; the populism of gods and nations and resentments that wins again

we may be mean and foul but we keep on winning

iron will transforms the money of solipsistic ostriches, screeching at tawdry concepts like right and wrong, into arms; ploughshares into swords

who wants to tramp the fields when we can rove and plunder?

soothsayers with their tiresome reality checks block the road

get out of our way!

scant reassurance for the hoarders who learn so slowly or only when their assets decompose or fall apart or fail to work or rust or melt in blackouts that blur into each other

but look at the brochures! everything’s perfect!

edicts diffused hither and thither by broadcasters who say ‘we’re just a neutral medium’

in the name of free speech, leave us alone!  

if you don’t succeed, try again, and so it is with devils external that come for us with their claws and fangs; while devils internal crescendo from small disturbances in the continuum to waves of silent yells

those we render speechless are powerless against speech 

a dawn chorus of too little, too late; we can no longer sleep; the cavalry may arrive or not arrive, for first they must wash their horses

look how clean our horses are!

the glimmers we thresh about in fade to grumbling wasteland; the soil we profess to be ready to die for becomes ruby red and dry and churned up unrecognisably; the acres between graveyards shrink to strips and dead ends

we sit lonely on a knoll roasting chestnuts on the embers, recovering our breath, wondering what to do, surveying the devastation; the devils we released are resting satisfied in the gloom; we thank them; they smirk and spit and fly away, abandoning us to our justifications

Failure

Performed by Ensemble X:

Ellen Jewett - Violin
Elizabeth Simkin - Violoncello
Xak Bjerken - Piano

Turkish Premiere - August 2018, Cappadocia.

Art: Max Ernst

Leaked Tape from the Sacred Mysteries (2018) for piano trio

Stockholm Saxophone Quartet:
Mathias Björnstad
Jörgen Pettersson
Anna Magnusson
Linn Persson

Livestream: Johan E.Andersson
The concert was presnted by Estonian Music Days 2020

As I studied the recordings of various wolf howls I quickly learned that sensing each other’s presence through songs or voices, and the power or intimacy such a common experience creates is familiar both to people and the loneliest wolf cub. I viewed the spectral track of two different wolf packs and found fascinating musical references in the howling ensembles of the pack members. For example, in one of my recordings, the alpha established a specific pitch, the next wolf joined by sliding downwards, the third by sliding upwards and together they reached a pulsating unison that resounded throughout the woods. This pitch was also picked up on the other side of the forest and so they kept answering each other in this multi-choral manner for three minutes. While the pulsating unison might amplify the sound and give the impression that the number of wolves is greater, without the purpose of claiming territory the wolves’ bodies release happiness hormones and strengthen the ties within the pack.
In these 3 pieces similarly to wolves, the saxophones interact with each other in a temporally flexible manner, choosing and synchronising entrances and listening to the delicate microtonal shades of the unison.

Us... and Them... (2020) for saxophone quartet and wolves

Nikolai Galen is a performer and writer living in Istanbul

Failure

Nikolai Galen

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