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The Traps

from Jarak Jauh by Nick Brooke

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about

“The Traps” was a collaboration commissioned by New Music USA for Mugiyono Kasido and Talujon percussion. This piece emerged from material developed in high-energy improvisations between Mugiyono and Nick in Central Java in 2013. The work explores frenetic addictions to change and the culture of the “cut”. Mugiyono writes about the work: “Orang takut untuk berhenti, waktu selalu berjalan dan kehidupan tidak bisa ditebak” (“People shudder to stop, time just passes, and life is unguessable”).

For the work, Nick constructed attaché case gamelans, an orchestra in a box, each tuned to one of the 6 modalities of central Javanese gamelan. Each modality is associated with a time of day, and as the piece progresses, the different tonalities accumulate. The orchestration is inspired by the “traps”, boxes used for silent film sound effects, as well as the Javanese dhalang tradition, where knockers held by hands and toes create a makeshift foley. Though Javanese gamelan is only somewhat audible here, the piece takes a cue from the sampak, the fastest structure in gamelan, used for fight scenes in the shadow puppet plays. In tempo with Mugiyono’s breakneck shifts, the music is built on gestures that repeat compulsively, break, then re-form.

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from Jarak Jauh, released November 1, 2017

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Nick Brooke Bennington, Vermont

Nick Brooke mixes musical sampling, lipsynching, and theater into a genre all its own. In his works, vocalists and actors are trained to mimic sampled collages of sound effects, pop songs, and musical ephemera, blurring the line between recording and live performance. His works have been performed at the Lincoln Center Festival, HERE, and Mass MoCA. ... more

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