Leo Chadburn, Anticlock
Instrumentation
Amplified ensemble (9 players) and pre-recorded voices: violin, recorders, one player (soprano, alto, tenor), baritone sax, bass clarinet, trombone, percussion (one player: 2 dog clickers, woodblock, vibraphone, marimba, crash cymbal, large bass drum), piano, electric guitar, electric bass. All players double on dog clickers. N.B. other arrangements are possible: please contact Leo for details.
Duration: 14 minutes | Written: 2019 | Commissioned by Decibel
Programme Note
An exploration of the ambiguities of clock time, pulse, numbers, musical machines, extra-terrestrial communication and dog behaviour. The disembodied voice is an enigmatic acousmêtre*, a speaking metronome that the ensemble alternately obeys or counteracts.
The piece is written in thirteen one-minute-long movements that fluctuate between the exuberant and the sinister without warning:
- Entry
- Accelerate
- Zee
- Voiceless
- Non-Risset
- Dog
- Realclock
- Off (DJ Sensibilities)
- Series
- Voiced
- Dichotomies
- Print-Through
- Decelerate
* "...when we cannot yet connect [a voice] to a face, we get a special being, a kind of talking and acting shadow to which we attach the name acousmêtre...[its] powers are usually malevolent, occasionally tutelary" (Michel Chion, The Voice in Cinema, 1999)
Live Performances
- Decibel, 1 April 2019, Café Oto, London
- Decibel, 2 April 2019, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
