Night Study 1 (2013)

Our bike is the colour of the night.

Our bike is a black donkey dawning

Through lands of Curiosity.’

                        (Roberto Bolaño)

The idea behind this work stems from a poem by Roberto Bolaño describing a night motorcycle journey across the Mexican desert. The piece explores the nocturnal sonic landscape of urban and rural locations and is structured as a sonic journey exploring real and imaginary soundscapes related to various stages of the trip. The work was composed mostly using field recordings captured in rural public roads in the North West of England and synthesized rhythmic sequences generated using gamelan samples. This piece was composed during a residency at the Visby Centre for Composers in Sweden.

Awards: Musica Nova 2013, SYNC2013, Shut up and listen! and 2013 Computer Space.

listen to an excerpt of this piece