DISQUIET

John Bence’s Disquiet is a composition in three movements for soprano voice and cello, but what you hear is not that composition. After scoring and recording the full piece, the composer manipulated the recordings to produce something new. Then he wrote a new score, re-recorded, manipulated, and re-scored again... and again. This Disquiet is a layering of many—the process is the result: a slow-churning, microtonal wash, at once liquid and brilliantly crystalline in affect.

Two timbres fracture into many. A tectonic drone slides below and aerates a chorus as vocals flicker in and out of being, wrestling with silence. Cacophony blends into order as subtle harmonies appear. What Bence has written falls somewhere between an electronic production and a classical composition. Where these two forms intersect is where Disquiet occurs.