Were I to have met Glen Wiffen in a pub, engaged him in conversation and discovered he made music, from his personality alone it would be hard to imagine his musical output to be as it is. This is relevant because his new work, ‘Born To An Indifferent World’, could easily be the work of an intense, reclusive type and instead it is the product of one remarkably eloquent and sociable gentleman who is constantly searching for a way to see the glass as half full. Since dystonia, a condition that causes muscle spasms, made playing traditional instruments in a traditional way exhausting and impractical for him, Glen refused to withdraw from music and now captures, shapes and arranges sound through electronic equipment.

This new work has been two years in the making and is presented in five parts, each of which characterises a step on the journey from birth to young adulthood; it is written as a response to the inevitable maturing of Glen’s own offspring. The central conceit of the work, that aside from our parents the world is indifferent to us, will illicit diverging responses. After the trauma of childbirth in track one, tracks two, three and four reflect the various ways in which we grow up adapting to live according to everyone else’s agenda. I think that the key to understanding Glen’s preferred interpretation is to consider track five, the end of the piece, as ‘now’, and for those entering adulthood this is a license to step outside the humdrum and shape the future as it could be. If you like, we are dropped off at the crossroads of young adulthood and asked, ‘what do you believe you are capable of?’. All without any discernible words, of course.

The fabric of the pieces are formed substantially from treated loops and found sounds which are recorded in a whimsical manner rather than pursued like the perfect pair of shoes. Naturally, this means the texture of the piece as a whole is formed from the sound of wherever Glen has been, meaning that the sounds themselves could be anything and include spoken words and a choir formed around people living with Parkinson’s disease.

Another source of sound for this project was an invented instrument manufactured by Glen, but for which he has no name (suggestions on a postcard). To create sound to work with, the instrument is played and recorded independently of any other piece of music, then this recording is explored for interesting passages which are used in the final piece.

Glen Wiffen is a tremendous example of a normal person making extraordinary music without artifice or snobbery. The subtext of course is that limitations imposed on a person, whether they be physical or mental, can open doors. Echoing this, ‘Born To An Indifferent World’ is a journey through young life, exploring how we ultimately respond to the limitations imposed on us by those around us as we grow up.

John Parsons