Recorded in London on 10^th December 2010.

Ailís reads her poem:  ALL LOVE IS INSANE  (from Brief-Blue-Electric-Bloom)

Allow me to introduce you to a place
Where I am yours and you are someone-elses
Allow me to introduce you to this
All love is insane…

I’m sitting in the sky
I’m sleeping in the water
I’m running for my life past the post
Past the last post
Where you are
Still
Standing
Simply
Saying
‘All good things must come to an end someday’
All good things must come
To
An
End.

Now I’m sprinting past the last post
Charging past the final bell
No-one is behind me
No-one is in front
I am here
In the middle of time
Blooming with unreason
and the glorious disappointment of achievement.

Why did you ask me here
With your easy-free-way charm?
You knew I’d come running-
Come
Running
To
You.
I can be very weak…
Now the fabric of love begins to unravel
And we remember we’ve been here before
A billion, trillion-times
Paradise lost…
in the foundries of your mind
Paradise found…
in the ferrous wheels of your heart.
All love is insane.

Born in Cork, the Irish Composer and Writer Ailís Ní Ríain produces work which aims to challenge, provoke and engage. She is particularly interested in cross-discipline collaboration, sound installation, the public-realm, mini-opera, music-theatre and presenting new music in diverse spaces. She has been represented by the Contemporary Music Centre of Ireland since 1999. Her Southbank debut took place in 2007 and her Carnegie Hall debut in 2008. She lives in Todmorden on the West Yorkshire border.  Ailis is hearing impaired and this has directly influenced her work Brief-Blue-Electric-Bloom which combines live music, animation, two sign-language interpreters and poetry – a unique piece which questions the complications of communications and the breakdown of love between two people.

www.ailis.info

Recording Notes

One of two readings of the same text recorded in my studio. Ailís spoke softly and naturally into the recording horn not wishing to declaim the words in a heightened or theatrical manner. I choose this version because of the quality of the sound patina, produced by a slightly pitted blank cylinder.