18 mins
Date 2009
flak is the culmination of my participation on the London Sinfonietta's Blue Touch Paper project. I saw this as a chance to write for electronics, something I hadn't really done before, and also to think about how I could incorporate some of the things I like about dance music and electronica (like the energy and the constant tempo) into my own music.
I've always planned my pieces in a graphic way, and spent a lot of time thinking about what the roles of bits of material could be and how I would use the electronics with clear intentions at different moments. My mentors for the project were Matmos, who were especially helpful at the early stages of the piece, helping me choose the software that worked best with my ideas.
I split the piece up into 4 sections:
grabber where ideas are grabbed and spat out again by the electronics
building & loops where those ideas are taken and become multiple electronic versions of themselves
supersize me where the individual characteristics of the instruments are exaggerated to highlight their differences
unify & robify (a word I suspect I made up which I have convinced myself means: 'become like a robot') where these differences are stripped away and everyone sounds the same
As a nice theatrical finishing touch, trumpet players hidden in the lighting rig play untreated against the 'robified' climax whilst stomping on red floodlights for good measure...
© Anna Meredith
