Date: 1991. Length: 8:16

Initially, I set out to create an aural equivalent to the experimental film notion of "flicker", where aural images could flash in and out of the stereo frame as fast as the eyes could blink. My hopes were that these aural images could represent snapshots of lived experience that would meet each other in a virtual landscape comprised of various juxtapositions and superimpositions. Thus, the composition Faith-Annihia draws from a visual starting point.

As the working process unfolded, and as musical questions over organization arose, other strategies and intentions began to preoccupy me. Out of necessity, I turned to crude chance operations (rolling dice, etc.) to streamline the task of ordering 75 discreet sound environments into the countless number of sound events that were required. To get an idea of the density, there are moments where up to 12 tracks are tightly compressed with events averaging less than a second in duration. In the space of only 16 seconds, there could be some 200 concrete events that crowd the sound stage. Due to this density of material the working process to just hear something in return became very laboured intensive, especially when there were 75 sound environments to draw from. Like the predominant images of factories and machinery in these sound environments, the working method was indeed very strict in its routines and redundant nature.

When I reached the stage of listening back to the first completed sequences (averaging 16 seconds in length), I was struck by how much the sonic images had coalesced and fused into one single, undifferentiated whole. The sameness of one image to another was extremely surprising when viewed from my visual impetus, which was anticipating a rapid-fire passage of a diverse array of experiences. Instead, the images seemed to gang up and form a collective identity, desiring to part ways from individual paths of experiences and behaviours. Thus, the piece developed a tendency or behaviour that was the opposite of what I set out for.

The collision and fusion of these once disparate images formed the basis of a sonic landscape that was capable of evoking very grim, even apocalyptic, renderings of urban industrial life. Also, I noticed that in both making and listening to this work, there exists a kind of surrendering of personal freedom and intuition. For some small compensation, I decided to insert a few prolonged segments of silence or immobility. These are places where the listener can regain a bit of independence and start projecting back onto the sonic landscape his/her own set of images, associations, and points of view. At the heart of this stillness, what exists beyond the deep black - plainly invisible - horizons?