The Unloved

A fantastic feature on channel 4s programming last night. This drama was incredibly well produced with a thought provoking story - I found it very inspirational.

I have been working on lots of little ideas recently. Little bits of music here and there, recordings etc, as well as writing short poems or story ideas. The frustrating thing is that due to lack of direction, I haven't really seen any of these project through to completion. I just don't have a reason to finish them so once the initial conception has happened, I drop them and start working on something else.

Nearly all of the electronic music that I have been working on recently has come from one single idea for a short story. So it makes logical sense that with a new found creative enthusiasm, I should tie all these bits together into a single finished piece.

The story focuses on an ex offender many years after he has been 'rehabilitated' into society. However, instead of working a 9 to 5 or becoming involved with local community projects, he is withdrawn and isolated from his community. Due to his dark past you could expect this to be an exclusion initiated by the community itself but the reality is quite the opposite. Members of the local church group extend the hand of friendship to him, trying to pull him into society but he refuses, keeping himself locked away.

He is not bitter or resentful. He is simply afraid to trust himself. He does not believe his past has truly left him and he fears that he will commit his horrific crimes again. His only solution is to keep himself shut away.

The piece will consist of three main parts.

• An introduction of acoustic drone and vocal harmonies. As this part gathers momentum a solitary electric piano part will start to fade in.
• The electric piano will provide a bedding for a spoken word piece focusing on the above plot.
• As this middle section draws to a close an industrial rhythm will emerge before the piece launches into a track titled 'Self Protection', an electric guitar based piece which was one of the first pieces of music to come from the story.
• (This final section is subject to review as, although it was initially inspired by the story, the end result doesn't really convey the mood of the story)

I am also musing on the idea of coupling the musical element of this story with some visuals in the form of a dance piece. This will be explained in another post.