Carey Nutman
Pour Une Francaise

Cat. No: MPSCD008

Track 1. Pour Une Francaise.
The title is not a dedication but a reference to the source material quoted in the central section. There are three sections.
The first and last sections are "yesterday" and "today". I am awake, and I have to cope with the fears and anxieties of life in the modern world: all the pressures and troubles in my life are causing me pain. But in the middle section I am asleep and I am dreaming - dreaming of a more peaceful age without any trouble and strife. Did I really live an earlier life in Provence? Did I really lust after that young woman in Arles? Perhaps we fell in love. Perhaps I simply drank too many bottles of Côtes du Rhône. I allowed my imagination to travel freely into many varied soundworlds. Sometimes I used additive synthesis to generate frightening sounds. At other times I used granular synthesis and digital processing and editing of sampled sounds to generate chaotic, nightmarish sonic worlds of dissolving images and events. The durations of the three main sections were decided using the ratio of the Golden Section. The piece was composed almost entirely using CDP software running on a personal computer. The only external peripherals used were an old, faulty record deck, (turntable), an Aiwa DAT recorder, an Akai SO1 sampler and an Alesis Midiverb II.

Track 2 Rituals Do Matter.
What do people mean by the word "ritual"? Some will think of religion - bells and gongs and monks droning. Perhaps weddings and funerals will come to mind. But there are many social and non-social activities that can become rituals: going to the pub every Friday evening, followed by fish and chips; having friends for dinner every Saturday evening; going to the bathroom every morning, (an electric razor can drone just like a monk); all rituals with associated sound environments. The bell rings and we're off on a voyage of mystery through several of these possible soundworlds. Are we standing by a grave as the wind cuts through us? Why do the funeral cars race past without stopping? Are we accidentally evesdropping into a private dinner party? A man asks over and over, "what's the matter?" It's all part of the ritual.

Track 3 Saffron Slides, Ivolin Mix 1996.
Violin played by Ivor McGregor.
This work was constructed like a slide show, i.e., a series of pictures which are not necessarily related. The central section is constructed entirely from violin sounds, which were chopped up and processed inside the computer. The other sections, which are arranged in an arc form, borrow musical material composed earlier using MIDI synthesizers, sometimes driven by proprietary sequencing software, but mostly by a unique program, (written by Geoff Nossiter), which allows real time generation of electronic music with real time interaction between computer and composer.s.

Track 4 Saxophone Tapestry. 1997 revised 1999.
ISaxophone played by Dave Allenby.
Only one sound source is used here. My pharmacist friend Dave Allenby is an accomplished saxophonist. I recorded him as he improvised for twenty minutes or so. Then began the long laborious work, turning each "sample" into an exciting "sound object". Granular synthesis proved very useful for generating a larger timbral palette, at the same time introducing a repeating non-periodic spatial flux of the components. Of course, it is always tempting, in a work like this, to use only those sound objects which sound completely unreal. But I decided to allow many of the original riffs, some of which are quite playful, to come to the surface, just to remind the listener that the whole piece began with a man playing an acoustic instrument.