My Love is Cutting

This Rondo is heavily influenced by another piece of music, The Turkish March, Mozart. It is a Baroque affirmation of glory transformed through computer processing, into a brooding, complex and experimental wave of Contemporary Sound and emotion. In conceptual terms, the title is a double-entendre, both a direct statement of self-harm and a metaphor for impassioned intimacy.

Unfolding layers of depth in three parts, the Rondo begins with a combination of Processed Piano, with effects and back-masking applied to The Turkish March. Applause, the Definition of Love via text using the text-to-speech application, Natural Reader and the actual uterine heartbeats of the artist’s daughters are included. This movement is a conceptual metaphor presenting coupling, parenting and intimacy in the awkward position of being both vulnerable and explicit through public exposure.

The second movement tantalizes audibly through the back-masking and stretching of, TheTurkish March, becoming less triumphant and more lullaby in mood. Klaxons blare as the artist’s daughter, Raynie Izzy Cord-Blackmon’s improvised voice and lyrics bellow and wail in emphatic tones of childhood devotion. Recorded by Raynie in 2017 on a field device, her vocals have been processed and arranged into the composition by the artist, 2019. The movement is highlighted by repetition, the combination of lullaby and child in relation to Love of the Sibling and emotional valleys and plateaus.

Within the third movement the artist has improvised, processed and composed music for computer using a keyboard and the Helm, Freeware, Virtual Synthesizer. The denouement is a slow fade of phased-out, heavily echoed, processed computer music. The work is composed as an acousmatic recording for loud speakers. Additionally, elements of the Rondo have been made available as a live DJ mix and has been performed at the Brickhouse Gallery and Art Complex, Sacramento, CA as part of a Sound Art exhibition on July 5, 2019.

©Tavarus Blackmon, 2019