Inaugural Music is the fruit of a divine collaboration between Berlin-based experimental orchestra s t a r g a z e and extraordinary percussionist and composer Qasim Naqvi, who is also one-third of longtime favourite avant-jazz band Dawn Of Midi. Eerie and riveting, Inaugural Music was written as a response to the disturbances Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory gave rise to and was just released fittingly ahead of the US election next week. Naqvi offered some insight into the piece::

“Inaugural Music was originally commissioned by stargaze for the Musica Nova Festival in Helsinki. I wrote it during the time between Donald Trump’s election victory and his inauguration – roughly from November 15th of 2016 to January of 2017. This was a deeply troubling moment in our country and the anxiety and sadness was palpable. Many people felt the ground opening under their feet. We were afraid of what was to follow, which most definitely surpassed our wildest expectations at the time. During this transitional period between presidents, writing this piece was a way to assuage a lot of life and death type fears and anxieties that were bubbling to the surface. It was like therapy for me – a coping mechanism.

Another main pillar of this work is the electronics, which were made on a Moog Model D synthesizer. I was drawn to its subtractive properties- a type of synthesis that involves the removal of certain frequencies from a complex sound, through the use of filters. This, along with many other magical properties of the Model D, became the nucleus of the work and the subsequent material for stargaze was the outgrowth. It was a kind of intermingling between complex voltage-created vibrations and the analog of instruments- acoustic sounds generated through breath and string vibration.

The premiere in Helsinki happened on February 5th of 2017 and the recording was made the following year at the Muziekcentrum van de Omroep in Hilversum, Holland. We had access to Studio 2, which is the oldest radio studio room in the Netherlands. I can’t thank stargaze enough for commissioning this piece. At the time it was my first opportunity writing for them, and since then we’ve developed a wonderful, long-standing friendship and creative partnership.”

s t a r g a z e conductor André de Ridder also commented on the piece:

“We first noted Qasim’s music through a release of his chamber work Preamble, which we wanted to perform and managed to program quite a few times. We had met when stargaze and Qasim’s band Dawn of Midi both played the same Dutch festival, Cross-Linx, I think in 2016. We exchanged emails and then it’s one of those things where we can’t quite recollect how we became good friends via quite similar interests and mutual respect for each other’s work. I was curating a festival in Helsinki, the Musica Nova Festival, where I was able to invite Qasim as composer in residence – stargaze were due to perform a concert too. For this concert we commissioned Qasim to write a piece for stargaze specifically, with the brief to create a hybrid work of electronics and live instruments, and this became ‘Inaugural Music.’ We’re so happy to have recorded this in the studio, where we were able to explore the particular sonorities that this beautiful work evokes and requires, as a dialogue of the ensemble and the sounds of the Moog and pulses that we compliment or comment on, while often being enveloped by the ambient soundscapes, too.”

Inaugural Music is a piece we want to hear again and again. Here it is.

Inaugural Music is out now on Transgressive Records