“The title is a play on the duality of ‘the quickening’ as the moment of creation when something becomes “ensouled”, and ‘the quickening’ as accelerationism – rising fascism, climate catastrophe, and technological singularity (also a play on the fast tempo). While before I reveled in stillness, rave music drew me to explore the way in which constant repetition can hypnotize you in a similar way – I thought minimalism and totalism seemed like an interesting paradigm to try and express this. The piece is in four parts for cello: a pedal, two top lines, and a bass voice... The piece is 180 BPM with a constant pedal playing about 50 percent faster than the human heartbeat, which creates some kind of interesting interaction between the music and body. The piece is written, produced, mixed and mastered by me, all using my computer.”

Excerpt from email correspondence with composer Julia Wolfe