Benjamin Tassie

This article examines Earth of the Slumbering and Liquid Trees, a 70-minute work by composer Benjamin Tassie for multi-keyboard soloist Zubin Kanga, created within the Cyborg Soloists research project. Centred on the concept of the ‘hyperorgan’ – a digitally mediated amalgam of historically significant pipe organs from the UK and the Netherlands – the piece explores how historically-informed performance practice (HIP), ‘post-HIP’ creativity, and contemporary digital technologies can intersect to produce novel musical, aesthetic, and social experiences. Drawing on detailed sampling of reconstructed and historical organs, including the Van Straten Organ, Wingfield Organ, and a Thomas Parker enharmonic organ, the work employs layering, microtonal retuning, and MIDI Polyphonic Expression to generate novel timbral and harmonic textures. Situating the performance within broader cultural theory, the article considers the hyperorgan as a vehicle for ‘enchantment’ and ‘historicity’ – concepts positioned against postmodern capitalism’s tendencies toward individualism, disenchantment, and the ‘perpetual present’. Engaging with thinkers such as Weber, Fisher, Bauman, and Dolan, the discussion frames the piece as a ‘quasi-religious historically-informed artwork’ that fosters communality and reflection. Through both technological innovation and invocation of centuries-old organ traditions, the work aims to dissolve the boundaries between art and spiritual contemplation, offering audiences an immersive, communal listening experience that momentarily re-sacralises sociality and reactivates historical consciousness.

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