Motherboard Rare Earths (For Krankenhaus 2026)

Motherboard Rare Earths is a new half hour piece originally produced for eight speakers that was commissioned to contribute to accompany a laser and sound installation among some trees at the Krankenhaus Festival 2026, organised by the band Sea Power. Bedtime and West devised and ran the installation and had musicians contribute pieces or perform live.

It was a fascinating experiment to compose and arrange for an octophonic speaker setup which I couldn't test out myself and couldn't fully experience until I was actually present at the festival (my piece was aired twice over the weekend). I was very pleased with the results.

Different passages used the speaker setup differently, sometimes I had sounds pinging rapidly around the space, at other times the shift was more gradual, and additionally the effect would be very different depending on the listeners physical position within the installation. I made the music on a cheap PC laptop in Ableton and it is largely beatless, though there are shifting rhythmic elements in places.