Kim Moore - A Song We Destroy to Spin Again

A Closer Listen

A Song We Destroy to Spin Again is a gorgeous mini-symphony, but leaving nothing to chance, it also comes in equally gorgeous packaging.  Blackford Hill is known for paying attention to detail.  The physical edition includes a 48-page softback book of text, scores and Vivien McDermid’s art.

The title is both literal and metaphorical.  Kim Moore sent string solos to GAIA (Katrina Lee and Alice Allen), who re-recorded them and sent them back; Moore sampled and looped the sounds and added bells; then everything was recorded live.  But while the original song was destroyed, reconstructed and spun again, the seams are nearly invisible.  The “song” is also a stand-in for “society,” as the piece was written as a response to a world on fire: Australian bush fires, George Floyd protests, COVID-19.  Could destruction bring hope, like new shoots rising from a burned landscape?

At the beginning there is silence; then a wisp of percussion and tentative, wailing strings.  At the end of the first minute, a surge of energy rises like an alarm.  The soloists face each other in deep conversation, sharing their despair.  Then silence again; percussion; a second movement.  One might connect the six movements to the days of creation, followed by rest.  By the time we hear these sounds, they are far removed from their inception; the performers are already spinning.

One may spin cloth and records and tales, but in all these cases, one also spins hope.  To spin is to create and to celebrate the art of creation.  Even in mid-piece, as the cello bobs in a bed of drone, one can still imagine a shore.  In the direct center of the piece, a distant signal seems like a sonic buoy.  A lament is carried across the waves, seeking empathetic ears.  Is it bad where you are as well?  Sounds akin to a crackle of fire and a fog horn enter the mix.  Yes, it is bad everywhere.  

The piece turns a corner in the final two movements, as the very act of commiserating infuses the piece with light.  The distant signal becomes close, finally working its way into the foreground.  The loops produce the impression of a small ensemble.  What once would have been the fifth silence is bridged by an extended note.  While the movement is titled “Light to Come,” the listener senses that it has already arrived.  First one feels the warmth, then one sees the sun.  The darkness fades; the danger passes; the listener is calmed.

Even if this is not the happy ending many have encountered, if it can be spun, it can be believed.  Humanity needs more tales such as this to keep us all afloat.  Just as the song has been destroyed, reevaluated and returned to life, society may rise from its ashes if suffused with enough hopeful, positive imagination.  (Richard Allen)