Dapple Metal

1996 9 minutes
tape
Performances
1996
 Alte Giesserei, Schaffhausen, Switzerland
1997
 27e Festival international des musiques et créations électroniques, Bourges, France
2001
 Lucerne, Switzerland

I am indebted to my colleague at the Swiss Computer Music Centre (as it was called then), Martin Neukom, whose impressive recordings of sounds from a metal foundry are the basic material of this piece. As is often the case, when the inspiration-material is so good, one hesitates to do anything at all, the music is already there, to add to it would be gilding the lily. Finally I decided to do the opposite. Where the original was overwhelmingly loud, my piece would be soft, where it was exceedingly dense, mine would be porous. I would make a piece of dots, of blotches, a pointillistic, dappled piece.

There are nine sections, each approximately a minute long. The sections are organised according to Abelian Form: sections 1, 5, and 9 are related, also sections 2 and 4, 3 and 7, 6 and 8. Just before the end we hear a foreign voice, a comment from the depths of the sea — a whale.

Dapple Metal
Flyer for the Concert in Lucerne (27. 01. 2001) organised by Martin Neukom where ‘Dapple Metal’ was also heard.
Flyer for the Concert in Lucerne (27. 01. 2001) organised by Martin Neukom where ‘Dapple Metal’ was also heard.