Score and parts available for hire. Contact publisher for details on surround sound diffusion.

flak was written in 2007 as part of the London Sinfonietta’s Blue Touch Paper project, a scheme set up to allow young composers the support to realise an ambitious project of their choosing.

 

I saw my BTP project as a chance to write for electronics, something I hadn't really done before at that point ,and also to think about how I could incorporate some of the things I like about dance music and electronica into my writing.

 

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 why and how I would use the electronics at different moments to make full use of a surround sound environment.

 

The brilliant Sound Intermedia constructed bespoke software for the piece to realise the ideas for the electronics I had which are all processed live.

 

flak is split up into 4 sections:

 

grabber: single notes within a line are grabbed and repeated

 

building & loops: captured notes are transposed into rising scales and start to be propelled around the room -  building into what I thought of as a ‘casino texture’ where just scales move in rising sequences.

 

supsersize me: 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, '