Origami – Wu Xing – The Five Elements 2017
“Heaven has produced the five elements which supply humankind’s requirements, and the people use them all. Not one of them can be dispensed with.”
- Zuo Zhuan’s record on the 27th year of the reign of Duke Xiang (590-573 B.C.E.)
A suite inspired by the Wu Xing (五行), the ancient five elements or phases, underpinning Chinese philosophy. Each phase has certain attributes that have informed the composition and then are used by the musicians in their improvisations.
There is a major difference to the ancient Greek elements in that the Wu Xing are more transitional in nature, where they can move in different cycles. One is more of a consuming nature, eg. fire consumes wood, but the cycle here is generative, where one elements begets another. The start and end points were chosen by the connection of Wood to birth and Water to death, but even at the end the cycle begins again.
credits
released October 27, 2017
Adam Simmons – alto saxophone, bass clarinet
Howard Cairns – double bass
Hugh Harvey – drums
Guest: Wang Zheng-Ting – sheng
All compositions by Adam Simmons, except “feeds” (Simmons/Zheng-Ting), “creates” (Harvey/Cairns), “bears” (Cairns/Simmons) and “collects” (Zheng-Ting/Harvey)
Adam is a Temby artist and performs exclusively on a Vintage Temby alto saxophone
Adam is a Selmer artist and performs exclusively on a SELMER Paris Privilege bass clarinet
Recorded by Myles Mumford, at Rolling Stock, 16 September 2017
Design by Celsius Design
Spiral data tato design by Philip Chapman-Bell
origami.oschene.com
For instructions for folding the Spiral Data Tato log onto:
www.instructables.com/id/The-Spiral-Data-Tato—-A-Curiously-Complex-Origam/
Thanks to Lewbowski's (Joel Trigg) for support in the development of this project. Thanks to Richard Fields for providing both nutritional and artistic sustenance.
