SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS PETER DOWLING SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS
SOUNDS DOWLING SOUNDS DOWLING SOUNDS DOWLING SOUNDS DOWLING SOUNDS
a Composition:
2004:
Hour Lives [for Emma]
[Section II of red velvet or nothing at all]
for electric guitar, cello, double bass, live-electronics and live-video
with visual artist Rob Kennedy [view info about OTHER collaborations with Rob Kennedy HERE]
[scroll down for "VIDEO extracts"]
Listen extract 1 (from movement I: The Poverty List):
Listen extract 2 (from movement II: Defence/ Culture):
Listen extract 3 (from movement III: Where has my love gone? [or listen to entire movement on mission-base (lower quality audio though)]):
Listen extract 4 (from movement IV: affection between men):
Listen extract 5 (from movement V: memory and melancholy;):
[scroll up for "AUDIO extracts"]
WATCH extract 1 (from movement III: Where has my love gone?): -->>............. watch LOW quality ................... watch HIGH quality
WATCH extract 2 (from movement IV: affection between men): -->>............. watch LOW quality ................... watch HIGH quality
WATCH extract 3 (from movement V: memory and melancholy): -->>............. watch mediocre quality small ................... watch mediocre quality bigger
SCORE (Library)
Performed by: David Fennessy - electric guitar / Peter Nicholson - cello / Una MacGlone - double bass / Peter Dowling - live electronics / Rob Kennedy - live video / Kenny Macleod - sound
For The KEN Exhibition, December 2004
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Note:
‘Behind-the-scenes' the piece is all about its own length (45 minutes). The event for which it was very specifically composed ( KEN – a Glasgow based festival centred around the music of six composers) included a “spurious 45-minute claim” (“each composer has 45 minutes to fill with their own sound-world”).
Hour Lives is like an hour-long American TV programme that is shown on BBC2 (it actually takes 45 minutes without the adverts). Real-time disintegration.
The titles of the individual movements are all that is really needed by way of further explanation. They are simple and self-explanatory, sentimental even, but for me there are many personal stories behind each one, which the piece as a whole seeks to universalise into a 45-minute (stretched 3-minute) pop song (or middle-8, at least).
Then again, as the video part highlights, at its core, Hour Lives is really just about one thing: how many different ways one can punctuate the question, ‘Where has my love gone?'
Hour Lives was written for The KEN Exhibition, Glasgow, December 2004 ( www.ken-ex.com ). I will always be hugely indebted to the unique skills and committed collaborations of the original group of improvising and score-reading musicians for whom I wrote it, and who all added so much of their own to the piece. They are long-time friends and collaborators: David Fennessy (Electric Guitar), Peter Nicholson (Cello) and Una MacGlone (Double Bass). The premiere also featured myself on Laptop (live sampling and processing composed into the score), sound-man extraordinaire Kenny MacLeod, and of course video-artist Rob Kennedy, who devised the video part in close collaboration concurrently with the composition of the music. He captured the spirit and ideas in the music and added to them in a way so cogent and expressive that his name should really be at the top of the piece with mine.
- Peter Dowling, January 2005
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above: Hour Lives performance, The KEN Exhibition, Glasgow, UK, December 2004 [photo by Karena Nomi]
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