As [Side A]bove, So [Side B]elow: Future Palimpsests, Cassette Aesthetics and Improvisation for Tambourine and Vibrator

This piece examines the importance of memory (and forgetting), the paradox of immutability and malleability, and the confluence of past and future in both experimental improvisation and cassette tape aesthetics. Cutting between two case studies – an analysis of the diptych pieces ‘Improvisation for Tambourine and Vibrator’ (2024) by experimental percussionist Ben Dumbauld and an autobiographical remembrance of a mixtape – the piece performs its own improvisational palimpsestual layering, emulating the aesthetic of the mixtape. Containing fragments of autobiographical writing, heard through the medium of cassette, and stream-of-consciousness writing, written alongside the music, the piece attempts to represent the permanence and ephemerality of music on cassette.