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Come Kingdom Come
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 Photo by Olivia Block
There is something tender and naive to our perception of our effect upon the world around us. Of course, we do affect very much our immediate surroundings in time and space. But we can only speculate in our short time in existence how these effects play out, and what their roll in the grand tapestry of this world they play. We have a childlike perception to our relationship to the world and nature, as if we were still somehow the center of all that is good and destructive. We equate the end of the world to the end of our species; even within our own species we equate an extreme shift or change as End Tymes, rather then an evolutionary leap. We give our End Tyme such extremes…there is no middle ground. There is clarity of good and bad, those punished and those promoted, those not ready and those who saw the light. It reads like a fairy tale, “Come Kingdom Come” is an experimental opera concerning millennialism and apocalyptic thought and theory; an exploratory comparison of this past turn of the millennium to it’s prior. A geography in time and space is formed using various field recordings of the before, during, and after math of natural disasters and other phenomena; the seismic activity of an earthquake, the thunderous tsunami, VLF recordings of a sun storm hitting our magnetosphere, the quiet of Chernobyl, and endangered species of bird calling in the desert. The work is then shaped and molded to achieve a haunting tapestry of rapturous desire, a desperate and beautiful search of meaning, and a whirlwind ecstatic joy and fear.
 Photo by 23five Incorporated
The audio-visual performance begins in darkness with the sound of VLF recordings of the magnetosphere surrounding the seated audience. Slowly emerging one by one, then disappearing just as fast come textured images we cannot quite make out, almost like the impression of a bright light upon our closed eyelids. These images begin to slow their reveal and we see the beautiful photographic work of sound and visual artist Olivia Block. The technique of exposing the development process without a direct subject…strangely powerful in their minimalism, they slowly weave in and out of each other on three walls forming a triptych as the sound begins to build into the first act, performed live electronically in surround-sound by the artist. The performance bookends with bringing in a live-feed of the electromagnetic current of the space, mixing in duet with the VLF recordings from the beginning, bringing us to a full but changed circle. |
Album released on Two Acorns (JP)
Come Kingdom Come is an experimental opera concerning millennialism and apocalyptic thought and theory; an exploratory comparison of this past turn of the millennium to it’s prior. The opera uses The Book of Revelations as a score and launching point, mixing the poetry of Ian Colbert with medieval chant, sung with the sublime voice of classically trained soprano, Gabriela Crowe under the direction of Maile Colbert. The work was then shaped and molded by Maile towards a tapestry of rapturous desire, a desperate and beautiful search of meaning, and a whirlwind ecstatic joy and fear.
Come Kingdom Come is available in a custom 6-panel sleeve, and a glass-mastered CD.
For cd and digital purchase:http://www.thesingularwe.org/twoacorns/2A03
For a little taste: Sound Cloud |
Performance Documentation
Sintoma Festival, Porto, Portugal
Activating the Medium Festival, Dark Ecology, curated by: 23five Incorporated, The Lab, San Francisco
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reviews
The music of Maile's latest work enters into labyrinths. It is they that lead you rather than us as listeners that have the control. It will take me some time to listen to this work & that is the sign that there is much more than surface to hear. My ears are alerted, ready to listen repeatedly
Jez Riley French
Maile Colbert's Come Kingdom Come explores drones and dreams , spaces and silences, whispers and disappearances.
Liturgical voices call across histories: field recordings from an old world of disturbances.
Andrea Parkins
Colbert interweaves elegant, almost liturgical vocal lines, combining them with lush tones and electronic textures.
The resulting composition is a dramatic and vivid odyssey that reveals fragments from a mysterious ancient past within a distinctly contemporary narrative. A beautiful work.
Olivia Block
Come Kingdom Come is an incredibly moving and mysterious piece of work. Its many layers of sound reveal just as many layers of meaning and feeling. From the opening songs of the magnetosphere to the elegiac final act, I was enthralled by Maile's masterful blend of the digital and the organic to evoke something deeply human and emotional.
Steve Peters
"Contemplating the End" in Tokafi
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