Ensemble Sooon - Tacet Chronicles

MNM027

TACET CHRONICLES

Tacet Chronicles relates a non-linear and abstract response to tacet, featuring the first recording of David Reastons’s complete Tacet Suite. Each performer brought in verbal responses to the score. A surprising array of materials manifested, from invented whispered vocabulary to a poem about a dead bird, a poem about looking for inspiration in a fridge, a recitation of linguistic structures with visceral demonstration, and in a stroke of meta, two versions of the instructions read out; one in Japanese and the other backwards, blended with strings playing staggered glissandi imitating shepherd tones. A special emphasis was placed on incidental sounds normally backgrounded. The Chesterfield armchair, the subject of much shooshing during the recording, became a feature instrument, finally liberated from its need to be heard. Even AI put its hand up, offering new definitions and variations on the word tacet. Tacet Suite structures work like a thread, holding the sonic interplay together.

Like a macrocosm of the Tacet Suite, performances of the Tacit Suite have punctuated silence since 2015. After finding a random music sketch on a music stand, consisting only of rests. Reaston responded with a series of works with rhythms written on a three line stave, representing indeterminate high medium and low pitches. Improvised solos are included over looped fragments of the score. Realising the entire Tacet Suite unleashed unexpected strategies and emergences for sonic rapport.

Special thanks to Louise Wheatley for her wizardry, conceptual insight and infinite patience and humour. Also to special guests featured on the album Annie Silva and David Reaston. Ensemble Sooon wishes you delight and pleasure in our tacet adventures. 

credits

released July 23, 2023

Martin Kay (sax/clarinet/voice)
Danielle Bentley (cello/prepared cello/voice)
Nozomi Omote (percussion/voice)
Annie Silva (bass/oud/voice)
David Reaston (guitar voice)
Jasmine Wheatley (voice)

Executive producer: Martin Kay
Co-producer/recording engineer/mix/master: Louise Wheatley @ Wheatley Productions