Chambre Sourde

The prawns taste best when they are the size of the middle finger…

By Eric Demetriou. Recorded at The Substation. No-input signal, sound system copper, wire.

Visual Artist’s Non-Orchestra

A bunch of people inside a truck.

This was a part of the Critical Mobility project being put on by BUS gallery. Here’s the description from the website:

The Visual Artists’ Non-Orchestra is looking for artists to play their abandoned instruments, pots, pans, ready-mades, paint brushes, thrift store drum kits, teenage transgression christmas present guitars, Semiotext Xeroxes, band camp clarinets, trash cans, ukeleles, dusty acrylic recorders, hippie parent’s bongo drums, italian grandparent’s piano accordions, forks, spoons, assorted silverware, dust busters, vacuum cleaners, primary school era “three blind mice” played violins, closet wind instruments, down tuned bass guitars, broken Marclay-esque record players, vocal chords, corduroy pants, ringtones, traditional folk instruments, scrap A4s, Katzenklaviers, boxes of old catalogues, failed sound art experiments, etc. 
TURN UP, DE-TUNE, DROP OUT

Sean Baxter, Jerome Noetinger & Faust

Another recording from the Overground festival - this time a unique collaboration between krautrock and experimental band Faust, French experimental musician Jerome Noetinger and local Melbourne percussionist Sean Baxter. 

Recorded at the Overground 2011 festival, 12 June 2011 Melbourne Town Hall. Jerome Noetinger on tape loops, Sean Baxter on percussion, Werner Franz Diermaier on drums and percussion, Geraldine Brigid Swayne on vocals and piano, James Fraser Johnston on guitar, Jean-Herve Frederic Peron on trumpet, vocals and percussion. The photo was taken by Leah Robertson. I hold no copyright in this material.

Tony Conrad & Chris Abrahams

The piano swirls in and around a string that is alternately bowed, plucked and scratched. At points the piece dies down to an insistent piano tone, repeated again and again until the violin, violent and distorted, drives us onto another crescendo.

Recorded at the Overground 2011 festival, 12 June 2011 Melbourne Town Hall. Chris Abrahams on grand piano,Tony Conrad on amplified violin and amplified violin. The image is taken from Tony Conrad’s 1974 performance, Bowed Film. I hold no copyright in this material.

Saktoko Fujii & Yoshida Tatsuya

Exhilarating, weird and inspiring. This was the first thing I saw when I walked into the Melbourne Town Hall. I was really there to see Oren Ambarchi and Charlemagne Palestine, who were on straight after, but it only took a couple of minutes for me to pull my recorder out. Here’s a review of one of their previous releases.

Recorded at the Overground 2011 Festival. Saktoko Fujii on piano and voice, Yoshida Tatsuya on drums and voice. I hold no copyright in this material.

Oren Ambarchi & Charlemagne Palestine

I’ve been a huge fan of Oren Ambarchi since first coming across his work a few years ago. His solo sets are masterclasses of pure tonal drone. Playing his guitar through an array of pedals and out of twin Sunn amplifiers, he produces a kind of blissful levitation every time I’ve seen him live.

So when I saw him play with Charlemagne Palestine at the Overground Festival (part of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival) the combination seemed an inspired one. Palestine is a minimalist composer hailing from Brooklyn and his ritualistic compositions are marked by an intensity that serves as a powerful counterpoint to Ambarchi’s drone.

When I saw them play together, Ambarchi was playing with his usual set-up, whilst Palestine was positioned at the gorgeous Melbourne Town Hall organ, adorned with his usual stuffed toy animals. The piece begins incredibly quietly, with only one or two valves of the great organ open, until it builds to a steady, head whirling sustain, the organ’s bellow seemingly inside my brain and Ambarchi’s bass tones driven right through my stomach.

Recorded at the Overground 2011 festival, 12 June 2011 @melbourne Town Hall. Oren Ambarchi on guitar and pedals, Charlemagne Palestine on Melbourne Town Hall organ. Photo by Leah Robertson. I hold no copyright in this material.