title: Behind the Wallpaper
instrumentation: amplified voice (range: F3 to C#5), string quartet
duration: 35 min.
written in: 2013–15
text: Alex Temple
“[A] dizzying collage of dreamlike impressions … somewhere between avant-garde composition, mysterious artifact, and sci-fi thriller.”
—Lindsey Rhoades, The Village Voice
“It is equal parts cinematic, romantic and terrifying”
—Amanda Farah, The Quietus
Behind the Wallpaper is a story about someone undergoing a mysterious transformation. At first her life is mundane, even dreary — but moments of altered perception reveal something sinister flickering in the corners. And then, late one night, she has an inexplicable encounter in a university science park. Soon she finds herself changing, in ways that may or may not be visible to others. Like the cycle’s unnamed protagonist, the music slips unnoticed through the cracks in the walls, drawing on indie pop, Weimar cabaret, Elizabethan music and 19th-century Romanticism.
I wrote Behind the Wallpaper for Spektral Quartet and singer Julia Holter, whose own music has a stylistic fluidity and vulnerability that made her the perfect choice for this dreamy, unsettling story. Many years later, in collaboration with engineer Greg Norman, producer William Brittelle, mixer Zach Hanson, and mastering engineer Ryan Streber, we turned it into a studio album, which is now available from New Amsterdam Records.
For more about the piece, check out:
· Chicago Magazine’s interview with me
· The Chicago Tribune’s interview with Doyle, Julia and me
· The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s interview with Julia
· Time Out Chicago’s interview with Julia
Listen