fishfossilfake is a 30-minute composition for ensemble and electronic sound, that combines graphic notation, instructions for improvisation, text notation and some stave-notated sections (such as an organum). The intention of this combination of notational approaches is to create music that may combine spontaneity and an experimental or environmental approach to sound with the management of a larger-scale musical structure. Poetically, the piece is a musical exploration of the mystical, mythical, unchartered and obscure world under the sea. The strange properties of this world have been gathered from medieval and earlier art, from discussions of sea animals in medieval and contemporary texts, and from recipes. This combination of source materials has been used to paint a picture of the undersea as uncanny, while also foregrounding issues of environmental change and human intervention in the lives of undersea creatures. This is further emphasised by the inclusion of these spoken texts both as sound and as notation in the music. Three animals have been chosen through which to explore this world, roughly corresponding to the three sections of the piece: the sea bass (who is fished, prepared, cooked and eaten); the four hundred year old shark (the Greenland shark, who has seen many changes in the ocean during her life); and the narwhal (who must be seen to be misunderstood, or perhaps believed). The musical ocean in which these animals exist is comprised of constant change, distortion, blurred repetition and development, creating the impression that nothing about these animals and the environment in which they live can be conclusively known. Sonically, this shifting and changing is achieved through the combination of notational approaches and compositional styles brought together in the piece, and their combination with electronic sound that is created from instrumental and field recordings that are re-combined and distorted throughout the piece.

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/39215