DEVIL’S TRIANGLE, a music of protest, for triple string, percussion & vocal OCTETS

IMAGE: Rock Formation, Owyhee RIVER, OREGON. For triple string, percussion & vocal OCTETS, [here] a synthetic all-female street-poetry CHORUS. The title of the piece, “DEVIL’S TRIANGLE,” refers not only to the convergence of dangerous currents and winds at sea, and to arcane sexual geometries, but also much more to the ongoing insidious breakdown of the essential three-part balance of powers of the legislative, executive, & judicial branches of United States government. This reference is made explicit towards the end, when the lead member of the choir — here synthetic, but it could also be performed live with eight singers — quotes FEDERALIST no. 51, composed by James MADISON, “The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments.” (1787) Here is the MADISON fragment: “Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.” DEVIL’S TRIANGLE is the 3rd little piece I’ve done in a, for me, new style or species of musical movement or energy. The spirit is partly the tragicomic Greek Satyr play, with its bawdy satire and burlesque. But is also one of a sonic mirror. All the shards of texts heard are stolen from what I think of as the stream — an at times violent vortex — of public thought and speak. This contemporary “noise of the moment” heard above and below and through little crystal of metaphysical clarity, like the Federalist Papers referenced above. I like the contrast. Of wisdom, and vulgar insanity. It’s somehow camp shirt is captures March truly who we are. I also like the sound of the computer, or synthetic voice. It creates distance. It creates a kind of neutral intelligence which more accurately portrays our own chaos. DEVIL’S TRIANGLE is not really about the recent Judge, now Justice Kavanaugh debacle. Although many of the phrases used were selected at random from the hearings of those two tragic weeks of United States history. Its theme is the system, not the man. It’s about the breakdown of checks and balances. Instead of the triangulated strength of three independent bodies in mutually self-correcting harmony, we now have an in my view an almost Mafia style sustained discord, with its ruthless mutually beneficial and self-reinforcing dirty oil-money based corruption. To speak in the rough & rude style of the piece, what else can we expect a ‘pussy-grabber President’ to do than appoint a ‘push-it-in-your-face Justice’? Here is another new piece in this new stream, SUNSINE & KITTENS https://soundcloud.com/cliff-crego/sunshine-kittens-a-musical-reflection-of-cultural-insanity-simone-de-haan-trombone