Stephen O'Malley - Géante 4 (feat. Eye Music) (2020)

Géante 4 (2010) by Stephen O’Malley
for Stuart Dempster

"Géante 4" is a graphically scored piece that I’ve illustrated/written of about 10-12 minutes in length that I was hoping you could tackle as a solo piece. It involves between 3-7 voicings per section over 5 sections, in total around 10-12 minutes. I had the Japanese guitarist Michio Kurahara do a version of this last autumn when we were doing some basic tracking for this session in Tokyo.

We also did a 90-minute version in Norway last summer with 2 double bass players, a haldorophone, piano and sine wave/tape. I’d love for you to approach this very much as you like, based on the rough parameters of the score. I imagine that the common aspects to Kurahara's version would be the sustained tones and the transitions, as well as the modes you’re transitioning between.

I’m working with spatialization for playback on this material, in the theatres during the performances. This piece in particular I’ve envisioned/hoped could take advantage of the lateral movement possible with this sort of speaker diffusion setup, with each phrase sliding "forward" in space and settling with the full chord clusters before moving "forward" again.

Specific instructions for performance (given verbally to SD): The arrows up or down indicate a slow glissando from the end of one section to the beginning of the next. The squiggly lines indicate a fade out or in. Each “section” would be ca. 2 minutes plus, based upon an overall timing of 10-12 minutes

(Notes/info by Stephen O’Malley, condensed/expanded and edited by Stuart Dempster)