in a village, an occupied village,
a woman, younger than she looks, holds her head
her husband was shot for insolence
their house was flattened by shelling
she doesn’t know if she’s coming or going
she calls and calls for him

a soldier tells her to shut up
he tries to be heartless
yesterday, he raped a teenager in a barn
he didn’t kill her, it was just rape, as gentle as possible, but he feels guilty, 
he told her that if she said anything, he’d kill her
because if it got back to his wife, she’d leave him

he didn’t kill the girl 
and he doesn’t strike the woman 
but he hates the village 
where there’s nothing to do 
but obey the orders of incompetent commanders 
and loot the dead’s possessions from the ruins

he didn’t want to come here
he doesn’t want to stay here
he didn’t want to do any of the things he’s done here
he wasn’t himself, he can explain, something came over him,
between vulnerable and culpable, manipulated and vindictive
evil spirits entered through unhealing wounds

he wants to return to normality
a cloak he wears to cover up the turmoil
his madness and his nightmares
his raging and the mandates
his foolishness and his meanness
his monstrosity and his killer instinct 
his hunting instinct and his darkness
his loose hold on humanity and his maleness
the predator and the barbarian
his unleashed rapaciousness and his undischarging guilt
his ideological veneer and his rogue rollercoaster of feelings 
rupturing his composure
his sleeplessness and his mechanical thoughts
money love and his wish to be hard in the company of hard men
hero worship and suicidal urges and base instincts and regular bouts of violence
and his immense wish to cry
his headful of propaganda and his longing to be a hero
yet not a dead one

In a village

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

In a village

Nikolai Galen

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