River Shannon Soundwalk (ICMC 2022)

“I don’t really pack much” was made as part of the Cities and Memory Until We Travel project in early spring 2021, when we were under a strict lockdown in Northern Ireland. During my daily walks through a nearby forest I would hear the occasional sound of aircraft above. The work combines snatches of conversation recorded on a flight, by Marcel Gnauk, with sounds of the forest, walking and repeated phrases from the original recording. It captures something of the unreality of that time when it was impossible to believe that mundane conversations might be going on the overhead flights.

Brooke Lanier is a Philadelphia-based painter most known for her depictions of water. In recent years, she has been painting the wear and tear of historic ships, such as the Gazela, docked on the Delaware River within walking distance of her studio. This interview with Lanier is about one of these paintings: “Gazela Bow, Overcast.” Her words are joined by sonic reimaginings of the pleated layers of paint, rust, and corrosion that are frequently at the heart of her practice.

Mono No Aware is a Japanese concept that refers to a nostalgic understanding of the transient nature of things. In this acousmatic piece, a train traveller in Japan undertakes a mental voyage into fragments of past memories, that inevitably warp and overlap with each other. This piece uses a technique that the composer has denominated as “klangfarbensampling”, or the distribution of a timbral “melodic” line comprised of fragmented recordings juxtaposed with textural layers of sound. The distributed melody is in itself a short summary of the piece nested into the first section, portraying a non-linear approach to time.