« Wood Sleeves » began as a response to a fascinating artistic technology used by German artist, Bartholomaus Traubeck : the ability to be able to listen to wooden discs/sliced sleeves of trees played like records on a laser turntable. The ensuing utilization of the sounds of the tree rings were then paired with and represented by the voice of the piano. Through Traubeck’s art, the tree rings were translated into the language of music.

Intrigued with this concept, “Wood Sleeves” by Aitken and Pine, grew to become an art song about the lives of trees and how they are paralleled by and measured against the lives of humans.