Physics - and metaphysical poetry - in action with Virgile Abela’s Acoustic Pendulum while past traditions, potential futures and a psychedelic present collide in Mellon Charles’s January King.

About Sonica

Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music (1968) set microphones swinging over speakers, generating rhythmic sonic oscillations. Virgile Abela extends and inverts Reich’s format, placing the speakers in a pendulum over a floor-based microphone. Starting in total stillness, over time the pendulum begins to swing in response to acoustic feedback, at first gently and ultimately in wide arcs or circles, forming an acoustic picture of the venue. Deceptively simple, Acoustic Pendulum is physics – and metaphysical poetry – in motion.

Past traditions, potential futures and a psychedelic present collide in Mellon Charles’s January King, a meditation of Scotland’s history and its possible destiny. The members of Mellon Charles – Matt Zurowski, Elise Haller-Shannon and James Dixon – have travelled the country making field recordings and documenting local customs; here they present their findings in an ark-like space looking out on luridly coloured landscapes, where sheep-like beings make music that fuses the folkloric, the analogue and the futuristic.