String and Tins release EP 'Stills 03'

‘Stills 03’ is out on the 23rd June 2023 via String and Tins Recordings, available to stream & download. EP art by Camille Rousseau. From ‘Watch The Music’, La Collection Dessinée.

The ‘Stills’ project asks composers to create a piece of music in response to a self-selected work of art exhibited in London’s Tate Britain Gallery, presenting each of them with a premise; if each respective artwork represented a still from a scene, what would the score sound like?

With ‘Stills 03’, the series reaches a compelling conclusion with three scores that enrich the expansive identity of ‘Stills’. Featuring established String and Tins composers & sound designers Will Cohen, Jim Stewart & Simon Whiteside – with Cohen making his debut appearance in the series – ‘Stills 03’ focuses purely on landscape painting, interpreting prominent works by Victorian animal painter Briton Rivière, English figure and landscape painter Christopher R. W. Nevinson, and the German-born St Ives school artist Paul Feiler.

Through dynamic movements of expressive symphonic minimalism, enhanced by intricate, immersive sound design, the composers of ‘Stills 03’ create new, original responses to Rivière’s arctic landscapes, Nevinson’s angular early modernist skylines, and the 1950s-era non-figurative brushwork of Feiler, which in this case is strongly reminiscent of a weathered Cornish coastline.

As with the previous instalments in the series, ‘Stills 03’ adeptly reconciles classical instrumentation - strings, woodwind, brass, piano - with contemporary sound design. Yet where ‘Stills 01’ experimented with digital processing, violin ensembles and choral elements, and ‘Stills 02’ mirrored the execution of film soundtrack composers, ‘Stills 03’ embraces the use of granular effects, field recordings, free dissonance and more.

Beyond Man’s Footsteps
Composer: Will Cohen
Artwork: Beyond Man’s Footsteps, exhibited 1894. Briton Rivière.
Photo © Tate.

From Will Cohen’s subtle overture of resonant drone and gracefully surging strings, through the soothing Sakamoto-esque piano and Reichian cycles of Jim Stewart’s score, to the abrasive orchestral disorder of Simon Whiteside’s contribution, ‘Stills 03’ expands upon the vivid, contemplative signature and myriad ideas of the ‘Stills’ series, memorably reflecting the artistic craft and atmospheric power of each chosen painting.

The Soul of The Soulless City
Composer: Jim Stewart
Artwork: The Soul of the Soulless City (New York - an Abstraction), 1920. Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson.
Photo © Tate.

Simon Whiteide - Morvah

We weren't able to secure permission to reproduce the image here but you can view the works on the Tate's site.

I have always been drawn to the works of the St Ives school, their abstraction of nature and the modernist aesthetic they embraced.

Structurally I hear this artwork in a traditional style. Upward rising surges of orchestral energy, roughly in proportion to the black blocks in the canvas, growing in intensity. These gestures are placed in a background of textures that illustrate the different moods of the sea.

A passionate surging oceanic emotional landscape. Invoking in the listener the fear, awe and beauty of the sea in all its glory as it crashes, laps and caresses the Cornish coast.

Musically I hear the sound world as free dissonance but not totally divorced from key centres, mirroring the St Ives school use of artistic abstraction from nature.

‘Stills 03’ represents an exceptional final dialogue between esteemed artworks, evocative neo-classical music, and elaborate sound design; a fitting coda to an inventive series which has forged imaginative new connections between art, music, and inspiration.

Tracklist

1 | Will Cohen – Beyond Man’s Footsteps
2 | Jim Stewart – The Soul of The Soulless City
3 | Simon Whiteside –Morvah

‘Stills 03’ is out on the 23rd June 2023 via String and Tins Recordings, available to stream & download. EP art by Camille Rousseau. From ‘Watch The Music’, La Collection Dessinée.

Listen to 'Stills 03' on Spotify here.