Material Tropes is an album concerned with social inequality. As the children of global capitalism, the material is at the heart of how we relate to one another. A trope is a well-known, perhaps clichéd, description or story. Therefore material tropes are the well-known stories of that which binds us together and keeps us apart. Material is also meant in the sense of real, important, undeniable.

In musicology, trope is used to refer to an addition to the plainchant canon, the original body of notated European music out of which so much contrapuntal music was derived and developed. Counterpoint is central to the compositional style of this record, and specifically the technique of canon in which one melodic line echoes or imitates another. I explored this in a variety of ways in the larger scale pieces: “White Collared Criminals” is a 4 voice unison canon with a 7 beat cycle; the second half of “Ocean’s End” is an inverted canon (one melody following the other upside down); “Untouchables” is a less strict canon inverted at the 5th; “The Spectacle,” the most elaborate, is written on a chord progression that spirals upwards culminating in a double canon with a further, independent melody that cuts across both; “Bijoulacra” returns to 7 beats, combining inversion and augmentation (one melody playing at half the speed of the other). Furthermore, there are echoes across the album itself: in the opening track “One (Many)” and the closing “Many (One)”, the latter being built around a layering of Julie Kjaer’s fearlessly commited improvisations on the former - a kind of meta-canon.

Another crucial element to the music on this album is groove, in which a set of musical elements interlock rhythmically in a variety of ways. Seb Rochford’s drumming on tracks 1, 4, 5 and 7 and Maurizio Ravalico’s percussion throughout are a key to this aspect of the music - their distinctive musical voices as much as their exceptional inventiveness and masterful crafting. The idea of groove also permeates much of the written melodic material, reorganizing the texture to encompass rhythms not usually associated with longform polyphony.

Setting in relief the strictly through composed material on the album are a series of shorter soundscapes that incorporate field recordings and multi-layered improvisations, percussive textures, synths and church organ. As Bach’s cantatas would have been interspersed with lectures and other church business, so these pieces break up the flow of musical complexity and open on to diverse sonic vistas.

Although not on every track, the human voice is another major strand of this record, whether in the form of samples, song or spoken word. “White Collared Criminals” presents a collage of sampled voices of politicians, sociologists and people in the street talking about the 2011 London riots, the 2008 financial crash and Austerity. Ruth Goller’s beautiful singing, as well as her peerless electric bass playing, features on “Ocean’s End” whose lyrics are part lament for, part love song to the last fish in the sea. In “The Spectacle” Giulia Loi’s inimitable spoken word is multiplied, time-warped and pitch-shifted as she revisits the Situationism of the 1960s radical philosopher Guy de Bord. The themes of these tracks, the field recordings of protests in “NOW” and the titles throughout the album contribute to an exploration of whether and on what terms music can engage with that which lies outside itself, the nonidentical as Adorno might say, the political.

The other musician who plays on this album is one-of-a-kind master jazz cellist Ben Davis, someone who I have the good luck to count as both a musical inspiration and a close friend. Ben’s advice over the years has been always served me well, from apple cake to spare rooms, clarinet portamento to making music for theatre. I can’t think of anyone else who can make the cello sing as funkily as Ben and it’s a great privilege to feature his playing on this record alongside so many other wonderful musicians.

Making the artwork for this album was a gargantuan feat undertaken by the incredible fountain of creativity that is Takahiro Goto. We corresponded on it throughout the pandemic, developing what became the cover from the ground up. Taka’s persistence and patience were invaluable in arriving at the final result, which still blows my mind everytime I look at it. Guglielmo Rossi’s amazing design of the booklet (a work of art in itself) in the CD version and Paola Ferrarotti’s brilliant work on the font complete the visual aspect of the record.

In mixing the recording, the balance and clarity of the different melodic lines and the presence of the drums and percussion were critical to the success of the record’s sound. I decided to mix it myself, with some timely input from the maestro Alex Bonney, which gave me the flexibility to really get deeply into the details of each moment. Steve Arguëlles’ mastering gave the record a delicious edge and agility, skillfuly walking the line between an upfront, funky sound and a more dynamic, jazzy one. Another important mention goes to my old friend Ed Hiller who ran some of my recorded MIDI signals through his formidable collection of vintage synthesizers which, alongside some of the analogue gear used in the mixing, give the album a little bit of that special sauce sound.

I started writing this music a decade ago. That it has taken this long to bring it into the world it is in no small part because it incorporates in one way or another all of the music that I have been involved in making up to this point. I originally imagined the band who would play this music as a hybrid ensemble, combining flute and cello with electric bass, accordion with drums and percussion, vocals with saxophone. As I worked on it over time it expanded to include synths, organ, oud, wooden flutes, prepared piano, the sound of falling coins, seagulls and whales, protesters, ping pong balls in bowls, a match being struck and everything you might hear in between.

29/06/23

With “Material Tropes” I set out to write music that was both intricate and intelligible to a contemporary audience. One of the things I wanted to investigate was how melodic counterpoint could be integrated into the language of contemporary groove music. I focussed on the canon, using some of JS Bach’s as models, and choosing a different harmonic, rhythmic and formal structure for each piece. I was particularly interested in the expressive potential this approach offered. In contrast, the shorter tracks on the record are based on layering improvisations in a variety of ways, which provides an atmospheric counterbalance to the more through-composed tracks.

Thematically, this album is concerned with the injustice all around us in society. As the world we live in becomes increasingly unequal I think as artists we have a responsibility to engage with the issues that contribute to this situation. Words are a big part of the way I’ve tried to do that, whether in the form of lyrics, spoken word or samples, as is the visual world of the album. The parts of the record I love the most are the moments of serenity in the midst of it all and, on the other side, the joyous, carnivalesque feeling of all the elements coming together.

22/03/23

Ocean's End:

I was alone at Ocean’s End
I was adrift without a friend
(lost on a wave)
I swam to the end of memory
(washed away, i swam beyond)
and sank to the depths
beneath the sea
(below the tide, forgotten)
(washed away, I sank beneath)

(Caught on your line)
You fished me out
You pulled me out
Hooked by the mouth
You fished me out