Fall Back arrives as the second release in the Subtext Live series, presenting a collaborative performance by Roly Porter and Cynthia Millar recorded in the Britten Studio at Snape Maltings, named after the Aldeburgh Festival's founder Benjamin Britten. The new work commissioned by Aldeburgh Music's Faster than Sound continues the exploratory journey set out in Porter's landmark Aftertime album, unravelling the strands of affinity and contrast between contemporary classical, industrial noise and ritual electronics. Following on from her work on Aftertime, multi-instrumentalist Cynthia Millar performs the Dobro and Ondes Martenot, a pioneering early electrical instrument from the 1920's, with her haunting arrangements based on traditional Scottish folk song Henry Martin forging an elegiac communion with Porter's dense textures, pulsing bass tones and dynamic atmospherics.

The recording made within this vast concert hall breathes a unique residual intensity into the material, capturing the performative tension and acoustic beauty of the space, whilst evoking the sonic impact and transient delicacy of the music. The commission expands on Porter's investigations into the relationship between man, technology and nature with the piece crystallising this vision, and in the process reverently mirroring the deeply human themes present in the songs text and the haunted apparitions of visual artist, Rod Maclachlan's projections which accompanied the performance.



Electronics - Roly Porter
Dobro, Ondes Martenot - Cynthia Millar
Rod Maclachlan - Custom-made opaque projector, engine oil wheel projection

Mastered by James Ginzburg at Multiverse, Bristol UK.
Recorded on location by Paul Jebanasam
Photography by Jana Chiellino
CD Design by John Coulthart
Published by Multiverse Media Publishing

Fall Back was commissioned by Aldeburgh Music's Faster than Sound and first performed in the Britten Studio, Snape, 29 October 2011

Faster than Sound is generously supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Released in October 2012