1. |
Stradbroke verse
04:57
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2. |
Panda Box
03:58
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3. |
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"listening to Joy Division as a teenager in the sun-drenched, hedonistic Sydney of 1981."
Maybe it's a bit of a cliché, maybe it's just me, but "sun-drenched" is the kind of adjective that often springs to mind on listening to what comes my way from down under – from the gamelan clutter of the Pateras / Baxter / Brown trio to Jim Denley's environmental improv (Through Fire, Crevice + The Hidden Valley), from the rich hues of Oren Ambarchi to the garden intimacy of Carchesio and Craig's Leaves (also on Naturestrip).
And there's certainly a lot of sunshine and colour in Joel Stern's latest offering, made with "car radios, pipes, bulbul tarang, no input mixer, ukelele, pocket trumpet, doors, electronics, junk, concertina, rainstick, music boxes, accordion, bell, wires, bees, rusty gate, harmonica, rabid dogs (!), mbira, megaphone and bits and pieces." But these eight brief pieces, dating from between 2000 and 2007, weren't all recorded in Australia – among the many places Stern lists is Ipswich. Hardly my idea of sun-drenched, but never mind. Stern is clearly having so much fun sticking his mic into beehives it really doesn't matter. And I guess you could find a bee or two in Ipswich, if you looked hard enough. My esteemed Editor Nate Dorward recently moaned about the overuse of "cinematic" as an adjective to describe much recent sound art, and I'm reminded of Michel Chion's observations on music as image in his recent interview here: "People tell me there are images in my music. They hear a dog barking, and say it's an image. To which I'd say, if a dog barking is an image, tell me what kind of dog it is. A big dog, or a poodle or what?" (At least Stern informs us that the canines whose mad yelps we hear on "Dead Lakes" are "rabid"..) It's certainly good music in my book – beautifully recorded, carefully sequenced and aurally immensely satisfying. Along with the above mentioned Leaves, it's my favourite outing on Naturestrip to date.
Dan Warburton - Paris Transatlantic
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4. |
wake in fright
02:18
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have a beer with me mate.
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5. |
Peromone Wings
04:44
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6. |
Dead Lakes
04:34
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7. |
Throat Priest
08:53
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8. |
Fortitudes end
04:12
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naturestrip label Australia
Naturestrip is an independent Australian sound and art supporter that has evolved to fund and assist a variety of projects. Visit website for more information. Naturestrip started life in 2003 releasing seven albums creating quite a following in the world of experimental sound. It focused on working with artists who created compositions using field recordings as material in their art making. ... more
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