Jonty Harrison

Environs brings together six eight-channel works by Jonty Harrison, composed between 1999 and 2007. At its centre is ReCycle, a series of four pieces loosely based on the Greek classical elements, which premiered complete at BEAST’s Klangfest at the CBSO Centre in Birmingham in May 2007. The title refers to themes and sound types revisited from earlier works, and to a sub-text of environmental concern that Harrison says has run through his music since the 1980s. Each part uses a different loudspeaker configuration and a different kind of motion.

Earth is Rock ’n’ Roll, dedicated to his wife Ali: a heavy garden roller inherited with a new house, rolled along paths and into walls, with the microphones pushed ever closer to the rocks. Fire is Internal Combustion, made largely in Basel, where car engines were recorded with accelerometers alongside trains, ships and a Basel tram, in four sections that follow the strokes of an engine; it received a mention at Bourges in 2008. Air is Free Fall, a short scherzo on the sensation of a parachute jump, in which fragments of the other three pieces fly past. Water is Streams (1999), drawn from river, shore and rainfall, Harrison’s first multichannel piece for tape alone.

The cycle is framed by two pieces from 2007. Undertow was written for Océan Cité, a choreographic project by Compagnie Pierre Deloche presented in Lyon, using sea recordings from the Shetland Islands by Martin Clarke. Afterthoughts starts from the sounds of a suburban garden in early summer that turn more disturbing as the listener drifts towards sleep.

Born in Scunthorpe in 1952, Harrison studied at the University of York and joined the University of Birmingham in 1980, where he directed the studios and BEAST. He is now Emeritus Professor there.

DVD-Audio in OGplus, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 0788, 2007.