Search - Katharine Norman :: London

Sonic explorations and reminiscences

Steve Benner | Lancaster, UK | 09/09/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Katharine Norman's cycle of three digital soundscapes based in and around London make up the bulk of this CD release of her music. The first, "In her own time" (1992) uses the voice of her mother, Rita, recounting childhood experiences of wartime London set over a simple brooding electroacoustic backdrop of sound. In places the voice has been subjected to a fairly light processing (usually the application of comb filtering). This is rarely heavy enough to obscure the words, which is fortunate, for the power of this work is in the message contained in Rita's unscripted and unrehearsed (and very matter-of-fact) telling of her reminiscences, rather than in the accompanying soundscape, which is always gentle and contemplative, never intrusive. The piece is clearly as much about the composer's mother as it is about wartime London and ends up feeling a very homely sort of piece. In fact, there are times when it feels just a little bit too homely and leaves the listener feeling rather uncomfortably like an eavesdropper."London E17" (1993), which follows, is an almost acousmatic study of modern-day residential East London. This is a delightful 22-minute work, reminiscent of works such as Luc Ferrari's "Presque Rien No. 1" or many pieces of acoustic ecology. Once again, the composer allows her source material to speak out in its own time, never forcing or rushing it in its telling of itself, whether the story be human, social or environmental. All of this is done with such an attentive ear for the inherently musical in the world around us, too, and the results are quite breathtaking at times. The gradual and almost imperceptible transition of a chorus of pneumatic drills into rain dripping on a roof in this work is one of the most beautiful passages of electroacoustic music that I know! The final part of the cycle, "People underground" (1991) continues the exploration of inherent musicality by providing an almost fly-on-the-wall glimpse of the behaviour of people upon encountering the unique reverbatory space provided by a series of foot-tunnels passing beneath the Thames. Sadly, this material, although probably the most interesting, sonically, on the disc, produces what, for me at least, feels to be the least interesting or coherent work overall. At more than 17 minutes in length, the material feels to have played itself out long before the piece ends, which is a great shame.After the intensity of the "London" cycle, the final work on the disc, "Trilling Wire" - a work for clarinet and tape - feels almost like a filler, especially given its short duration (10 mins) and more abstract, purely musical form. It is, however, a lovely lyrical piece (probably Norman's best known) and to have excluded it from this release would have been a major loss - even if its presence does make the disc feel even "bittier" than it is! Maybe not the most coherent or consistent of releases, then, but this fine CD from Sonic Arts Network is still well worth having, nevertheless."