1. Alpha - 16'28" Alpha is composed as a union of synthetic sound and highly transformed female and male utterances – a meta-body of sound. Drawing on the writings of Donna Haraway – the 'Cyborg Manifesto' as well as her technological prophecy 'Cyber Quintessence' – the music aims to create an imaginary space as a metaphorical and technological extension of the human body. The silences in Alpha refer to absolute time: there is no past here, no future – only the moment of experience, the present. Written in the studio's of EMS Stockholm 2008 The visual scores are made from tracing paper, red ink, blood and gold leaf, media that represent the transparent and extreme musical world occupied by electronic sound. The images have been shown in the Ohrenhoch Sound Gallery in Berlin. Pierre Cécile at Le son du grisli [Alpha] is a work with [a unique] aesthetic. Its three tracks burst within the vinyl and lead you to a universe not unlike that of Tetris; above you, geometric forms made from crashes, feedback, buzzes and whispers. Luscious and delectable. (French version) Review by Dave Mandl (The Wire) Issue 315, Page 62, May 2010 “Alpha” is inspired by the writing of the American post-feminist academic Donna Haraway, best known for her Cyborg Manifesto. The piece uses as its raw material electronically altered recordings of mobile phone calls (some of them extremely low-fidelity) by both women and men – Thomas’s multi-sexual response to what she sees as a female-centric orientation in Haraway’s cyborg theory. “Alpha” is the most musical of the compositions on the LP, with nearly discernible pitches played on what at least appears to be a keyboard instrument or sampler. But as usual Thomas throws wrenches into the works at every opportunity: the otherwise placid piece breaks down repeatedly, is interrupted again and again by distorted glitches and discordant metallic sounds, and from time to time goes completely silent for uncomfortably long periods. Which is both imperfect and perfect.