The Empire Never Ended

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45rpm

“In 2006 the researcher Thomas Knoefel found a mysterious, single pressing, of a 78rpm vinyl at the Society for Psychical Research archive in London. The grooves of the record were pressed in the opposite direction of what is usually the case; so that when you dropped a needle on it, it would move from the interior of the disc and outwards towards the edge. No information was given on the sleeve except for the year 1948 and the phrase “Dangerous! Do Not Play!” The recording contained the voice of a man whose vocalisations couldn’t be recognised as belonging to any language known to man. He was thus assumed to be in a state of trance and to be speaking in tongues. To this day we know nothing about the mother tongue of the speaker, nor anything about his particular faith.

The Empire Never Ended is a transcription, using musical notation, of this recording. During a performance of the piece the original recording is played back in a speaker system while one or many musicians follow the recording and the notation as closely as possible in unison and octaves. The piece operates at the intersection where complete control and complete lack of control coincide. To perform the piece a musician will have to summon all precision and all concentration. At the same time he/she will have to put these very same abilities in the hands of a power beyond any human control. A power we know nothing about.

The Empire Never Ended was originally written for Ensemble Modern and commissioned by the BHF-Bank-Stiftung for Frankfurter Positionen 2013.

Original recording published by Supposé as part of Okkulte Stimmen – Mediale Musik
Recordings of Unseen Intelligences 1905-2007, edited by Thomas Knoefel (Berlin 2007).”