Guests at an opening slow down when the music is being made a few feet away. Thunderclap Murphy plays a live ambient score for the evening, looping flute, guitar, kalimba and synth into one long piece that grows while the gallery fills.
Opening the evening
He begins sparse, one line and a lot of air, while the first guests are still arriving. The layers gather as the gallery fills and the sound warms through the middle of the night. By the last half hour it thins back towards quiet, so the evening has a shape instead of a level.
Placing the sound
Four speakers stand at the edges of the floor and every instrument holds its own position among them, so the music has depth and direction wherever a visitor is standing. He loops at independent lengths, so the lines drift out of step and the piece never repeats itself exactly. The whole rig runs off ordinary sockets.
Leaving visitors free
Visitors look, talk, drink and move at their own pace. Someone who stops to watch him build it hears the whole structure. Someone who keeps moving hears a room with music in it.
The work on the walls stays the reason people came, and the evening around it carries further into the night. Book him for an opening, and the night gets a centre of its own. A recent performance is filmed here.
He comes back within the week. No obligation.