The Indiana State Capitol is a site that relates to both state and federal politics, and is a location that contains the duality of action for both government and protest. The tensions of this duality are captured through overlaid percussion techniques in Control/Resist. This track is a musical expression of two sides of political action: (1) the private daily work of sustained resistance; and (2) the less frequent act of public demonstration and shared experience. The rhythm of the work is a transcription of a text from a mesostic poem (a poem where the text is arranged so that the vertical phrase intersects the line of a horizontal text). This is a poem Bonnie Whiting created that emerges from versions of an online resistance syllabus. Beneath this score are recordings of Whitings daily percussion practice on different instruments at different tempos. Crowdsourced noises from the Indianapolis Women’s March on January 20, 2017 at the west side plaza of the Indiana Statehouse combine with granular metallic percussion sounds and white noise to dominate the soundscape and replicate these moments of energetic resistance.
I don't need every Kronos performance to be one that shakes me to my essence, but I do always want them to be interesting. Kronos has been my gateway to discovering a lot of composers I never knew of before, so this one is worth checking out. Richard Weems
A collection of tracks from the singer and multi-disciplinary artist's 111 collaboration series, featuring KMRU, Laraaji, and others. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 25, 2024