Just got back from the CAMP residency Modern Composition with Gavin Bryars. A truly sublime experience located in an old village house, around 1200m high in the awesome snow-capped tree-lined mountains of the French Pyrenees. I composed a piece called ‘Metal Water Wood‘ by percussive tapping and bowing with a double bass bow on various found objects in the garden and outbuildings, such as a hub cab, metal gate, rusty wire, fuel tank and so forth. I combined selected fragments with field recordings from the mountain stream and L’Eglise. Sounds were recorded using a combo of contact, hydrophonic and condenser mics. The piece has a distinctly gamelan-esque vibe to it, and some listeners also compared it to Delia Derbyshire’s and Cage’s work, which was nice. Hoping it will find its way onto a CAMP release in due course – watch this space.
musician, composer, performer, moving image artist
