Music for First Contact
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Album launch tickets: https://linktr.ee/pcpq
Music for First Contact is an opera by Post Coal Prom Queen.
Music for First Contact tells the story of humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. 1000 years in the future a space station orbiting Mars - manned by descendants of Scottish explorers - detects a signal that is clearly intelligent. The question then becomes, do they reply or do they stay silent?
The narrative of the album is an exploration of the dark forest theory, popularised by Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem novel. It’s theorised that all life seeks to preserve itself and, upon discovering a different life form, no species can guarantee that it will not be annihilated by this new species. Therefore, the safest option for any life form is to stay quiet to avoid detection, and if it detects others, destroy them before it itself is destroyed.
The tracks explore the dark forest theory, propaganda, fear and hope all through the lens of Scottish identity. The album also satirises the current political climate and the use of heavy-handed propaganda by both sides of the political spectrum to push flawed agendas - although it is important to note that we land firmly on the ‘yes’ side of the spectrum, whether it is Scottish independence or first contact.
Each song is an extrapolation of one of four arias written by PCPQ for voice and piano. Music for First Contact debuted as an interactive referendum at the 2022 Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh to a sold out audience. The audience were asked to vote on whether or not to make first contact with the extraterrestrial intelligence. The audience voted 92% in favour of making first contact.
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- 54:50
- 61:18
- 73:11
- 88:02
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