false vacuum songs is a work for clarinet, classical guitar, double bass, and percussion, written in collaboration with ensemble àktapha.

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false vacuum songs consists of the following sections:

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- the voices of a forest where the trees are hands

- the theme song for a reality tv show about a heart-shaped planet

- the sound of a false vacuum collapsing in on itself

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i’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of metastability and the concept of the false vacuum. there’s this theory that the current state of reality in the universe isn’t the “real” state of reality (a “false vacuum”) and that at any moment, the universe could revert to its “real” state of reality (the “true vacuum”) — a theory in which the universe is “metastable”, an apparent-stability that can be destroyed at any time.

sometimes i feel like our lives are metastable. we cosplay as stable, or “okay”, when we’re really not. and sometimes within that i feel we lose the essence of what it is to be “stable” in the first place — for me, personified in that unbridled play and creativity we’ve left so far behind in our childhoods. so i thought it’d be nice to write some songs about it.

these songs are based on a world of drawings, poems, and audio built and created by, and in conjunction with, ensemble àktapha.

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