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(performed by New Noise)

for oboe, percussion and digital sound

Score
Insomnia. The inability to sleep, despite attempts at rest. Like an insomniac this piece is agitated and unable to settle. The instrumentalists inhabit a dark, oppressive world which is constantly active, fragmentary and bordering on nightmare. The work was partly inspired by my own experience of insomnia, which usually strikes when I am making work or writing, and by Sylvia Plath’s poem, ‘Insomniac’. I have also made a text-based version using similar materials, called Losing it

The piece was commissioned by New Noise (Joby Burgess and Janey Miller) in 2001 and is recorded on their CD, Insomniac.