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I wrote this in my final year at university.  After the difficulties of the large ensemble compositions I had done the previous year, I wanted to do a big work with a small number of people.  This made a rehearsal a snap, they should tell you this stuff in composition school but I had to find out the hard way.

I also wanted to explore rhythm and percussion in conjunction with electronics…and more specifically digital audio.  I didn’t have a lot of experience with recording at the time and didn’t really know where to start so I made a single recording of the word “finished”.  I then used the school’s studio to make hundreds of sounds for the peace.  Lourie Radford really guided me on this one helping avoid the mistakes of an earlier composition.

The work is all about the interaction between the very simple one performer percussion set up of 4 toms and a pitched timpani.  I had the performer, Nicholas Jacques, play all parts of the timpani while I manned the audio system for this recording.  Its a large work of over 10 minutes and the electro acoustic material is swelling and filled the hall.  One of my more successful compositions, it was programmed last and immediately brought forward commissions I never accepted.

Tartus

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There is lots of good use of the theremin, original drum samples, valuevillage records.

Stay Alive

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This one prominently features an old national geographic record we found at valuevillage.

Look Up

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This is a remix of an old partially destroyed big band record.

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To make these pieced Brian and I went around and recorded sounds, and friends and digitizing old records. We used sound forge and Acid mainly, as well as keyboards, guitars, Brian also had a theremin and an effects box. Lots of good times, and bad neighbors.