Pictured the equipment set up ready for rehearsals with our in-ear system prompts to try

The Thicket is a piece by Yas Clarke for four voices has been performed at the Supernormal Festival 2019, The Cube Cinema Bristol 2022 and the ICA, London 2024. The album can be found on https://tbceditions.bandcamp.com/

The show will be touring from 2025 onwards. First brought together at Supernormal Festival in 2019, the work was developed during lock down (in a break from the fierce restricted times) in Wales 2021 in a chapel.

Photo Yas Clarke

The vocalists are Beni Evans, Jo Hellier, Kate Evans and Shirley Pegna along with several other super talented singers who have been involved with performances and recordings.

We perform with mics scores and in-ear prompts. As a performer it has been a new way for me to perform music where the prompts (in my ear) instigate my pitch and timing rather than listening to the other vocalists. The textural sounds are guided by the computer. This is such a great piece to perform – credit to Yas Clarke for making “a beast of a piece”.

 Here are two short exerts from the ICA performance oct 2024.

Watch here:

https://vimeo.com/1070308334 🎧

Watch here too:

https://vimeo.com/1070318026 🎧

Photo Cube Cinema stage set up

Here is a description of the piece from the Cube Cinema’s programme notes for the Album Launch 2022

“Written in arcane vernacular, The Thicket narrates an ambiguous pilgrimage into the wilderness; at times resembling an orphaned passage from one of William Morris’ early fantasy novels or a Doris Lessing science fiction, at others becoming abstract and non-verbal, like a syllabic tabla score or the alien opera of The Fifth Element. As the text progresses it becomes increasingly abstract and describes the dissolving of the human identity, both through its content and in the structure of language. Words break down into syllables, textures and tones and become musical in their presentation. What emerges is a unique a cappella work that opens up a speculative channel between Chaucer and Bob Cobbing.

Stretching language from a fragmented linear narrative to churning minimalist cascades, Clarke’s text is delivered such that each performer takes one word each, cycling the whole text between them in a strict order and rhythm. Each singer is conducted by a distinct in-ear audio click track, a process which allows for an elaborate structuring of the four-part score; phrases, words and syllables that would otherwise be impossible to perform; unmanipulated voices generating phasing patterns and repetitions which are almost reminiscent of early Steve Reich tape works. “

Special ‘Thicket Cake’ for the Cube Album Launch by Snoozie

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