Performed at the Festival of Laurence Crane: A Tribute Concert on Monday 18th October 2021.

The title is an accidental pun on Laurence’s Bobby J for electric guitar. I was chatting with Patrick about putting the piece together and told him we might both have to muster up our best Bobby D impressions (aka Bob Dylan).

Lara Agar (violin, harmonica)
Christian Drew (guitar, harmonica)
Harry Harrison (percussion, harmonica)
Patrick Hegarty (guitar, harmonica)
Darius Paymai (harmonium, harmonica)

Bobby D

'Aetherworld' by Shiva Feshareki
Recorded live at the BBC Proms 2021
From the album Shiva Feshareki: Turning World
Out 27 May 2022 on NMC Recordings

Shiva Feshareki - turntables
Kit Downes - organ
BBC Singers
Sofi Jeannin - conductor

Shiva Feshareki: Turning World

Shiva Feshareki: Aetherworld (excerpt)

Nr. 53 (Trödelmarkt)

For solo violin, performed by Jeanne-Marie Conquer of Ensemble Intercontemporain at the University of York, 22nd November 2022.

A phasmid is a creature from the order of insects that includes stick insects, but here it refers to the Insulidian Phasmid, a fictional creature from Disco Elysium, ZA/UM's elegiac 2019 masterpiece. At the game's climax, the giant insect emerges from the reeds, stridulating while it converses with you. Its chirruping is described as sounding 'like a reel-to-reel tape machine spinning after the tape breaks', creating sounds 'that swarm around you head like swallows. Like laughter. A sort of happiness.'

Phasmid

Composer: Shiva Feshareki

Title: The Torus of Revolution  

Year: 2020

Length: 35’

Instrumentation List: Fixed Ambisonic Electronics (or multitrack file) and surround-sound speaker arrangement.

Description: This state-of-the-art 3D sound sculpture is for installation in an exhibition space or concert hall. It was composed live in performance by Shiva Feshareki at Hellerau Arts Centre,  Germany, inside an ambisonic speaker dome,  using her turntables as a unique instrument of sound manipulation. Recordings of her previous acoustic and electronic compositions are used as samples that are spatially and sonically transformed into new perspectives, live in improvisation. The sound sculpture moves within space as intangible objects and spatial patterns, and has since been exhibited as a fixed installation at London’s Southbank Centre. Commissioned by the Hellerau European Centre of the Arts.

Performers in audio example: Shiva Feshareki (ambisonic turntables).

The Torus Of Revolution (2020) [Excerpt]

The Leeds Cross stands in Leeds Minster. A sign in the minster itself describes the cross: 

“The pieces making up the cross were found built into the medieval structure during demolition of the church in 1838. The cross would originally have stood outside the church, together with other crosses, and may have served as a grave marker. It dates to the tenth century A.D., and is carved in the Anglian style. The wheel-head originally belonged to another cross, although the shaft would have had a similar top. All the crosses from Leeds appear to have been produced in one workshop, and also have artistic links with other pieces from Wharfedale, such as the Collingham, Otley and Ilkley crosses. 

The upper tiers show several probably Christian figures, the angel and patron possibly copied from Irish manuscript art. At the bottom of the main faces are figures from Germanic mythology. One panel shows Weland the Smith, who was captured by Nithad, hamstrung, and forced to work as a smith. In revenge Weland murdered Nithad’s two sons and made their skulls into cups which he presented to their father, and then made Nithad’s daughter, Beaduhild, pregnant. Weland escaped by means of a flying machine, which is here shown strapped around him. He is shown surrounded by the tools of his trade and reaching up to seize a female figure, possibly Beaduhild or a Valkyrie, by the hair and skirt. The juxtaposition of Christian and pagan iconography indicates the mixed nature of tenth-century society, although the figure of Weland was sometimes employed to represent Elijah who ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot.”

I recorded violinist and composer, James Gerrard, playing On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at. This Yorkshire folk song is based upon the hymn Cranbook; just like the Leeds Cross, it is simultaneously Christian and non-Christian. I also recorded James reading a sign describing the various sections of the cross, and combined these with recordings of bells, birds, and footsteps, all captured either in the minster itself or directly outside. I have attempted to replicate the cross’s beautiful, confusing, fragmentary character, and was inspired by its iconography, both Christian and non-Christian.

Originally From Another Cross

For piano soloist and nine players. Performed by Jin Hyung Lim (piano) and the University of York Chamber Ensemble (cond. John Stringer)in the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, York,  4th May 2016.

Work details: https://patrickjohnjones.com/music/list-of-works/cast/

Cast (Excerpt)

Commissioned by EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble. 
https://cassandramiller.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/guide/

Guide

Guide - EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble (2013)

for four of the same instrument and audio [version for alto saxophones]
commissioned by the Richmond Concert Society for W37 Saxophone Quartet

“Shoegaze Medieval is based on the ballad Corps Feminin (c.1390) by the ars subtilior composer Solage (c.1340-1400), examining and reworking its materials within a loose and blurry context. All four instruments fulfil equal roles within the work’s heterophonic surface, cycling through the song’s pitch material in loosely constructed canons, but with newly conceived rhythms and durations. The electronic component is made from a series of manipulated audio recordings of the piece, processed and layered again in canonic textures to provide a hazy and psychedelic wash behind the instruments. This process draws from the subgenre of indie and alternative music known as ‘shoegaze’, which came to prominence in the UK in the late 1980s and is noted for its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion, effects pedals and feedback.”

Shoegaze Medieval

Solo violin, commissioned and performed by Darragh Morgan

Still/s 14

I made this field recording of St Paul’s Cathedral bells quietly chiming using their Ellacombe apparatus, last September. Here's more about the background to the recording.

The sound I have missed most since coronavirus broke out is that of church bells change ringing. When the country went into lockdown the ringing stopped as services were suspended. But even after they were resumed most ringers stayed away because of difficulties social distancing up a bell tower.

I came into the City of London on Sunday 6th September 2020 because I’d heard that St Paul’s Cathedral bells were back in action. Before the pandemic, I’d often bring people to the courtyard to listen to them ringing for 11.30am Eucharist, as part of The London Ear guided walk that I lead (https://dotmakertours.co.uk/walks/londonear/). The full twelve bells would create an immense noise as they rotated back and forth on wheels operated by ringers pulling ropes. All the reflected sound, overtones and passing traffic would make it hard to discern the notes being rung according to ‘methods’ (a bit like mathematical formulae for the changing sequences of bell strikes). The whole effect was spectacular, uplifting and a little disorienting.

With those memories in mind, my experience that Sunday morning felt surreal. Instead of the usual sea of sound, I heard just six bells quietly chiming the changes. For the first time, I could follow the patterns of notes. Church bells are carefully tuned to produce a ‘strike tone’ – the note that we perceive – and a range of harmonics (see image above of the spectral frequency analysis). I found my ear latching onto the harmonics hovering spookily a minor third above each bell’s strike tone. Apart from the occasional build up of buses there was little ambient noise to distract; only footsteps, chatter and the odd bicycle wheeling across the courtyard. I spent most of my time just listening and taking in the strangeness of the situation. I did though make this short recording.

I since contacted the Cathedral’s Guild of ringers to find out what was happening. They explained the bells were being chimed using the Ellacombe apparatus attached to bells 3-8 (or what I would think of as bells F to D). It’s a mechanism that makes it possible for just one person to perform change ringing. They do this by pulling on ropes in a fixed frame to operate hammers that strike the insides of the bells which remain static throughout. I gather that in the past the Guild used the apparatus to chime for the early morning service each weekday; and in more recent (pre-Covid) times for the 8am service on Sundays. Since the pandemic, they have been using it for all real-life Sunday services (when the rules permit).

The person chiming the bells that Sunday morning was Leigh D Simpson. Here’s what Leigh had to say about his experience:

"In many ways chiming feels like any performance. Apprehension is supplanted by concentration: that sort of concentration where time starts to drift and other concerns fade away. Having worked as an organist these sensations certainly felt familiar, but chiming brings its own character. Bells are so much more audible than other instruments and the bells of St Paul’s even more so, but my experience is entirely disconnected from any “audience”. Hidden behind the walls of the ringing chamber I might have an audience of thousands, or of none.

After nervous glances at the clock it’s time to stop. The loneliness intensifies. The walls that divide me from the world used to be a welcome home for our band of ringers but now it is only I. The sound of the bells fades into a vacuum."

I was very moved by the sense of lonely disconnectedness he describes. It feels so much a condition of our Covid times; and is something that I think makes the recording all the more meaningful.

Cast (Excerpt)

Patrick John Jones

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