#4: Gail Priest – ‘6 Grades of Grain’
2 minutes from home #4
‘[G]rain “leaves its signature on matter”… it is better, with grains of the same type, to evaluate how they progress from quivering to limpid via tingling, from rough to smooth via matt, or from quavering to fine via dense…’ Pierre Schaeffer, 1966/2017, Treatise on Musical Objects, pp. 442 444
This piece is about surfaces — the sounds of surfaces and the surface of sound. How sound is its surface, its very ‘soundness’ inextricable from its textural and timbral qualities. I chose to consider this completely as an audiovisual piece, my hand in the composition coming mostly in terms of the evocativeness of the images — the textures of 6 grades of sandpaper — to which I ask the musicians to respond.
Podcast
Below is a podcast episode where Decibel artistic director Cat Hope talks to Gail about her peice, and the processes she engages in her composition for 2 Minutes from Home.
Gail Priest (NSW)has a multi-faceted practice in which sound is the key material of communication and investigation. Her work spans solo electro-acoustic composition for performance and recordings, soundtracks for dance, theatre, video and gallery installations. She has performed and exhibited nationally and internationally and has several CD releases on her own label, Metal Bitch, as well as other labels including Flaming Pines. She is also a curator of concerts and exhibitions and writes factually and fictively about sound and media arts. http://www.gailpriest.net
Gail was commissioned to write a piece for Decibel’s ‘After Julia’ program in 2014.