Crickets Of Doom (2022)

A piece for six percussionists. Best listened to on over-the-ear headphones to experience the spatial (binaural) live recording. The percussionists were arranged in a circle around the audience and the performance recorded on a binaural microphone in the centre.

For the six percussion desks, two were written to play in 5/4, two in 7/8, and two in 9/8. All players would share beat 1 of any bar. During composition, I found that woodblocks in the 9/8 and 5/4 parts could give a satisfactory illusion of the sound of crickets. The ‘phasing’ of different crickets could also be evoked, and this begins at bar 23. The entire group falls silent at bar 39, and any hopes of reprieve for the listener from the approach of the Crickets of Doom are dashed when they return in bar 42. While most of the piece involves only two players on wood blocks at any one time, at a period beginning at bar 46, all four players in the 9/8 and 5/4 time signatures are playing the phasing cricket motif. This is intended to raise the menacing quality of the motif in this period. All other motifs, in all time signatures, are intended to be disorienting and reinforce the sense of menace. The final iteration of the cricket motif at bar 121 is supposed to evoke the arrival of the Crickets of Doom, heralding final annihilation.

credits
released March 28, 2023
Performed by the Defying Gravity percussion ensemble in the Enright Theatre on the 5th of May 2022.

Music Director: Genevieve Wilkins
Assistant Music Director (Xenakis100 project): Tayla Rattray
Ensemble:
Tayla Rattray
Jonathan Parker
Zac Skelton
Genevieve Wilkins
Dean Murray
Cassandra Loy
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