Sarah Parkin - Alastair White - Robe (2021) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

This recording of Alastair White’s ‘fashion-opera’ ROBE features the original cast from the premiere performance as part of Tête-à-Tête, London in 2019. The unique concept employs only four female singers with flute and piano, but also dancers and actors, in this futuristic drama. The work was shortlisted for the Creative Edinburgh Award and described as “striking and evocative” (Planet Hugill)

In a society where the difference between the real and the virtual is no longer meaningful, a powerful new being threatens the stability which holds these worlds together. Two elders, Neachneohain and Beira, convince the young cartographer Rowan to complete a terrible task: descend into the mind of the superintelligence EDINBURGH and map this creature so as to grant its desire – to become a living city, teeming with human life and activity. Witnessing visions of the awful realness of life beyond cyberspace, Rowan agrees – plunging into its depths: a strange, abstract world of data and dream.

Thirty years later, Rowan and EDINBURGH have fallen in love, have lived their lives together. Though every morning she awakes with no memory of the past, Rowan has almost completed the map that EDINBURGH desires. But into this map Rowan has woven something else: something hidden, silent, unsaid. As these rifts in the structure undo causality itself, she must answer the question: what exactly has she created? And what does it have to do with this strange, otherworldly figure who sings the red song of a forgotten city – of an ancient, poisoned ROBE…

TRACKLIST

1. Sarah Parkin - Beira's Warning
2. Kelly Poukens - Song of Redness
3. Rosie Middleton - Neachneohain's Speech
4. Clara Kanter - Rowan's First Answer
5. Kelly Poukens - Song of Silk
6. Kelly Poukens - Duet
7. Sarah Parkin - Beira's Speech
8. Kelly Poukens - Rowan's Second Answer
9. Kelly Poukens - Song of Heather
10. Clara Kanter - Rowan's Vision
11. Kelly Poukens - Song of Sandstone
12. Rosie Middleton - Neachneohain's Vision
13. Sarah Parkin - The Arming of Rowan, the History of the World
14. Kelly Poukens - Song of Morning
15. Sarah Parkin - Edinburgh Awakes - Rowan Descends
16. Sarah Parkin - A Dream of Q-el's City - Wake Up , Rowan
17. Sarah Parkin - Rowan and Edinburgh
18. Sarah Parkin - Anthem
19. Sarah Parkin - Beira's Vision
20. Sarah Parkin - Epilogue



Thanks to the Original customer.