Available on CD and digital Friday 14th February via Crashed Records
Pre-order on Bandcamp: https://crashensemble.bandcamp.com/album/terrarium
Pre-save link: https://lnk.fuga.com/terrarium
Co-commissioned by Crash Ensemble, November Music, and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
More info: https://www.crashensemble.com/post/terrarium
TERRARIUM—an immersive soundscape where geological history and human memory converge—arrives on 14th February 2025 via Crashed Records. Composed by Ann Cleare and performed by Crash Ensemble, the album invites listeners to experience the shifting landscapes of Ireland’s Midlands through a sonic lens.
Premiered live at New Music Dublin in 2024, TERRARIUM is the culmination of Cleare’s residency with Crash Ensemble. The work intricately maps the geological evolution of Ireland’s Midlands, transforming natural and industrial landscapes—from ice to lake to bog to industrialisation —into a dynamic sound world. The piece captures the forgotten and enduring myths that echo from this post-industrial terrain, creating an auditory portrait of time and place.
The project was created in collaboration with Kari Cahill and Hazel McCague from Lay of the Land and Laura Sheeran, Crash Ensemble’s filmmaker-in-residence.
About TERRARIUM:
The Midlands of Ireland have always existed in a delicate balance between land and water, and TERRARIUM explores this unique terrain, embodying its ever-changing geography. At the heart of the work is the Boora Parklands in County Offaly, home to the ruin of a Mesolithic shoreline, thought to be one of the earliest sites of human activity in Ireland, dating back to between 6800 and 6500 BC. The only way to access the site is on foot, through a journey across bog, wood, and water—a landscape that serves as both a puzzle and a portal to the past. With layers of history and myth embedded in the earth, this land tells a story of transformation, resilience, and continuity.
The album mirrors this process of transformation through sound. Beginning with an ice-bound sonic landscape, TERRARIUM unfolds into a dynamic representation of the land’s geological layers. It moves through the thawing “Ice,” the storm-swept “Storm,” and the calm waters of an ancient “Lake.” From there, the music traces the 8,000-year evolution of the earth, giving way to the layered bogscape that emerges in the “Moss” section. This ever-growing texture culminates in the brief but cataclysmic intrusion of “Industry,” referencing the rapid industrialization of the area that drastically altered the landscape in the mid-20th century. The final movement, “Rewetting,” sees the return of water, guided by modern hydrology, offering a glimpse into potential futures for this evolving ecosystem.
Cleare’s composition is heavily inspired by the poem Echoes by W.S. Merwin, whose words became a constant companion throughout the creation of TERRARIUM. Merwin’s reflection on the cyclical nature of sound and memory, as expressed in the opening lines of the poem, resonates deeply with the work’s themes of time, decay, and renewal:
“Everything we hear is an echo. Anyone can see that echoes move forward and backward in time, in rings. But not everyone realizes that as a result silence becomes harder and harder for us to grasp—though it in itself is unchanged—because of the echoes pouring through us out of the past, unless we can learn to set them at rest. How do we sound to the past? And there are sounds that rush away from us: echoes of future words. So, we know that there are words in the future, some of them loud and terrible. And we know that there is silence in the future. But will the words recognize their unchanging homeland?”
Standing at the site where our Mesolithic ancestors once took shelter, it’s impossible not to wonder whether this landscape represents a beginning or an end. In TERRARIUM, the land itself becomes not just a site for artistic exploration but a place for reflection—a space where we pause, reflect, and imagine both the passage of time and the futures that might arise from it. The work invites us to consider how we might learn to listen to the echoes of the past and envision what lies ahead.
Available on CD and digital Friday 14th February via Crashed Records
Pre-save link: https://lnk.fuga.com/terrarium
Created in collaboration with Kari Cahill and Hazel McCague from Lay of the Land, and with Laura Sheeran, Crash Ensemble’s filmmaker-in-residence.
TERRARIUM was co-commissioned by Crash Ensemble, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and November Music. Crash Ensemble is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Dublin City Council and is a resident ensemble at the National Concert Hall, Dublin and at Kilkenny Arts Festival. The collaboration with Lay of the Land was also supported by an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland.
https://annclearecomposer.com/
https://www.crashensemble.com/
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