To Scott Wilson

BEASTory is a short étude based on sound recordings of the component elements of the BEAST system (stands, metalwork, cables, plugs, switches, flight-cases, trolleys…) when it is not actually performing, but being stored, transported, set up, taken down and loaded into trucks.

In the first performance, different sound materials were spatialised in different ways under the real-time control of the the BEASTmulch software, largely written by my friend and colleague Scott Wilson as a performance controller, but also offering the compositional option that the spatial deployment of material remains open until each unique performance, rather than being fixed in a specific number of channels in the studio.

BEASTory was conceived as an ‘n-channel’ piece and thus attempts to explore the fuzzy boundary between composition and performance made possible when flexible and sophisticated software (BEASTmulch) is used to control large loudspeaker system (BEAST).

The recordings were made on BEAST gigs and, with the assistance of Julien Guillamat, in the ‘BEAST store’ (hence the awful title — sorry!).

[iv-16]

Premiere

• July 29, 2010, Inventionen 2010: BEASTory 1, St Elisabeth-Kirche, Berlin (Germany)