Look out

"The piece takes its cue from McCaig’s Tower in Oban, Scotland—not as an architectural curiosity, but as an acoustic world. It begins and ends with the finches that inhabit the open structure, their calls forming the work’s natural frame. 

"The music moves through evolving motifs: a peaceful drone and the suggestion of bagpipes represent the quiet of the unfinished enclosure overlooking the town and bay of Oban and a little of the builder’s proud, almost overreaching ambition; a more measured, tread-like pulse created from footsteps in the field recording, suggests generations of visitors drifting through the space; and a light, agile texture depicts the birds’ restless motion. 

"Finally the pipes return as grandeur brushes against melancholy. The finches, ever-present, attend to their own concerns."

Finches in McCaig's Tower reimagined by Martin Gregory.