A young girl
barefoot
white vintage dress
blowing bubbles to the blue-lit mists

is a stranger
without name,
revealed from another realm

in disguise as an actress poised harmless
insidious luring;

waits outside the window


Samples: Al Thumm drums, Glen Hadden acoustic guitar, Rachel Johnston cello, Melanie Walters flute

Created in Goodwood, South Australia

Software: Synchronise

About: During this time I was doing live sound for a play called "The Visitors". My role was to sit backstage and process the sounds of the live cellists into an atmospheric wash and whorl of dementia. Pizzicato ostinati like crooked clockwork, and echoing screeches of demented sul ponticello.
The play was about this girl (pictured above) who gradually starts appearing to a man (though no one else sees her), as he loses his mind to dementia. The girl mocks his fading grip on (his) reality, but yet lovingly and tenderly lures and welcomes him into her world.
This was the first time I'd worked in theatre, and there was something mesmerizing about the fact this play was about dementia, and that I was sitting backstage where I couldn't see the actors, and listening to these disembodied voices, night after night. The same lines delivered over and over again into the darkness.

See in your own eyes
Where have you been?

Bewildered in a storm,
drawn and carried back to the source.
There it was only a mirage

Samples: Dan Thorpe piano, Melanie Walters flute, Sebastian Phlox pipe organ, Al Thumm synths, coffee crackling, radio tuning, raindrops on a metal bowl, ringing metal bowl, cow bell, SuperCollider, AudioPaint, Bridget Malcolm table percussion, Robert Wallace violin

Created in Prospect, South Australia

Software: Fields

Samples: Glen Hadden electric guitar, Dan Thorpe piano, Rachel Johnston cello, Melanie Walters flute, Al Thumm synths, Christopher Roberts qin

Created in Prospect, South Australia

Software: Fields

Samples: Glen Hadden acoustic guitar, Dan Thorpe saxophone, Rachel Johnston cello, Iran Sanadzadeh circuits, Sebastian Phlox pipe organ, Al Thumm granular soundscape

Created in Prospect, South Australia

Software: Fields

Samples: Melanie Walters flute, Dan Thorpe piano/saxophone, Rachel Johnston cello, Ruby Michael spoken word

Created in Maslins Beach, South Australia

Software: Fields

About: After the second night of drinking the wine called Pure Vision, I woke early and came to this view of the beach to make this piece. I felt the atmosphere really come through the sounds, maybe for the first time. This seemed like what I'd expected In Sound Surrounds to be - the environment I was in genuinely infusing into the music. The vanilla colours of the morning turning gold appeared in the sounds. The distant whistle was somehow true of that place.

But on listening back, the music itself was so whimsical and repetitive. It was like I was a child just given my first set of crayons, and just realizing I could draw what I see. This piece was repetitive beyond all reasonable limits. I considered the Cagean axiom of repeating something until it becomes interesting again, but it didn't seem authentic in this case.

I considered not including it here at all, but I had a strong intuition instead to break my rule, and change the piece in post-production. So I edited much of it out, and added Ruby's spoken word piece. So this is the first piece that is not strictly an improvisation in the same sense as the others, but at any rate, in the world of sampling the question of origination in improvisation tends to eat its own tail.

It only struck me after I'd added the spoken word, that I'd met Ruby a week earlier at a sunrise ceremony (which her poem is about) and I had named this piece The Second Flight of the Sunrise Flock before I'd even considered putting the poetry in. Even more amazingly, the day before I'd made this piece, I opened a book of Rumi's poetry randomly to a page entitled 'The Sunrise Ruby'.

For those curious and patient, below is the original piece:

Second Flight of the Sunrise Flock (Original)

No armour,
Rejoice !

Samples: Meredith Lane electric guitar, Rob Wallace violin, Rachel Johnston cello, Al Thumm synth, Melanie Walters flute

Created in Willunga, South Australia

Software: Fields and Synchronise

About: I woke early on this morning, after drinking some wine called 'Pure Vision' the night before. I walked on the beach, in the cold morning air, long enough for my hands to go nearly numb. On the way I'd recorded sounds of many birds, and of the rumbling ocean waves. Though the waves here were small, the sound was deep with presence. I photographed many simple, beautiful things - the ochre cliffs, morning gulls reflected in the wet sand, dark clouds hovering, watching, but unthreatening.

Samples: Melanie Walters flute, Christopher Roberts qin, Al Thumm synths, SuperCollider, Glen Hadden electric/acoustic guitar, Dan Thorpe saxophone, Rachel Johnston cello

Created in Prospect, South Australia

Software: Synchronise

Samples: Rachel Johnston cello, Christopher Roberts qin, Al Thumm rain on a metal bowl, Glen Hadden electric guitar

Created in Prospect, Adelaide

Software: Fields

Big Eye Long Neck (Where the Mana Things Are - Slight Return)

Samples: Rachel Johnston cello, Christopher Roberts qin

Created in Melbourne Airport

Software: Fields

Samples: Dan Thorpe piano/saxophone, Glen Hadden classical guitar, Rachel Johnston cello, Al Thumm field recordings

Created in Warrandyte, Victoria

Software: Fields