On 7 December the Colin Currie Quartet premiered a new version of Anna Meredith’s Bumps per Minute – Studies for Dodgems at Kings Place, created by George Barton for the group. The performance was recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show.
The 25-minute work recasts 10 movements from Meredith’s eponymous 2021 album, released on the Moshi Moshi label. As before, the movements reflect "full-length individual musical identities" for each of the dodgem cars that are housed on the track and framed by an exhilarating prologue and epilogue in the form of “START ENGINES” and “STOP ENGINES”, which see fusillades of unpitched sounds from the ensemble wind up and come to a halt respectively.
Barton’s new arrangement puts in the percussion, acoustic elements, and beats that were absent in Meredith’s electronic original, drawing on the frenetic energy of the musicians of the Colin Currie Quartet as they barrel around the battery of instruments arrayed on the concert platform.
Bumps per Minute was originally commissioned by London’s Somerset House, as part of a unique sound art project. Dodge in 2021 saw traditional fairground dodgem rides completely reinvented with the addition of Meredith's interactive musical installation. As visitors raced their bumper cars around the track, each bump, scratch and jolt is tracked by bespoke wireless technology, designed in collaboration with BAFTA-winning interaction sound artist and fellow Somerset House Studios resident, Nick Ryan. The frenetic, random manoeuvres of the cars generate a unique audio-visual composition, resulting in an explosive three-minute sonic display across the courtyard each hour.