Reservoir 1 Sarah Hennies

Black Truffle is thrilled to present “Reservoir 1: Preservation,” a gorgeous new piece by American composer/percussionist Sarah Hennies. Sarah's work explores a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer & trans identity, love, intimacy, psychoacoustics, and percussion. The “Reservoirs” are a series of three one-hour pieces based on the relationship between the conscious and unconscious human mind. Jung and Freud described the unconscious mind as a reservoir, a repository for memories that we don’t readily need access to, yet are kept forever somewhere in our minds. Specifically, Freud believed that one function of the unconscious mind is to store traumatic memories, filed away so that we don’t have to confront them every day. The conscious mind has no direct access to the unconscious, yet the unconscious is a constant yet mysterious presence in our lives.

“Reservoir 1: Preservation” is scored for piano and three percussionists, performed by Phillip Bush and Meridian, the long-running experiment in percussion, improvisation, and interpersonal relationships that includes Tim Feeney, Sarah Hennies, and Greg Stuart. In “Preservation” the piano functions as a constant, pervasive, but almost subliminal murmur amid the percussion playing that cycles through a variety of timbral and gestural areas, including gentle droning, frenetic scraping, and bricks violently dropped into metal buckets. The percussion group never interacts with or responds to the piano, while the piano subtly absorbs aspects of the trio.

“Preservation” was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Jeff Francis at the University of South Carolina and performed by Meridian: Tim Feeney, Sarah Hennies, Greg Stuart (percussion), and Phillip Bush (piano). Released in a CD digipak with design by Lasse Marhaug. Cover photo from Abby Grace Drake’s photo series, “Shopping Carts of Southside Ithaca.