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“Bite” was written during a time of self-isolation in Toronto during COVID-19. I was forced to return from a residency in Berlin, and for the first time in many years spent four consecutive months in my home since all professional and personal events had been cancelled. It’s from this space that the musical material from “Bite” was born: a period of interruption, with the sounds of my own home being most present in my ear.I had a lot of trouble sleeping while I was in Berlin, with constant night terrors and nightmares. This was remedied immediately when I returned home to Toronto, and one night in particular I marveled at the “room noise” in my bedroom. It sounded unbelievably beautiful to me (despite being, I’m sure, very ordinary.) I recorded the sound of the room noise, with my fan whirring in the background. I analyzed a tiny microcosm of this “home sound,” and found a whirring and slithery set of notes and noises. This microcosm forms the basis of the sounds in “Bite”: the inharmonic pitches of noise, glissandi, unexpected and recurring rhythmic unisons, and tone infused with air. It is is rhythmic and fast but largely unsettled, with interruptions appearing both as large outbursts of sound as well as silence.“Bite” is not a piece about self-isolation, but it was certainly born from it; ideally, it contains a little more excitement (and a similar tension) than the actual stay-at-home experience.
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