Experimental label Shame File Music has released a compilation album titled Music Under Lockdown: Melbourne 2020. I was very happy to contribute to this eclectic album made by various Melbourne musicians during the recent lockdown. My piece is titled A/Biotic Forces: Purl and the liner notes are below.

“A/Biotic Forces: Purl” (September 2020) - This piece was recorded at the annex “studio” that is attached to my caravan home, on a farm on Wurundjeri land (Wattle Glen, Melbourne), surrounded by kangaroos, birds, ducks, chickens, dams, bees, trees, blue-tongued lizards and earthworks. In this time where in-person (human) collaborations are impossible, I’ve expanded my “solo” practice to include preparations, percussive instruments, the environment and animals. The very idea of a solo practice, or even isolation, seems like a distant idea belonging to an archaic colonial past. The materials I worked with in this improvisation include a semi-hollow bass guitar, blu tac, two capos, paper, plastic, 10 yellow box tree pieces (20-30cm in length, 2-4cm in diameter) that I cut from a felled tree, a kick drum from a children’s drum set, and a Korean gong—also played with a kick drum. There are some (unexpected) sounds generated by my kelpie-heeler companion, Huxley. It was recorded with two close mics, a condenser mic for the speaker and a DI signal. This nude, or in-process, work explores rhythmic cycles/relationships, sound-worlds and techniques that I’ve been thinking about for some time now. The primary inspiration was the imagined sound of wooden logs colliding in river water.