"on october 20, 2006 a drone attack in pakistan struck a school (madrasa).
80-82 civilians, including 68-70 children were killed.
one alleged militant was killed.
the attack took place on the day a peace agreement was to be signed between islamabad and the bajaur agency militants.
the agreement was not signed.



is it possible for us to commemorate the lives of innocent drone victims?
it is necessary.
but how?
i don't know.
then we must find ways to do it without knowing how.
yes, find new ways of trying.
maybe by giving a moment of time and attention to each of the names?
maybe a sound for each of them?"

-from the liner notes

"A work written in response to the October 20, 2006 drone attack on a school in Pakistan that killed 80 or more people, including 68-70 children. Hannesson asks how it's possible to respond to this aesthetically and offers his attempt. It's a very moving one, simple in conception, a kind of funereal tolling. The piece, titled 'undeclared', is presented three times, first played by Antoine Beuger on children's glockenspiel (an especially effective conveyor of grief), then by René Holtkamp on guitar and finally by the composer using whistling and electronics. Where Beuger's rendition is soft and sorrowful, a string of individual tones, all the same, spaced over about 20 minutes, Holtkamp attacks the same score more forcefully, the pain felt at the horrible event evincing itself. Hannesson's version is different, much gauzier, even ethereal, the tones still there but clouded, evanescing, perhaps disappearing like those poor victims. A moving set of music."-Brian Olewnick, Just Outside