Rum Diary is a tribute to Hunter S. Thompson: his volatility, velocity, humor, paranoia, excess, and refusal to look away. The title comes from Thompson’s first novel, but the piece is less a depiction of that book than a response to the larger force of his voice.

As a fellow Kentuckian, I have always felt a particular connection to Thompson’s work: its Southern sharpness, its appetite for contradiction, and its strange mixture of elegance and wreckage. His writing is brash, lucid, grotesque, funny, and often more truthful because of its instability. I wanted the music to carry some of that same energy.

Rum Diary pushes hard against the players and the material. It is unruly, fast-moving, and deliberately excessive, shaped by sudden turns, abrasive gestures, and a kind of manic forward pressure. The piece honors Thompson not by smoothing him into legend, but by embracing the danger, wit, and restlessness that made his work impossible to ignore.

—SC