Duet for conch shell and synthesisers

The recording I worked with was pure beauty. A simple, pure sound of a conch shell being played - according to my further research, these conches can be hand-stopped to produce different notes and tones, and when played on the reefs in Vanuatu, can “make the whole reef resonate in sympathy”.

Conch shells are also used ceremonially, for instance, to celebrate and denote the quality of boars that are killed for meals as part of a ceremony called Maki. A sound of beauty, then, but also of ceremonial significance - a treasure.

At the same time, the sound reminded me irrevocably of a piece called “Conch Calling” from one of the ambient albums that’s had the greatest influence on how I think about music, Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel by Stuart Dempster. On this album, trombonist Dempster takes a troupe of musicians into a two-million gallon underground cistern, with a naturally cavernous reverb that turns the simplest melodic patterns into some of the deepest, most beautiful drones you’ve ever heard.

I wanted to respect - and highlight - the naked beauty of the pure sound from the original recording, and at the same time to imagine a duet across time and space, between conch shells from Vanuatu, and 21st-century synthesisers. Ancestral drone music, paired with today’s ambient music. This piece is built, respectfully, around a repeated 12-second loop of the conch shell, which remains throughout, while synthesisers and arpeggios paint the air around it. This is a duet for conch shell and two synthesisers. Writing it, I was held in a moment forever, and I hope it brings a moment of stillness and contemplation for the listener too.

Natar (song) on conch and musket reimagined by Cities and Memory.

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Part of the project A Century of Sounds, reimagining 100 sounds covering 100 years from the collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford. Explore the full project at citiesandmemory.com/century-sounds