2023/121: Hopeland — Ian McDonald

2023/121: Hopeland — Ian McDonald

We don’t look at time right. We’re chronologically lopsided. We can think about millions of years in the past but not millions of years in the future. We can think about the age of the dinosaurs, or the Romans, but we can’t push our minds two thousand years ahead, let alone millions... We can think about the time when we were not, but we can’t think about the time when we will not be. [loc. 1726]

Hopeland begins in Soho during the London riots of 2011 and ends in Greenland in 2033. Or perhaps in Eirin (once Ireland) in 2981. Or perhaps it does not end.

Amon Brightbourne is a particular kind of composer, his creations a mosaic of found sound and samples, tailored for an audience of one. In the summer of 2011 he's trying to find the gig he's meant to be playing at, but instead he meets Raisa Peri Antares Hopeland, a member of Hopeland, which is 'a nation within all nations, a religion with no belief, a family with no marriage': effectively, a non-geographic nation.( Read more... )