Near where I was born, the coastline of County Durham is marked by a series of narrow forested gorges that cut through a deep layer of Magnesian Limestone. Laid down some 250 million years ago, these rocks mark the Zechstein Sea, a large lagoon in the centre of the ancient Pangea super-continent that gradually evaporated during the last great global warming at the end of the Permian period, when temperatures soared above 50?C.

Zechstein is a tranquil contemplative work that exploits the vast range of multiphonics discovered by Christopher Redgate on the new Howarth-Redgate oboe.