Audio Fragments

From a recording on 4th March 2020 at Kalmar Slott’s Gröna salen ahead of a performance by Frances for a ceremony in memory of the famous glass artist, Monica Backström, who died in February 2020. Monica’s wish was that Frances play at her ceremony on her bone flute which is a reconstruction of an original artefact dated to about 35 thousand years ago (known as GK1 from Geissenklösterle cave in the Swabian Jura in Germany) which Frances made herself. The excerpt is from a studio mix with birdsong recorded from Frances’ garden and ambient sounds of trickling water.

This is about a real cloud formation that looks like a mythical tractor has ploughed a field in the sky, and is about a child taking his mother into his imaginative world. This is an arrangement for youth choir written Autumn 2019, commissioned by Svenska Kyrkan, of a song Frances wrote in 2010 with text by Stephen Edwards. The excerpt is from a performance in Väckelsång church on 2nd February 2020 by ungdoms kören for Anki Lindeqvist who after forty years working in the village as organist and leader of four choirs, retired. The soloist is Linnéa Palmér.

This is one of twelve sound sculptures that constitute the sound installation at Sandby Borg called SOUNDmound by Frances Gill which was launched in the summer of 2018. This particular sound sculpture uses mashed up sonic material from a sound workshop that Frances initiated and recorded with Fateh Alnassan and his family in the early spring of 2018.

‘Shore' is about the space where the land meets the edge of the sea and is referenced in this context as a metaphor for the space between life and death. It is one of the short movements or ‘postcards’ from the string quartet called ‘Vykort Från Sandby Borg’ written by Frances in 2017-18. From a recording of a performance by Long Island String Quartet at Resmo church on Öland in July 2018.

‘Launch' is about the exhilaration of taking a rowing boat to the water’s edge and launching into the sea. It is one of the short movements or ‘postcards’ from the string quartet called ‘Vykort Från Sandby Borg’ written by Frances in 2017-18. From a recording of a performance by Long Island String Quartet at Resmo church on Öland in July 2018.

‘Sails' is about sailing on a fast sailing boat with sails being hoisted, and the tapping of the sails against the masts. It is one of the short movements or ‘postcards’ from the string quartet called ‘Vykort Från Sandby Borg’ written by Frances in 2017-18. From a recording of a performance by Long Island String Quartet at Resmo church on Öland in July 2018.

‘Lament' is about the wars that have brought families on sea journeys to the shores of the hope. These are the shores that return to the space between life and death. It is one of the short movements or ‘postcards’ from the string quartet called ‘Vykort Från Sandby Borg’ written by Frances in 2017-18. From a recording of a performance by Long Island String Quartet at Resmo church on Öland in July 2018.

This piece takes a Ghanian drumming rhythm with a beat in 4 from which the piece is given a rythmic frame. At the same time the rhythm feels like it is in three (or compound duple time) and this moving in and out of two pulses at the same time makes the rhythm an interesting challenge. In the piece it is definitely the brass players who accompany the drummers and not the other way around which is a deliberate reference to the balance of power between brass players and drummers. The excerpt is from the introduction. It is called Ramdala because this is the name of the place that Frances was living in when she wrote it in 2005. It was a commission for a recording collaboration project between the Ghanaian drumming group Aklowa, and Meltham and Meltham Mills Brass Band. Performed and recorded at Aklowa, the African Heritage Village in Takeley, UK, in the summer of 2005, it was recorded and produced by Chris Bullen at High Barn Records, and released as Come Let Us Unite Kpoo Keke.

This was written for the children’s choir at Stamford Bridge and recorded in the studio of the Music Research Centre at York University, engineered by Matthew Paradis.

Written, performed and recorded in York: Frances lead and backing vocals, flute, keyboard and bass. On guitar, Andy Normandale, maracas Dougie Weake and engineerd by Phil Eliot at the Old Dairy Studios.

This piano piece was written by Frances whilst staying in Morecambe in 1988. It was written at the same time Frances was studying Debussy both on piano and flute. The piano player is Paul Feehan.

Written and recorded in Meltham in 1983, this is a song Frances wrote when she was 14, full of overly sweet teenage sentiment!. Voice - Gary Bellas.