Crucible is a minute sound installation recorded at an outdoor concert in the tiny village of Topolò on the Italian-Slovenian border in July 1997. Its thunderous opening is literally the sound of a downpour which Duncan harnesses and treats to produce something elemental yet edgily unnatural. Bruce Gilbert's work springs to mind though Duncan has a less synthetic touch. The aquatic theme continues as water drains down pipes, gutters and sewers. Thereafter an eerie quiescence pervades. There is still static in the ether, the ebb and flow of mountain air currents and the occasional chance human or animal intervention, but it is the calm after the storm.
How Duncan actually achieved this process is ... ultimately inconsequential. Presented in a neat wooden box, the results reveal little but yield something fresh with each listen.