One Pig

A large scale musical pig sty

In 2011 I worked with Matthew Herbert on a custom instrument to be used for performances of One Pig. For this album Matthew recorded a single pig’s life “from birth to plate” and constructed an album out of the resultant sounds. Here’s a review of the album.

He asked me to create a new controller/instrument built especially for the show – the StyHarp. As the name suggests, the StyHarp was designed to mimic a pig sty, and was used in the show to trigger, control, and effect sounds in real time by pulling, plucking, and twisting the strings. It was a very physical thing to play, which was part of the fun. It was also large enough for us all to use collaboratively, so the other members of the band (Hugh Jones, Sam Beste, Tom Skinner, and Matthew) could join me in the sty.

The instrument was made out of 12 Gametrak strings, running into a custom hardware system connected to Max/MSP and Ableton Live.

We played many shows with this over the course of several years. Venues included Liquid Room Tokyo, Berghain Berlin, Cafe Oto London, Queen Elizabeth Hall London, Palais de Tokyo Paris, RCNM Manchester, Casa da Musica Porto, Ancienne Belgique Belgium, Queens Hall Edinburgh, Tramway Glasgow, and many more.