Joe Bates
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Flim Flam (2018)


Details
​Description:
 Solo electronics

Duration: 28'

Instrumentation: Only available for performance by the composer. Tech rider: PA system, mixing desk, keyboard stool.

​Commission: N/A

First performance: 20 June 2020, "Artificial Hells" at Grow Tottenham, London. Performed by the composer.

Score link

Recording: EP available via Bandcamp. Film of live performance at Artificial Hells.

Movements: I. Sorbet    II. Flow    III. Chant I    IV. Flim Flam    V. Chant II    VI. Furl

Programme Note
This record is about desire at a remove. A hot summer through a haze, a search for flow through mental obstacles, a desire for calm and clarity against a more proximate desire for stimulation and novelty. To me, it has a sound that is both somehow flat, slightly distant, and yet filled with energy and motion, like rain on a hot day or fog in a rich landscape. Another analogy would be the Laban Effort Actions: it is indirect, sustained, and bound, and can be either light or heavy. (Laban categorises these actions as Flick, when light, and Wring, when heavy.) 

A pair of couplets from Fiona Apple’s Valentine perhaps summarises it: 

“I'm amorous but out of reach 
A still life drawing of a peach​ 

I'm a tulip in a cup 
I stand no chance of growing up.”
​

Score

Recordings

All photographs by Ilme Vysniauskaite
  • News
  • Music
    • Full List
    • Large Ensemble >
      • Muted The Night
    • Small Ensemble >
      • Ink, Colour And Gold On Paper
      • Wound Honey
      • Straight Line Through A Landscape
      • Two Animals
      • Nocturne
      • Lain Lines
      • Us Alone
      • A Noise So Loud
    • Solo >
      • Phasmid
      • Odd Coils
      • Sparrow
      • Street Through A Window
      • Two Animals
      • Flim Flam
    • Vocal >
      • Absence
      • The Hazelnut
      • Some Parts of Us
      • Now Is A Long Time
      • Cataracts
      • Ceasing
      • Hildegard
  • Recordings
  • About
  • Teaching
  • Filthy Lucre
  • Research
    • The Hyasynth
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