An electro-acoustic parody of the credit crisis using the prices from the UK FTSE-100 index to create a descending lament of notes and accompaniment.
This composition was commissioned in May 2008 by the UK organization Sound and Music (SAM) for the opening of Kings Place Gallery and Performing Arts Center in Kings Cross was first performed on 5th October 2008 as part of Lore Lixenberg’s ‘Songs of Kings Cross’ in which Lore sang the original narrative text that I wrote parodying financial news headlines in the tabloid press.
This was an experimental music piece for voice and electronics – involving financial data, opera and electronics in which sequential price information for one year of the FTSE100 index dating from the beginning of the credit crunch is translated into consecutive notes using maxmsp and further processed with Ableton Live forming melodies for a narrative song text. This is then accompanied by an electronically processed audio part created with the same FTSE information that uses harmonic filters and granular delays.
In the instrumental version here the violin plays the mezzo-soprano part and there is no vocal text.