Crash Ensemble’s residency programme has resulted in some powerful collaborations, as well as a number of successful premieres and subsequent recordings, such as Barry O’Halpin’s Wingform. Their last two releases have each featured one short but substantial work, with Sam Perkin’s Children in the Universe from November and Bekah Simms’ Metamold in May. Both Perkin and Simms have been composer-in-residence for Crash – Perkin in 2022 and Simms in 2022–24 – and both these works were premiered by Crash at New Music Dublin – Simms’ in 2021 and Perkin’s in 2022.

Perkin stylises Children in the Universe as a ‘hybrid symphony’. At about 25 minutes, its three movements balance Crash Ensemble in bright ambient mode with an electronic aural glow. The first movement, ‘We Howled Like Wolves’, begins as a gently undulating landscape of bells, strings and electronics, with more instruments and the sounds of nature (birdsong and, of course, wolf howls) brought in as the movement progresses. The harmony changes slowly, each chord connecting only with the one before it and the one following, and the wolf howls are eventually mimicked by Diamanda La Berge Dramm’s lead violin. Perkin’s description of La Berge Dramm’s part as a guide rather than a soloist is reflected in its unfussy, decorous writing. Rather than the leader of an ensemble of subordinate followers, the solo violin is the brightest star of a constellation, a point the listener can use for reference and reassurance.

The second movement, ‘Lifeblood’, arrives abruptly with a bouncy pattern on a chip tune-style compressed synthesiser. Rhythmic games abound, the instruments playing with each other and layering over the shifting sands of the central beat. Similar games occur in the third movement, ‘Tears of Pure Intuition’, as three-against-two cross-rhythms and brief, bright gestures reminiscent of early Steve Reich keep the music feeling propulsive.

The movement titles, and the title of the work, are taken from Charles Eisenstein, an American writer Perkin seems to hold in high regard. Personally I have very little patience for Eisenstein, who most notoriously equated the debatable plight of people who declined Covid vaccination to that of persecuted Jews. Despite this, and the inevitable and deliberate association that comes with it, the music is generous. Though I’d argue it’s misguided in influence, it’s characterised (like most of Perkin’s music) by a sense of positivity and hope, and an impulse to share that sense with the audience and the musicians he works with.

Quotation and distortion
Bekah Simms’ music, per the biography on her website, is ‘propelled equally by fascination and terror towards the universe … filtered through the personal lens of her anxiety.’ The Glasgow-based Canadian recently completed her residency with Crash Ensemble, and the group has followed up the premiere of Cryptid at New Music Dublin this year with this release of the much shorter, but still robust, Metamold.

Simms’ music draws on quotation and distortion of existing material, in this case recordings of its commissioning ensembles (Crash, Eighth Blackbird, and New York New Music Ensemble) which provide the electronic element. The opening statement is a percussive strike that disintegrates immediately into string scratch tones, bass clarinet key clicks, and hissing cymbals before reforming into an unsettled, sliding harmonic space. The music disperses and reforms like mercury, simultaneously following many paths until it finds a place of relative stability, a catchy keyboard groove that’s suppressed, then shoved aside, by more frantic material.

The whole shape of the piece is somewhat liminal, with ideas recurring across the span of the piece or seeming fleeting until they come to dominate the environment, and motoric passages giving way to dissonant ambience. The integration of the electronic element is very convincing as well; it’s treated as an equal partner with the acoustic instruments, and in the recording it’s sometimes quite difficult to tell one from the other.

Simms is one of the most compelling new composers I’ve heard recently, and her back catalogue has received justifiable praise. Metamold is just 13 minutes long, but manages a lot in such a short span. There’s a wealth of harmonic and timbral imagination, as the music travels from its assertive opening to a cold and spacious ending.

I admit I found myself wondering whether either of these works was substantial enough to warrant a full release alone, since between them they total only about 38 minutes. But both pieces stand the true test of recorded music: they reward multiple listens. And they make an interesting pairing, with each composer exploring their own balance of electronic and acoustic instruments, treating Crash as an equal partner, and writing very much to the group’s distinctive energy. And it’s a credit to Crash that two composers with such different outlooks and styles can find common ground in their sound.

Crash Ensemble’s releases are available at www.crashensemble.com/listen.

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