World Premiere Performance

Angus Wilson / Percussion

Alex Raineri / Piano

Live performance from the 2020 Brisbane Music Festival 'Streamed Series'.

Jai Farrell / Audio Engineer & Videographer

Tactile, granular, and confined. Yet another ‘lockdown’ work, 'Nest of gravel' captures some of the restrictive, monotonous, at times claustrophobic nature many of us have experienced as a result of lockdown and Covid-19. Movement is highly restricted over the physical regions of the piano as the keyboard, pedals, and strings rattle, scrape, and grind against each other. The bed of sound creates a certain unease; constant agitation and a longing for reprieve. For some, lockdown has meant resort-like living, unburdened by financial worry. For others, it has entailed police presence, cage-like confinement, and an amplification of already tenuous socio-economic conditions. The detainment of refugees, political prisoners, and minorities has been a reality of society well before 2020 and it must be remembered that what many have experienced recently is but a drop in the ocean of what systematic and weaponised confinement entails. - Jakob Bragg