"Hybrid figure Annika Sch(w)arm, who dedicates her new solo MURDER OF CROWS to the crows, is simultaneously a thieving magpie, a scarecrow and a ravenous carrier for the souls of the dead. After her last performance, BALZTÄNZE, the Hamburg artist happily descends further into her feathered obsessions. Scolding calls, flapping wings, snapping bills, it is autumn!" [Kampnagel]

For this performance piece, I set up a 6-channel speaker layout with four floor speakers at the corners of the huge stage, a centered speaker at the ceiling and one speaker in the right corner behind the audience. This way, I could place single sounds all around the space while using the real reverb of the big industrial hall, which turned out to work really well.

Similar to the first performance BALZTÄNZE, I banished any real bird calls or sounds, but this time pre-recorded the performer's voice doing crow calls. This way, the crow on stage could e.g. chat with off-stage crows, being played live via MIDI. Letting the Sound Design reflect the crows' playful and intelligent nature, I did the same with a variety of falling metal, plastic and nut sounds. I furthermore created some nebulous atmospheres, played analogue poly-synthesizers and even produced a little lo-fi techno song.