On Fixed Freedoms, Rennie presents a highly personal work created in response to changing life circumstances as well as the universal upheaval of the pandemic. Across seven diverse pieces the accomplished producer, trombonist and composer pivots between diaristic field recordings and analogue synth experiments. 

In the context of the restrictions Rennie experienced along with the rest of society at the height of lockdown, the tracks on Fixed Freedoms took shape as reflections on constraint – whether personal, political or musical. As a predominantly collaborative artist, he was forced to look more critically at his own practice and test the possibilities of collaborating with himself. He captured field recordings which documented his move out of London to the South Coast town of Hastings, and worked in his studio on sequenced and freeform sessions in response to these sounds. Both locations carry their own meaning as sites of migration, gentrification, community and solitude, and so the recordings inspired responses in Rennie’s music which transcended his own immediate situation.

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Fixed Freedoms

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Muscle Memory *Out now limited edition 180g vinyl*

An acousmatic documentary in two parts, based on the sounds of protests recorded in Barcelona. 


Manifest

Sound artists, Tullis Rennie and Ruby Colley, invite you to immerse yourself in soundings taken from The Stade, Hastings, on walks exploring boundaries, continuity and complexity.

Presented at Hastings Contemporary Gallery (2023) and De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill (2024).

Sounding The Stade

A Beescape in sound created for installation at We Out Here festival 2024.

Just Bee by Katharine O'Brien & Tullis Rennie (for We Out Here Festival 2024)

This recording demonstrates what any obsessive knows: how many memories can be held within a single moment on one track from one record, and how much influence that can have on one’s own musical identity. The piece acts as a meta-text, revealing various layers to the act of listening.  

Graham and I met aged 18, in the first few days of us both beginning a music degree at the University of Manchester. There’s a chance we were both even geekier then than we are now. We haven’t really stopped talking about music since. It turns out that I’m quite rude when I’m excitable - sorry to interrupt you so much, mate.

Duration of full piece: 12 mins 30 seconds.

"We are listening to two guys talking about something that they love as they listen to it, and we therefore become rapidly complicit in their act of listening. We are simultaneously listening to them, and listening at one remove to what they are listening to. But of course our entire listening experience is also framed by the fact that this is a piece, a work. We are sitting in a performance space listening to a piece of soundscape, sonic art, electroacoustic composition, documentary—which of these is as yet unclear. There’s a sense in which, initially, we are simultaneously in the place of the performance, yet unsure of where we are, or of the status or mode of our listening, without this being in any sense uncomfortable or disorientating. Compositionally then, the piece is already addressing the different ways in which we habitually listen."

Simon Waters (2015) 'Tullis Rennie's Muscle Memory: Listening to the Act of Listening', Contemporary Music Review, 34:1, 22-32.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2015.1077563

Muscle Memory

Muscle Memory with Graham South (trumpet) *excerpt*

On January 21 2017, the first day of Donald Trump’s Presidency, women-led marches, welcoming all participants, took place across the world.

Waves of spontaneous cheering. Signs, placards and banners. Confusion, self organisation. Laughter, joy. Chanting, singing. Helicopters. Van drivers honking their horns. Sandi Toksvig addressing the assembled masses.

"a phenomenal day when London stopped to hear women's voices" Sandi Toksvig, Trafalgar Square.

Women's March on London, 21st January 2017

Muscle Memory with Matthew Bourne (Memorymoog) *excerpt*

Audio 'photographs' each the natural length of an on-the-fly field recording. Flip sides of London, criss-crossing the Thames, oscillating between trying to resist the city, or trying to move in step, in harmony. 

[Materials: two local train journeys; handheld recording device; single studio takes of Fender Rhodes, organ and a rudimentary drum machine; feedback loop]

NewX-StJohn

To Kentish Town

A listening score, based on 'Little Bird' by Germano Zullo & Albertine.

For Claudia Molitor's Hausmusik Kollektiv - a growing collection of scores to create, experience or perform at home. 

To participate, you should have: this sound file, the score [http://www.tullisrennie.com/just-one-is-enough], headphones, ten minutes.

1. Take five minutes to read this score while listening to the sound file on headphones.
2. Then, take five minutes to listen anew to your surroundings - with or without the score and headphones.
3. Afterwards, if you wish, make contact with someone, sharing the experience (you might call, speak in person, sing, sign, email, text, direct message, write a letter, or think towards them).

Participate

Just One Is Enough To Change The World

Happier wearing headphones. Likes a biscuit.

Tullis Rennie

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