DRUMROLL (2020) made in collaboration with Richard Sharp
DRUMROLL is a new audio artwork composed for 8 drums, distributed online on New Years Eve (31 Dec 2020) as a shared (but distant) listening event.
DRUMROLL takes a simple, recognisable musical flourish (a drumroll) as a starting point and extends and expands this to create an evocative, engaging, immersive listening experience.
Drumrolls are often used to command attention, create anticipation, charge a crowd, and signal that something ‘big’ and exciting is about to happen. In DRUMROLL, LOW PROFILE use these associations to draw parallels with (and speak to) a range of collective experiences during 2020 – feelings of tension, urgency and anticipation; sustained periods of waiting, transitions from one state to another, and longing for change; prolonged frustration and the desire for a release.
While making this work, LOW PROFILE have been thinking about what it feels like to be exposed to the elements and forces outside our control. The calm before the storm. How it feels to stand looking out to sea or across the horizon. Crowds forming and dispersing. Noticing swells, gusts, and daily changes in the atmosphere. Shouting into gale force winds and lashing rain. The sound of voices calling out and echoing over distance. Catching sight of the beacon that can guide you safely to shore. Feeling the warmth of the sun rising, eyes closed, as the welcome heat floods your body. The safety and excitement of watching, sheltered, as the storm beats the sea and rocks. The collective sound of feet marching and voices shouting. The moments when silence falls, and we are there quietly waiting together. The unspoken understanding that there is safety in numbers, and of the powerful charge of working together as one. Memories of bodies dancing and sweating, of being with others, close up and en masse.
DRUMROLL will be released on New Year’s Eve 2020 to offer listeners a moment of pause and reflection, a boost of energy, a cry for things to be different, and a hopeful promise that what comes next will be better for us all.
