“I wanted to bring about a new music that speaks to the condition of solastalgia, which is the term coined by Glenn Albrecht to describe the acute anxiety brought about by living through environmental change,” says East Lothian based musician, composer and sound artist Michael Begg, speaking to Phil England. Begg formed the eight-piece electronic and contemporary classical Black Glass Ensemble to creatively recognise that “we have stepped into the Anthropocene.”

Following their 2020 albums Arise From The Twilight and Be Mine In Patience: An Embrace In B Minor, Black Glass Ensemble will soon perform their latest suite Light Water Is Black Water – the first in a new series where climate data is used as a compositional tool – at Edinburgh's Queen's Hall.

Here, Begg shares two exclusive tracks: “October Cut Up” is a studio deconstruction of a track from Black Glass Ensemble's Arise From The Twilight, which sees Begg separate the various instruments and collage the resulting parts; and “New Witness” is from a forthcoming solo album called Moonlight And Sentiment, to be released by Klanggalerie in August.

Wire subscribers can read Phil England's interview with Michael Begg in The Wire 460 via the digital archive. Copies of the magazine are available from our website. Black Glass Ensemble play Edinburgh Queen's Hall on 4 June.