Winter Reverb II - Colin Fallows Ensemble

About

The Colin Fallows Ensemble is an electric guitar trio dedicated to the performance of multi-layered soundworks, dense with microtones which generate numerous overtones through bespoke tuning to resonant performance spaces. The members of the ensemble are Colin Fallows, Bee Hughes and Eva Petersen. The ensemble performances combine the precision and clarity of a string trio with the locomotive power of a noise-machine orchestra. For their fourth appearance at Wilkinson Gallery, the ensemble will form a sonic triptych for the performance of Winter Reverb II (2015) a series of related compositions by Fallows for prepared and treated electric guitars ranging from mono-chordal sound canvases layered with overtones, through subtle shifting moiré patterns of drones and gestural sound-paintings, to raucous excursions in tone-bending noise that conjure up the presence of imaginary instruments.

Related works by Colin Fallows include Colourfield For Strings, originally produced as an immersive sound installation in conjunction with the exhibition of Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals at Tate Liverpool (2009). The installation utilised a dense sonic mix of sustained electric guitar recordings by Fallows and Will Sergeant (Echo & The Bunnymen). Further versions of Colourfield For Strings include: music for the play Red (by John Logan) about Rothko, with accompanying sound installation at EuroTheater Central, Bonn, Germany (2012-13); and a one-hour radio programme for ORF Kunstradio, Vienna, Austria (2013) for listeners to experience the piece via three radio sources simultaneously. Colourfield For Strings is recorded as a limited edition (333 copies) artist’s multiple, arranged in four eighteen-minute movements on two-disc 180-gram vinyl. Optional twin turn-table systems can be used to playback both discs simultaneously in various combinations and in vari-speed modes on single or twin turn-table systems. The LP featured in Tate Liverpool is 25, anniversary exhibition (2013); and is in permanent collections including: Tate Archives; the British Library Sound Archive; the Research Centre for Artists’ Publications, Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, Bremen, Germany; SCCA-Ljubljana, Center for Contemporary Arts; the International Centre of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia; and the Archive of Recorded Sound, Stanford University, USA.