On the Nature of Electricity & Acoustics:
This is a sampler, if you like, of electro-acoustic and electronic music making in Ireland at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty first centuries. One may not like all of the music but one certainly has to admire the innovation and musical ideas as well as the various types of musical language portrayed. It is a very interesting compendium.
Roger Doyle: Baby Grand - This is a wonderfully energetic and vibrant work [essentially for keyboard] with a variety of tones and which is an interesting and engaging work.
Educution [aka Tóirse Ó Riordáin]: Again With The Hose - This is a short but a very engaging electronic work which, at its centre, has a very steady underlying rhythmic pulse.
Deep Burial [duo Brennan/Howard]: GlueBagLung - An electronic work which would not be out of place in a hip-hop or psychedelia rave!
Ian Wilson: Devotional 3 - This is a really wonderful, haunting work which features a solo viola ? over an electronic backdrop.
Brian Ó hUiginn: Left Handed March, 3rd movement - This is an amazing work which takes the old Irish uilleann piping traditional music on to a different level and dimension.
Sunken Foal [Dunk Murphy]: Colloidal Glass - A most interesting work which features distorted voice over a wonderful background of electronic strings.
Richard Evans: Grindelwald’s Wedding - I like this one. It has something of a haunting element to it.
Spectac [Paul Morrin]: Centurion - This is another fine electronic composition.
Linda Buckley: Error Message - The best way that I can describe this fine work is by a combination of both the adjectives astral and ethereal. It is quite appealing.
Donnacha Dennehy: Misterman - This is a really very fine work with many layers to it. It is very atmospheric, inventive and appealing.
Pat Daly: Com-plex - This is an interesting work in that it juxtaposes two seemingly interrelated themes and rhythms.
Vincent Doherty: Snow din - This is a very engaging and appealing work for me both rhythmically and melodically.
Operating Theatre: Miss Mauger - This is a really interesting piece based essentially on a piano theme and which is also rhythmically dynamic.
Enda Bates: Liminality [excerpt] - Heavily distorted electric guitar based this work is incoherent to me due to the possible facts that it is so heavily distorted that it is disguising the essential music and also that it is only an excerpt and may be out of context of the piece as a whole.
a=apple [Karl Burke]: middlepoint - I honestly find it difficult to describe this work. It is essential electronic in nature with added guitar and other sound effects.
Trevor Knight: The Ancient Community of Dreams and Fatigues - I like this. It is what I would call old school synthesizer music that is quite atmospheric.
Alex Dowling: Recommended by Dentists [excerpt] - This is a very interesting work that is as strident as any bad experience at a dentist! There is a very disconcerting tapping throughout which heightens the tension that is inherent in the music and its rhythm.
Cathal Coughlan: Second City Bicycle Bounce - This is a series of very basic electronic motifs layered over a simple electronic melody with various sonic embellishments.
Amoebazoid [Keith O’Brien]: Prey - Unfortunately for me this is just a cacophony.
Princess Tinymeat: Devilcock - This is for me a somewhat recognisable track which features a basic Rock lineup of guitar, bass and drums. It has an added feature of additional tape enhancements.
Melodica Deathship: Maghera - A work based in traditional Irish music which is effectively give a very modern treatment.
Schroeder’s Cat: Goodbye - I like this work with its layered compositional structure. It is inventive.
Daniel Figgis: Lucky’s Bad Day - I particularly like this one. It has a very basic melody at its core but it is given some interesting and inventive treatments and enhancements along the way.
