Dither, Pother and Roil began life in a series of improvisations made in early 2008, but the recordings were subsequently lost and forgotten until four years later. Having discovered them and realised their potential, i then spent nine months reworking and developing those original improvisations into their final, very elaborate forms, together lasting around 49 minutes.
There are ways in which this trio of works relates to and draws upon both the techniques and sentiments of my earlier electronic music. There are echoes of the shifting abstractions of the Simulated Music cycle, as well as the large-scale sculptural elementalism heard in the Ceiling stared at me but i beheld only the Stars and ‘Icon’, the central panel in Triptych, May/July 2009. But above all, Dither, Pother and Roil explore (for me) new methods and an expanded mode of expression. To a greater extent than is usual in my work, they are pieces that must speak for themselves; it will be abundantly clear that they are visceral, violent, unrestrained and at times relentless, but beyond this the titles—carefully chosen for their allusive qualities and connotations—must be sufficient to 'explain' their meaning. This is mirrored in the accompanying CD artwork, taken from a painting by the talented American artist Claire Uhle, a painting that seems to encapsulate everything that Dither, Pother and Roil are seeking to express.