A new work by Limpet Space Race, performed by the Orchestra of St John’s, seeks to draw attention to the global water crisis by depicting the human struggle of those who have to search for it daily.

Limpet Space Race are a duo who draw on genres including pop, jazz, and electronics in their work. Here, it is electronics, field recording and a string orchestra that creates the sound world of Reaching Waters. The work draws on water security research by Dr Catherine Grasham in Ethiopia's Awash River Basin as part of the University of Oxford's REACH programme. Inspired by stories from her interviewees, Limpet Space Race’s composition explores the increasingly long journeys faced by many people as climate change makes their access to water more difficult. One of those interviewees – from a farming community from Ethiopia’s Fentale District - can be heard sampled in the work, her words translating as ‘You have to travel long distances to find water, it’s very tiring’.

The piece - which you can watch above - opens with ‘long slides, high double bass harmonics and glitchy, shimmering synth textures [which] are put to work against strings, to suggest an uncomfortable search for water across a hot, dry and oppressive landscape.’ As the search for water continues, we hear those sampled words ‘amidst strained, muted melodies’, while ‘the parts flourish into lush but short-lived chords that represent a mirage, an illusion of water on the ground in an otherwise arid landscape.’ Finally, we hear ‘rich, resonant chords and double bass pizzicato as water is reached, that transition into an evocative melody layered with water samples and ripples of synth. Completed by soaring strings, this section celebrates the life and relief water brings us, before fading away into a memory as the return journey begins.’

Commissioned by conductor Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey for the Orchestra of St John’s, Reaching Water was recorded and filmed in July during a socially-distanced session at Oxford’s OVADA warehouse, and is available as a single from Upcycled Sounds Records.