Nicholas through the mist
Notes
A piece for the late Nicholas Zurbrugg, a pataphysician who worked at De Montfort University, Leicester (a city which has been something of a hotbed of pataphysics down the decades). It is also partly inspired by the theories of Jean-Pierre Brisset, who believed that man is descended from the frog, which he proves through a study of linguistic evolution. So the piece begins with an Australian Mist Frog, whose Brissetian call gradually gives way to Nick's name, spoken with a distinct French accent, assembled from phonemes on a language training tape. This in turn stretches into a mournful digital cry.