5:4

Works for various forms of ensemble were explored in four concerts during this year’s World New Music Days in Bucharest. The first, and in many respects the most playful of them, was given by Pulsar(t) Percussion Ensemble. Play was literally the point in Romanian composer Liviu Dănceanu‘s GAME, which entirely…

The spectre of Romanian artist Constantin Brâncuși was brought to bear on this year’s World New Music Days in Bucharest, which took as its title, ‘Columna Infinita’. Title, not theme, and the invocation of Brâncuși’s famous sculpture therefore acted more as inference than reference point. Nonetheless, both the phrase and…

Tension, climax, release. That’s not simply familiar but one of the most fundamental progressions we encounter in all forms of art. So it’s been fascinating to hear how Lithuanian composer Justina Repečkaitė sidesteps and reconfigures this most basic dramatic contour repeatedly on the first album devoted to her music, Tapestries.…

A couple of recent conversations have made me aware of some basic misunderstandings about how 5:4 operates. Misunderstandings are rarely isolated things, so I thought it worth briefly explaining how I go about making 5:4 happen. The key point is simple: i am not paid to write anything on 5:4.…

There’s a striking image i vividly recall from when i first watched David Attenborough’s The Private Life of Plants. It featured time-lapse photography, focusing on a small, seemingly insignificant tendril lying on the ground. Through this simple act of televisual time dilation, we were able to cross the relativistic divide…