Simon Barker’s solo begins with a series of repeated staccato phrases that could be messages. Insistent, urgent, intense. It builds for 12 minutes of sustained musical development that turns these opening phrases over and over, extending them and reworking them in a series of variations that feels like it could go on endlessly.

As we listen, we become aware that there is a grammar underpinning the musical shapes Simon creates. They are charged with a meaning we can discern but not decipher. This is philosophy rendered as kinetic energy and sound. This is music as a way of knowing.

Simon is a drummer and a barefoot runner. His music and running are symbiotically linked and this piece is the result of a period of intense research carried out through drumming and through running. For Simon, running is also a way of knowing.

Simon’s own words provide a fascinating insight into his practice:

“In mid-2018, I had an idea to create a malleable drumming language from scratch that somehow connected physical experiences associated with barefoot running with drumming areas I'd been working on for a while. At the time, I had a collection of rhythmic phrases that featured an effect I called ‘coiling’, the coiling being dense, entangled rhythms that are produced by crushing together different rhythm lines, and played using certain sticking techniques that I had been developing for a couple of years. Whilst I loved the feeling of playing this big pool of phrases featuring rhythmic coils, I was unsure how to proceed to turn it all into a malleable language that could be used for improvisation (you can hear these phrases on the recording Drum Chants for Kiribati and the Marshall Islands)

In order to move ahead with the idea, I went on an intensive period of barefoot running in the mountains around Mino and Kameoka, Japan (10 x 40-45 km, 5 x 20-30km). During daily runs through this incredible landscape I became deeply focused on sensations from the soles of my feet that came with each step, which may be described as unique collections of (highly pleasurable) pressure sensations determined by the unique characteristics of the ground underfoot. I was also fascinated with the feeling of spring-like tendon recoil, and felt that I was gaining a deeper awareness of how each step produces a unique layered collection of underfoot sensations, coupled with densities associated with lots of muscles and tendons moving. Whilst running, I started to imagine that the rhythmic coils could be organised like dense individual bundles of information (like different handfuls of sand), just as each step features a unique collection of muscle movements and ground-to-foot sensations.

These intense physical experiences and new focus areas led to a clear aesthetic pathway for splitting apart and managing the rhythmic materials I had in place, as well as a clear way of notating, organising, making rhythmic gaps, and embodying individual coils.”

Solo Series #9
Performance: Simon Barker
Photo: Sarah Walker
Text: Peter Knight
Video producer: Leo Dale
Sound engineer: Jem Savage, Leo Dale
Sound mix: Jem Savage