Skin String Sine is a mind reset. ‘Ecstasy / outsider art / classical rave.’
Simon Pomery is a queer Irish composer living in Fish Island. On Skin String Sine, Pomery found his ‘figures’, a term he uses to describe the blend of musical hook with muscle memory.
Skin String Sine originates in the happiness of Pomery listening and being with his people at clubs, at turf sheds, at the beaches, at the outer reaches. It was written and recorded at Blood Music Studios, and finished up at EMS, Stockholm, where Pomery was Halldorophone-Composer-in-Residence. Pomery funded that residency with the last paycheck from an educational company that fired him for speaking out against students who were racist, homophobic and sexist. The initials of that company were ‘L.S.D.’
One significant change in Pomery’s musical direction is that, with Skin String Sine, the project is dedicated to sound as it is appearing for the first time, and, within this, is designed to cultivate a state of wonder in player and listener.
‘A String Stretched Between Stars and We Pluck It’ was written for strings and voices in 2022, so that each iteration might have different instrumentation. When he played ‘A String Stretched…’ at Cafe Oto, there were eleven figures played. After playing one iteration of ‘A String Stretched…’ at KET, Athens, audience members approached Pomery while touching their chests and speaking about the effects of the sounds on their hearts. This performance marked Pomery’s shift from Blood Music to ‘heart music’, exploring the effects of harmonics on the listener.
The name ‘A String Stretched Between Stars and We Pluck It’ has origins in a poem Pomery wrote called ‘To an Innocent Prisoner’, written during the UK/USA aggressions against Middle Eastern peoples in the years 2003-2010.
The OG ‘A String Stretched…’ was titled ‘RAVE BANGER’. It still is that, in a sense: in the sense of suspended melodic sequences made to induce ecstasy, Side A is as much techno, only techno where the pianos are the drums, as much as 88 tuned drums are what we classify as a piano. Indeed, Pomery made ‘A String Stretched Between Stars and We Pluck It’ specifically to be played on club sound systems. He suggests the following listening environments: Fortuna Club (Sougia), Lycabettus Theatre (Athens).
The name ‘In Dawnlight Firstafter Storm’ is one translation of his partner’s name. The name ‘the Figures Emerge, O Generator’ is a development of figures.
Skin String Sine is music for space.
- 1. A string stretched between stars and we pluck it: figures in the unbroken darkness; time domain processes.
- 2. In dawnlight firstafter storm: the figures emerge, o generator.
