Strange Times

Time moves forward with quiet inevitability. In Strange Times, this steady progression becomes audible through the percussionist’s regular, almost ritual beating of bamboo sticks—an archaic pulse that runs through nearly the entire piece. Against this sparse framework, only a handful of musical events appear, and their brevity makes them all the more noticeable. Delicate echoes of earlier musical eras on the baroque triple harp and the flute’s bottle tones stretch across centuries. All sounds are caught by an ever-present electronic delay, extended and reflected back into the moment—an acoustic trace that settles into the ongoing pulse.