Absorber

Description:

Absorber is about outdated, ugly sounds. and the ways in which memories, both nostalgic and traumatic, enable them to acquire new associations and meanings. Listeners of my generation were surrounded by these sounds during childhood and adolescence. In spite of their crudeness, there is something haunting and beautiful about them.

Movement 1, ‘Homerton Hospital 050989’, uses a synthesised choir sound similar to the ones found in 1980s pop music, and surrounds it with a clunking ground bass and flurries of birdsong in the piano; Movement 2, ‘Solos’, is a solo for Rhodes Electric Piano which goes badly wrong; Movement 3, ‘Threes’, is a manic scherzo built entirely from parallel major triads, and uses the bright, synthesised piano chords heard in 1990s house music. Movement 4 ‘Gordon Hospital 101018’, sits apart from the other three movements, in that it is for piano only.

Full Scoring:

Solo Piano doubling MIDI Keyboard