Joe Bates
  • News
  • Music
    • Full List
    • Large Ensemble >
      • Muted The Night
      • London's Other Bones
    • Small Ensemble >
      • Two Animals
      • Nocturne
      • Lain Lines
      • Us Alone
      • A Noise So Loud
    • Solo >
      • Suite for Guitar
      • Sparrow
      • Street Through A Window
      • Two Animals
      • Flim Flam
      • Slow Hills
    • Vocal >
      • The Hazelnut
      • Some Parts of Us
      • Now Is A Long Time
      • Cataracts
      • Ceasing
      • Hildegard
  • Recordings
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  • Filthy Lucre
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New Music

Close Your Eyes, Count To Ten

In 2014, I killed an old piano with an axe. I recorded it and created an astonishing set of samples, some of which are used to create the drum beats and drones of this piece. The music is about as far from piano violence as it can be.

London's Other Bones

​This piece is about coming home to London, and what it feels like to try and grow in this city where every building is raised from the guts of its predecessor. It's about nooks and crannies: The Crossbones Graveyard, the Heygate Estate, the new cars that dot the road I grew up on, the sourceless white noise that wraps around the buildings. (This is a MIDI realisation, please take with a pinch of salt.)

Old Music

I have spent a long time writing London's Other Bones. My other music now feels out of date, with three exceptions. ​

Slow Hills

This a solo piano piece about wanting to run away with someone, to stay in a cottage on a rainy hill. 

Induction

This is a piece for dance I wrote with choreographer Julie Schmidt Andriesen, for Filthy Lucre: Cults. Paul Vernon did a wonderful film of parts of it, as a trailer for that event. You can see that to the left.

Dust Song

Dust Song is a music drama that I wrote with Ceci Mourkogiannis. It moved from speech to song over its course and was the first time I got my head round writing riff-based music that had a linear structure. 
All photographs by Ilme Vysniauskaite
  • News
  • Music
    • Full List
    • Large Ensemble >
      • Muted The Night
      • London's Other Bones
    • Small Ensemble >
      • Two Animals
      • Nocturne
      • Lain Lines
      • Us Alone
      • A Noise So Loud
    • Solo >
      • Suite for Guitar
      • Sparrow
      • Street Through A Window
      • Two Animals
      • Flim Flam
      • Slow Hills
    • Vocal >
      • The Hazelnut
      • Some Parts of Us
      • Now Is A Long Time
      • Cataracts
      • Ceasing
      • Hildegard
  • Recordings
  • About
  • Teaching
  • Filthy Lucre
  • Upcoming Dates