Each of the works in this Simon Emmerson album, creates and explores its own special acoustic spaces. In Sentences the singer’s varied interaction with her virtual selves creates ever changing spaces; it is as if she carries them with her on her journey like an aura. In Fields of Attraction the aura surrounding the quartet opens out into enormous landscapes that become the stage for the drama played out by the instruments. This contrasts wonderfully with the intimacy of Five Spaces, where we seem most of all to be exploring spaces inside the instrument itself. Arenas widens the spatial palette further to include the piano as resonator and the colour-resonances of the brass. Emmerson’s invites the listener into his very personal spaces where the acoustic and electroacoustic fuse into one.
Credits:
Simon Emmerson (live electronics and sound projection), Nicola Walker Smith (soprano), Geoff Smith (live electronics) Smith Quartet, Philip Sheppard (five stringed electric cello), Philip Mead (piano), Royal Northern College of Music Brass Quintet, James Gourlay (conductor)
Original recordings made in the studios at City University, London and in the Cosmo Rodewald Hall, University of Manchester. All tracks mixed and post-produced in the composer’s studio and in the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Studio at De Montfort University, Leicester.
TRACK LIST:
1 – 4. SENTENCES
(soprano, live electronics) (12:39)
5. FIELDS OF ATTRACTION
(string quartet, live electronics) (14:05)
6 – 10. FIVE SPACES
(electric cello, sound projection) (16:41)
11. ARENAS
(piano, brass quintet, live electronics) (27:24)
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