String Quartet No. 1 (Tubular–Mondo)

Written for the JACK Quartet

Tubular – Mondo took as a starting point the rapid sampling techniques of Footwork music, cutting and looping grains of sonic (often vocal) material, completely irreverent of phrase boundaries of the original sample, resulting in jagged, fragmented, dense textures. Taking these ideas to the string quartet world, I was interested in creating a disrupted continuity between quasi lyrical gestures and their cut-up electronic resonances. In the first movement—Tubular—all players follow and interpret a unison line according to different instructions, leaving them improvisatory openness within rigid temporal synchronicity. In the second movement—Mondo—the ensemble breaks apart in an attempt to performatively open the stage focus.