Manuella Blackburn

Petites Étincelles (small sparks) collects five stereo acousmatic works that Manuella Blackburn composed between 2012 and 2017. Her music clusters and arranges very small sounds, recorded from everyday objects and instruments, into clear, detailed sound worlds. The disc moves between two lines of her work: domestic objects heard up close, and the sounds of Indian classical music.

Ice breaker (2015) uses tiny microphones placed in tall glasses to catch ice cracking as it meets warmer water, with fizzing and pouring, assembled through micromontage after Horacio Vaggione; it took second prize at SIME 2016 in Lille. Snap happy (2016-17) is three miniatures made from cameras, from the heavy clunks of 1940s Kodak Brownies to phone shutter effects and a Canon AE-1 that seems to cough. Time will tell (2013), commissioned by EMPAC in Troy, New York, rebuilds clock rhythms from single ticks, strikes and chimes, recorded with access to the collection of the Clockmakers’ Museum in London; it won first prize at Musica Nova 2014.

The two other pieces come from a year-long project with Milapfest at Liverpool Hope University on bringing cultural sound into electroacoustic music. Javaari is named after the bridge of the sitar and its buzzing tone, played by Roopa Panesar and Raaheel Husain among others. New Shruti, made with sarod player Rajeeb Chakraborty, acts as a drone that pushes and provokes the sarod, drawing on sitar, veena, violin, tanpura and ankle bells.

Born in London in 1984, Blackburn studied at The University of Manchester, completing a PhD in electroacoustic composition with Ricardo Climent in 2010, and is a Reader in Electronic Music and Sound Design at Keele University.

CD in OGpak, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 17147, 2017.