This work initially grew out of my daily travels to the studio in Birmingham, from my then home some thrity kilometers away. Melt is a poetic depiction of a train journey and draws on Turner’s painting Rain, Steam, and Speed (1844). By its very subject matter, it makes reference to Schaeffer’s early work Étude aux chemins de fer (1948). The quality of Turner’s later work that appeals most to me is the sense that more definable objects have been painted over, how hard lines have been dissolved. There is a sense of implication and suggestion. The work is based on the mediation between extremes: smooth to pulsed motion and raw to processed sonic material. The sonic material for this piece comprises unprocessed recordings of trains, station announcements and station concourses, synthetic materials which are modelled after the motion and characteristics of the raw source materials and finally, synthetic materials of a dream world. Throughout the work, sounds of the real world melt/morph into their dream-world equivalent as a traveller lapses in and out of a daydream.

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Melt was realized in 1994 in the Electroacoustic Music Studios of the University of Birmingham (UK) and premiered in 1995 at the Synthèse Festival in Bourges (France). The work was awarded a Prix Résidence at the 22nd Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France, 1994) and the 1st prize of the Stockholm Electronic Arts Award (Sweden, 1995).

Composition

• 1994, Electroacoustic Music Studios — University of Birmingham, Birmingham (England, UK)

Premiere

• June 1995, Synthèse 1995: Concert, Bourges (Cher, France)

Awards

• Prize, Residency Prize, 22th Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition 1994, Bourges (Cher, France)
• Mention, Fixed medium, Concorso internazionale Luigi Russolo di musica elettroacustica 1994, Varèse (Italy)
• Prize, Stockholm Electronic Arts Award 1995, Stockholm (Sweden)