Flood

Flood is a haunted, dark-hued work about the end of the millennium — the first and the second. At the end of the first millennium, Europe produced a large body of art centered around the End of Days, which was then assumed to be the year 1000. At the end of the second, when Jocelyn Pook created this piece, there were perhaps fewer people expecting an Apocalypse, but the latter half of the 20th century still saw an uptick in art that dealt with the looming threat of a nuclear end. Pook’s album-length suite, originally created for a dance-theater work called Deluge, brilliantly weaves together the sounds of Latin chant and moody electronics, suggesting the hopes, prayers and fears of people facing both millennial marks. Pook, a violinist herself, uses strings, samples and Asian instruments to great effect.

The album hits an early high point with “Oppenheimer,” which begins with the famous clip of J. Robert Oppenheimer explaining the “what-have-I-done” feeling that overtook him when the first atomic bomb was tested. The “Requiem Aeternam” theme of the Latin mass for the dead, which recurs at several key parts of Flood, appears here, but so does a sample… read more »