refugees of the symbolic network
A series of funeral music spatialized in the convolution reverb of the King's Chamber of the Giza Pyramid. Deconstructing the work of poets Izz al-Din Manasirah & Sargon Boulus. On a site visit to the King’s chamber of the Giza pyramid, the impulse response was acquired and mapped onto sound effects, transposing the compositions within the spectral footprint of the chamber.
As an archaeoacoustic study, this work examines sonic architectures of ancient sacred sites. The King’s Chamber, built from rose granite with high quartz content, functions as a resonator and oracle. Its acoustics reshaping syllables, augmenting emphasis, and unearthing utterances which lay dormant through aeons of silence. Just as pyramid spells were invoked to secure safe passage through the underworld, RotSN navigates the liminal terrain between exile and home, word and silence, inscription and disappearance.
The compositions involved reading selected excerpts in an entropic speech system; multi-layering of utterances and organums over several cycles, until a new language or syllabic melody is unearthed. The prime resonant frequencies of the chambers sculpt the material, accentuating the words’ phonetic motifs as the album unravels. Using speech as an instrument whose tonal-dynamical structure arises solely from the weight of the words, and how they interweave to reveal harmonic ciphers embedded in the fabric of the language and contexts which created it.
This process is an inquiry into ritualistic submission to utterance as a natural force. It seeks to precipitate a funerary sonic practice; a type of chant to mourn and resist in the same breath. To perpetuate the writers’ voices not by merely echoing them; but by roaming the caverns of their dialectical systems. To etch a codex of voices of the forsaken, the refugees of the symbolic network, the countless lives buried in the belly of the whale that is called history.
‘the hostile gods have seen that she incites the Eyeless One against those who shall stretch forth their arms’
– Coffin Text, Spell 451
The hostile gods are enemies of the deceased. The subject is a marginal, wandering presence cut off from collective cosmic hierarchies. Dialectically, these refugees are catalysts for transformation; their displacement exposes contradictions within the symbolic order. In a similar vein to Egyptian mythology, the work compounds as a group of protective utterances meant to encapsulate the subject by binding the dark forces which alienate them from Maʽat; by naming the forces, invoking their entrapment, thus stripping them of their power. Disrupting the linguistic architecture of exile through cut-ups and phonetic entropy, RotSN attempts to dismantle the operative mechanisms embedded in its symbols and the latent forces within them. The chaotic exile from celestial-symbolic order is short-circuited back into it. The exiled returns as a counterpoint and restorer of balance.
Press Reviews
The Wire 2025 Rewind: Time out of Joint
The Wire 499: Feature Interview: Funerary Rites for Lost Souls
The Wire 500: Live Review: RotSN Launch at Boundary Condition
Performances
Another Sky Festival -- Cafe Oto, London 29.09.2024
Radiophrenia Festival -- The Glad Cafe, Glasgow 15.03.2025
Boundary Condition: Refugees of the Symbolic Network -- St. James Garlickhythe, London 08.08.2025 Roca -- The Old Church, London 19.09.2025
Baba Yaga’s Hut Presents: Gazelle Twin & Cerpintxt -- Institute of Contemporary Arts, London 25.09.2025
Mai Mai Mai: Karakoz Album Tour -- Avalon Cafe, London 05.11.2025
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Credits
Nina Hitz (The Killimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble): Cello
Youssef Hassan: Bass
Ruben Sonnoli: Keys, Synthesizer
Robin Hayward (Microtonal Tuba Project): Microtonal Tuba
Cerpintxt: Composition, Vocals, Field Recordings, Cello, Strings, Clarinet, Spatialisation, Mixing
Tommy Wallwork (Wallwork): Mixing Engineer
Manuel Scaramuzzino: Mastering
Cornelia Pierce (Primae Materia) & Daniela Huerta (Baby Vulture): Album Art & Music Videos
Carl Smith & Tom Middleton: Impulse Response Recording (King’s Chamber, Great Pyramid of Giza)
Mohamed Abdel Hamid & Tariq Ibrahim: Calligraphy
Supported by PRS Open Fund & Help Musicians Next Level