At any rate – I. All The Lonely People (2018) – for amplified fl/picc., record player, cl, vln, vc, pno, and perc (10′)
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This work for amplified flute, record player, and ensemble is the first from a set of studies on vinyl records, each exploring a different record of cultural and “popular” significance in America, as well as the accompanying (and ubiquitous) noise inherently present with every type of record (33s, 45s, and 78s). What classifies these records as “popular?” If the materials found on these records are taken apart, stretched, slowed, chopped, and reconstituted, do the parts still come together to make a whole “popular” work? What artifacts from these records manifest themselves in this process? Which are lost? What new artifacts are gained through this reconstitution? How much of a work is essential in realizing it as its original itself? Is timbre just as important to these recordings as melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic contours in this recognition and appreciation?
In this first study, ATLP, pieces of a notable tune from The Beatles’ seminal record Revolver (one of the last 78s pressed) are taken, slowed down to a near standstill, and passed through a filter of various shades of harmonic and rhythmic fuzz, the flute floating anemically above the slowly shifting sonorities and record noise, sometimes being lost in the ether as a frail specter of Revolver–a reflection on loneliness.