Chains

There are several numbers relevant to this music; the one that interests me most is 4. Not because, like so much music in this part of the world, it (the time signature) is in four (divisions)—it isn't (though sometimes it pretends to be). The piece was originally written for the band Fly Agaric, a quartet I had the good luck to be part of from 2009-2013, comprised of Fred Thomas (drums), Jiri Slavik (bass), Cesc Marco (keys), and myself (reeds). We were all students of Barak’s at one time or another, and although we never performed Chains together in the end, Barak’s pedagogy was one of the things that made us gel. 4 is also the number of sections with distinct rhythmic structures in my arrangement of Barak’s piece.

I recorded Chains in 2022, playing all the parts myself. When Douglas got in touch about his new Pyrofon imprint and asked if I’d be up for putting this out on it, I jumped at the chance, starting a brief but fruitful collaborative process between us that transformed it from its original lockdown split-screen video iteration to its current one. I dig the result and hope you will too.

It’s well and good to ask questions, but people also deserve answers. I offer this, then, as a link (in a chain) to a time gone by, to a world lost—not just that of my/our former self/selves but to what could have been, could still be; social justice, reparations, climate justice, degrowth, compassion. Finally, as a letting go of the burdens that drag us down, that pit us against each other, around us, within us, between us.

May the circle be unbroken.

—Zac Gvi (2023)