Liza Lim’s original programme note for City of Falling Angels features the following Walter Benjamin quote:

”This is how one pictures the Angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.”

This remix aims to be an electroacoustic recreation of this vivid image. The opening impact is the single catastrophe perceived by the Angel and from the tail of the opening impact the wreckage builds. Individual sounds burst into prominence before forming part of the underlying texture, creating a tempestuous force that hurtles towards the present.

This piece is a remix of the work City of Falling Angels for percussion ensemble composed by Liza Lim and recorded by the Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt.

To listen go to: https://www.jphiggins.co.uk/fixedmedia/