I’m very excited to have collaborated with Sarah Jeffery (Team Recorder) on a new piece for Paetzold contrabass recorder. Escape Velocity is linear in form: as it progresses, Sarah continues to accumulate new sounds, consonants, shapes and gestures. By the time the piece is over, she is in possession of many more of these than she began with.

The form is simple, using the structure of the solar system as its model, where astronomical units are translated into durations. It is therefore a model that contracts the further in you go, inwards from Pluto (which I obviously have a soft spot for!) towards the sun. One particular gesture, the monolith of a sung multiphonic combined with a timbral trill, returns to mark the passing of each celestial body. All other gestures are organised into five categories: dense or pointilistic; monolithic; flexible/fluid; grey/gravitational; distant. As we approach the sun, the activity becomes gradually denser, louder, more violent. The piece wants to end with further frenetic activity, but instead settles on a quiet, introspective multiphonic.

Listen to Sarah’s incredible rendition of the piece HERE.