LinerNotes

My musical box version of Upshares Downshares that was aired on Radio 4 PM programme in January is to be included on a CD released by the BBC this autumn in aid of Children in Need.

I am collaborating with Dancing Brick theatre company – on the music and sound design for A L I C E

‘Alice’ is inspired by the old analogue test cards of the 1980s: the colours, the technical problems, the feeling of waking up at 6 in the morning and waiting expectantly for the TV programmes to start. It is about searching for signal and transmission, trying to pluck images out of the air.

A world exists on the other side of the colour bars: a world of VHS, of cassette tapes, of bright colours; a world counting down to the end, where a girl is looking for her lost doll through a storm of white noise.

Alice is being developed at BAC for performance in 2011.

A BAC Scratch Commission.

BBC Radio 4 played my Upstairs Downstairs musical box on their Upshares Downshares slot last night just after the 5.30pm news bulletin on the PM programme.

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link to details on the PM blog here:

Today I sampled a musical box that plays the Godfather love theme with the idea of manipulating the fragments to create a new piece for the “meta-musical box” to play.

Once I had the fragments, however, I decided to put together a version of Upstairs Downstairs as PM on Radio 4 has been playing listeners’ versions for the past few months on the Upshares Downshares slot.

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