in hollows spilled thin

Forces: Bass Clarinet (Bb), Electronics, Percussion, and Violin

In hollows spilled thin was inspired partly by Manchester’s rivers and underground canals, which seep into culverts and tunnels beneath the city centre. Snaking through underground passages of varying sizes, the worlds they inhabit variously invoke the visceral feelings brought about by extremes of space, from intense claustrophobia to the infinite expanses of gloomy abysses. Photographs of lichens and mosses from these subterranean microcosms often capture fidgeting insects mid-motion; they have a zoomed-in quality; an excessive and obsessive degree of detail that, like horror and sci-fi film closeups, obscure their subjects and exchange representation for pure sensation. It’s these sorts of visceral qualities, found where the relationship between the body and space is highlighted, closeness and distance; abjection and decay; the impossibly small and the incomprehensibly gigantic, that interested me most in the creation of In hollows spilled thin. What lurks beneath the sense of broken promises and alienation that these rivers and canals produce in me is something fragile, uncertain, and replete with sparks of jubilation.

Presetned with gratitude to the LSO Soundhub Scheme, supported by Susie Thomson, without whom it would not have been possible.