VelA

"'the music of what happens'..... Uninterrupted, perpetual, music that takes in water, wind and kitchen things, the unstructured symphony of a day, or a night, in the world. Francesca Baines' sensitive, versatile delivery, combines with ingenious instrumentation - banjo, dulcimer, lampshade, sifting pan, matches and teacups, 'prepared piano' (Cage's invention), 'whispering forests' and harbour sounds - to give us back the world in heightened resolution. There is the drama of her light voice wrestling with raw material, her lyrical scenarios, her wandering mysterious rhythms, sometimes abrupt and unexpected, with their "exotic" folk components - faint ghosts of gamelan and ravanhata.