Twenty, twenty one mood swings is a piece composed specially for submission to OVADA in Oxford for their 2021 UNPRECEDENTED exhibition.
The theme for the mixed media contemporary show is 'artists changing practice through lockdowns'.

Plucking the Spectrum

Twenty, twenty one mood swings

Lockdown mood induced explorations in abstract electronic musical form.

All our expectations and aspirations are on edge, in an abundance of limitations what’s coming next? As an artist I always managed to plan a project, there would usually be an outcome, an ending. In some ways even a concert is an ending, and you learn from performing how to better the next ‘ending’. In this new world of ‘no ending’ how can we plan completion?

Even thinking about it has become dramatic! Each bit of news can induce a new mood swing. The space is cluttered, the house is crowded, the now familiar routine of covering up, endless cleaning and the anxiety about other people. The human brain computer is full, running hot, we have to find a way to download content and free up space! In my compositions I have found myself exploring moods in the form of abstract electronic, musical mini dramas. Recording the pieces is my brain data dump. During lockdown and through the new process I have discovered a completely new direction for my music output.
By manipulating sound with a modular synthesiser I have found a way to explore and express feelings generated through the lockdowns. Modular, like a brain has the capacity to constantly reinvent or rewire, to shift from moments of madness to serenity. The composer has the tools required to create unheard sounds and forge pathways of sound both predictable and unpredictable.

Plucking the Spectrum music manipulates western musical inventions as it reinterprets them through the system, alongside elements of noise, microtonality, polyrhythm and user induced random. The modular system itself is created from both the (American) East (Moog) and West Coast (Buchla) school of invention thereby presenting the listener with occasional familiarity and more often occupying the middle ground where new music’s form and anything can happen.

The modular system is wired externally as opposed to a brain wired internally. Through endless wiring scenarios I can transfer my human mood set of feelings through the system to the loudspeakers and a recording device. The music is made live, in the moment with no editing or layering. ‘Twenty, twenty one mood swings’ collates and navigates moments in time, interpreting the human brain states of the synthesiser operator / composer. The system has no means of project saving, this creates an excitement around living / working in the moment. Each performance is a stamp in time, never to be recreated, once the performance is over only the recordings exist.

This mini drama veers through the sublime to the abrasive, always conjuring a sense of uncertainty. As electronic organisms grow and mutate, uncertainty turns to despair, anxiety and chaos, confusion and delirium swing with anticipation, all cumulating into an extreme sadness.