'Monster Ballet'

for

The House of Bedlam

2020

Flutes by Kathryn Williams

Clarinets by Carl Raven

Recorded by Larry Goves

Mixed, edited and mastered by Simon Knighton

Created in lockdown (recording and edited remotely), the piece explores psychological grouping mechanisms and the use of Gestalt perception principles to connect fragmented streams of melodic music. The piece has five parts which are panned evenly across the stereo field: two natural sounding acoustic instruments, two electronically effected acoustic instruments, and a synthesiser. The interplay between the parts creates a musical ‘dance’ between five individual yet connected musical characters. Electronic effects and a microtonal vocabulary create a slightly strange, fairytale-esque atmosphere, by using electronic effects to detune acoustic instruments.