PYUR during ‘Memory Vessels’ concert at BIMHUIS. Photo credit: Sabine van Nistelrooij

How does one articulate sound? Experiencing PYUR’s (Sophie Schnell) performance of her album Lucid Anarchy was moving, a testament to the poignant synthesis of resonance, movement, and lighting. These elements came together in the Bimhuis, a venue perched above Amsterdam’s main artery, the IJ river – where I began to think about how language can distill sonic notions into something more vulnerable through the abstraction of language. During PYUR’s talk ‘Worlding Feelings’ from the Context Programme, she speaks rhythmically about the inspiration and creative process behind the album. “The space between the words and waves became louder.” Such lyrical descriptions of PYUR’s approach feel linked to her synaesthesia – she sees sounds as colors. We can also bring a kind of sensorial dimension to sound with poetry, in its ability to deconstruct the written word in the same way experimental electronics do to music. In shifting narrative styles, I vs. Us, we can blend a personal concert vignette with poetic prose. We can open a new space – where it’s possible to synthesize both the individual transformation of the self through performance absorption, and the collective knowing born from a shared experience.