ARCHIVE

Old arias, scratched symphonies, pop ballads, cut-up verses, disco beats, children's stories, and numerous other vocal and musical fragments, mixed and manipulated into a lyrical composition on multiple turntables and a 16-track tape recorder. Subliminal narratives flicker into existence only to dissolve instantly, then reform like micro worlds momentarily glimpsed and lost. "I want to trigger the mechanisms of memory," Marclay says, "to bring to the surface what has been deposited in our collective and personal memories. I don't want to impose a single reading but to involve each listener in the narrative process. The work is a reaction to the overflow of sound contributed daily by the media. In this saturated aural environment, I don't ask myself what more to add, but rather, what to do with it. " Commissioned by New American Radio.