Spilled Out from Tangles

Spilled out from tangles invites the listener into an intimate space, to take a seat beside the singer, and to pause; to visit four delicate soundworlds, each of which explores in it's own way the intimacy and physicality of the human voice. These four pieces were written for Juliet Fraser over the past five years. As a collection, they represent a partial survey of the solo repertoire for voice and tape/electronics I have been building in recent years, but also of a generation's compositional approach to the voice. Displaying an understated lyricism, these composers' approaches show the breadth of creative possibility for crafting a sonic environment for the voice to inhabit. Lisa Illean writes music of extreme sensitivity and refinement, of shifting shades and wide-open spaces. A through-grown earth combines voice and pre-recorded lines for harp, strings, voice, electronic material and retuned zithers, resulting in an undulating texture that gently turns between microtonal modes and non-tempered tunings. Heave, by Sivan Eldar, is a work that questions the boundaries between matter and forms, and that tells a story of growth: out of the earth, into one's own body and, finally, memory, blurring all distinctions as the protagonist slips from earth into skin, body into light. Nomi Epstein describes collections for Juliet as 'a recording project piece for voice created from a detailed set of instructions and a small catalogue of 'collections' of three or four glissandi. A great richness emerges from this material through the detail heard at the micro-level and an overwhelming physicality is evident as the voice painstakingly rises and falls. Lawrence Dunn uses a twelve-note Just Intonation tuning system in While we are both, combining voice with fixed media that constantly drifts, reflecting perhaps the states (waking, awake, asleep) and times of day (light, morning, dark) found in Caitlin Doherty's text. The effect is an uncanny combination of blazing harmonic brightness overlaid with long, aqueous ripples.