Broken by AMS/Erik Satie
BROKEN
Gnossiennes 1–6 by Erik Satie
Interpreted by Aleatory Music Systems (Robert Baldock)
The Gnossiennes are among Erik Satie’s most enigmatic and inward-facing works—unbound by traditional time signatures, untethered from conventional structure.
They drift, hover, collapse and reform like thoughts breaking apart mid-sentence. In BROKEN, Robert Baldock (AMS) offers a deconstructed, deeply personal reimagining of these six pieces—not as static compositions, but as fragile architectures haunted by memory, interruption, and reassembly.
At the heart of this work lies a visceral encounter with thrombectomy, a life-saving procedure to remove a blood clot from the brain. The experience left Baldock confronting acute aphasia, where language itself is fractured – thoughts are intact, but expression is broken; like sentences shattered before they reach the surface.
In BROKEN, the Gnossiennes become a mirror to this journey:
• Random breakdowns echo the arbitrary ruptures of stroke.
• Fragmented phrasing channels the disorientation of re-learning new methods of communication and physical movement.
• Vacillating, hesitant and wavering, shifts reflect the unsettling unpredictability of recovery, healing and the acceptance of change.
Baldock doesn’t offer resolution. Instead, he holds space for uncertainty—exploring the parallels between music that resists order and a mind rebuilding itself from within.
"AMS deconstructs Satie...with amazing results, mindblowing and touching at the same time." - DJ Space Terrapin https://bsky.app/profile/gehegedrei.bsky.social
“Haunting, moving, thought provoking. It’s beautiful” - Fiona Morrison
Tracklist
Credits
Composer: Erik Satie
Artwork: Sharon Quigley, Traum, www.sharonquigley.com
Cover design: Andy Fielding
License
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. See the Creative Commons website for details.Tags
Aleatory Music Systems (AMS) is an ongoing research project by Chief Scientist Robert Baldock to explore the boundary between order and chaos in systems music and computer music. Source material comes from radio, analogue synths and field recordings. Most of the more abstract pieces are improvised in real time using either Java or Max/MSP performance applications.