“Truly awesome work … Amazing mix of soundscape and instrumental music, and a way of telling a story without words that I only find matched in the late great Luc Ferrari …” - Gerald Fiebig, Poet, Academic and Sound Artist (Germany)

"It's a very powerful piece, surprising - occasionally breath-taking - in its shifting landscape of sound, and ultimately (and I guess I do mean at the end) very moving, though I find it hard to say why.” - Andrew Ford, Composer, Writer and Broadcaster (The Music Show, ABC Radio National, Australia).

"Black’s latest composition Residue meditates on the nature of trauma, both universal and localized, from a year that prompted unprecedented collective and personal pain. Residue explores richly evocative sonic terrain utilizing a wide palate of associations, from nostalgic and pungent synthesizers to quasi-Romantic strings, telecommunications to oceanscapes. What is especially conspicuous, considering Black’s catalogue, is the absence of the human: there are no spoken words, no commentary. This powerfully evokes the totalizing imprint of trauma on the body, cauterizing any sense of communality." - Julian Day (New York).

“… fantastic, emotional and very inspiring … sent me into reverie and deep pools of emotion.” Pamela Lee Brenner, Artist and Media Art Teacher (Australia)


ABOUT THE WORK

The future seems so far away ... but suddenly you are there as if a place is time. However, the cartography of this type of place is malleable and pliable: what happens in an instance doesn't happen in a lifetime, but when it happens to you, nothing will ever be the same again. The landscape around you dissolves and erupts, and just like Hansel's bread crumbs (in the famous German fairy tale), the pathway home to your past life vanishes. Shell shocked, you observe yourself as if you are someone else in this surreal world, and ever so slowly you find the strength to build a new life and identity on this emotional quicksand and barren topography of trauma.

With this new work, Colin Black explores and abstracts the theme residue, from which he creates a multi-faceted sound world from field recordings and musical composition. Notably, this work contains almost no spoken words as listeners are invited to explore this sonic terrain with their imaginations wide open.


NOTES FROM THE COMPOSER

Unlike some of my previous works, I think of “Residue" as a musical work inspired by what Luc Ferrari has termed “anecdotal music,” where I use a source/context-driven handling of recorded sounds as an element of the overall musical composition. I think of these concrete sounds (that are carefully selected for this musical composition), just like one would choose musical notes for a traditional score that creates deftly constructed cadences, counterpoint, motivic and rhythmic development, textures and colours … after all, music is sound and all sound is music (Cage, Shafer et al.).

Thematically the work explores loneliness, loss and sadness (with a hint of hope and strength at the end) under the overarching idea of residue. While its narrative structure (or form) loosely follows that of the hero’s journey (where its call for adventure is initiated by some unwelcome traumatic event), in a post structuralist sense, the work doesn’t tell one story, it alludes to many stories and affords the listener a level of agency where they are invited to bring their stories and past experiences with them along this musical and sonic enriched journey.

Colin Black, November 2020