A-Sun Amissa & Lauren Mason :: Water Scores (Gizeh)

Once voiced by Mason, water becomes both storyteller and observer—flowing through calm, chaos, evaporation, and return. Around this, A-Sun Amissa builds a rich soundscape using drone, classical instruments, processed guitars, synthesizers, and subtle samples.

Hydrogen and oxygen suspended in restless transformation

Water Scores is a currently touring and performing work that combines two mutually appreciative artistic movements in a state of perpetual flux. The near-40-minute piece delivers spoken-word expression from visiting poet and scribe Lauren Mason, who employs Anglovian-toned language to evoke hydrogen and oxygen suspended in restless transformation. Her text moves between observation and incantation, tracing water not only as substance but as metaphor: a living continuum of motion, memory, and quiet power. It becomes a paean to neglect and wonder alike, acknowledging both humanity’s disregard for this elemental force and its enduring capacity to sustain, shape, and traverse landscapes, bodies, and time itself.

Once personified through Mason’s voice, water becomes narrator and witness—an elemental presence moving through cycles of calm, turbulence, evaporation, and return. Beneath and around this narration, A Sun Amissa paints the sonic environment with a diverse musical palette that incorporates drone, classical instrumentation, treated guitars, synthesizers, and carefully placed samples. The music swells and recedes like tide and current, forming clustering and expansive clouds that oscillate between murk and clarity. Delicate passages fracture into brittle textures before reforming into slow, fluid currents of sound. The result is a shifting, immersive soundscape: at times fragile and glasslike, at others dense and sedimentary, mirroring the endlessly mutable character of water itself while allowing Mason’s words to ripple through the composition like light across a moving surface.

Water Scores is available on Gizeh. [Bandcamp]