New CD, candlesnuffer & Lukas Simonis - Nature Stands Aside
Australian tour dates June - July 2011
29.06.11 BENDIGO Latrobe Visual Arts Centre (Liquid Architecture)
30.06.11 MELBOURNE 3RRR Performance Space (Liquid Architecture)
01.07.11 BRISBANE Powerhouse (Liquid Architecture)
02.07.11 SYDNEY Eugene Goosens Theatre ABC (Liquid Architecture)
04.07.11 SYDNEY Nownow show (Serial Space)
06.07.11 SYDNEY (secret show with Mike Majkowski and Sam Pettigrew)
07.07.11 WOOLONGONG (1/4 Inch)
08.07.11 CANBERRA (Smith's Bookshop)
12.07.11 MELBOURNE (MIUC with Adam Simmons)
14.07.11 HOBART (Brisbane Hotel with Mike Harris)
16.07.11 HOUSE SHOW (Adam Simmons shed?)
What is a monster? In a musical context…. it's either the most horrible noise you can experience or, is it a new version of “4.33”? But horrible noise can be turned down, and “4.33” is very bearable if you've got a good book (or “40.33” for that matter). Then there is 'Neoliberalism', it's supposed to be the natural order of things. Just ask Ayn Rand (if she were still alive) and her 'objectivism'. There's so much information in the world that tells us we're mistaken, we're failing miserably, we're doing the wrong thing because it's not 'natural', 'objective' or 'logical' (all of these?). And the main point of this indoctrination; the 5 billion people that never listen to anything, who are slightly out of touch with day-to-day reality, they must be right (they’re in democratic heaven, together with all those Elvis fans).
The ideas and concepts of the CD, ‘Nature Stands Aside’ are partly inspired by Rosamund Purcell’s study 'Special Cases'. But the inspiration came only after the songs had been assembled. How come? Well listening and making music is all a matter of timing and pace. Doing 'abstract' stuff and actually 'improvising' (even worse!) means “failing the best we can”. We might not see our performances as abstract at all, but to someone who listens to R&B and Hip-hop it must feel/sound like hell!
For some strange reason we revisited these recordings a year after they were conceived and we were very fond of what we heard. And also we saw, in reading Purcell's study of natural anomalies, obvious similarities that reflected ‘irregularities’ inherent in our sounds. Maybe nature is a subjective subject after all?
‘Nature Stands Aside’ shows us that too loud, too soft, no rhythms, no melodious structures, sounds in the wrong place, are concepts that have more to do with our fears than with reality" (Lukas Simonis).
[posted 24 June 2011]
New candlesnuffer CD - Mimosa
candlesnuffer’s “Mimosa” released on hellosQuare is a sequel to his previous Room40 disc “Wakool”. Initial recordings from the same sessions as Wakool were approached, almost uninitiated, in a vastly contrasting recording environment. An approach designed to extract surprising accompaniments from similarly prepared, stringed instruments. The resulting self-collaborations, in spirit, fuse literary references with mundane artefacts while evoking everything from the Australian coastal world and outback to a bizarre take on psychodelia, along with stoicism, astronomy, melancholy waste, urban ordinariness and beer-drinking. Underlying all this, treading water, is a naive fascination with Asian sounds. The whole, transforming tiny crap and ‘off the cuff’ responses into highly rigorous sonic conversations. Beauteous drive routed, clinging, through impossible combinations.
"Mimosa" was launched on 21 October in Canberra at "Abstractions 10" at STREET TWO.
Sydney launch on 7th December at Serial Space, a nowNow event.
Melbourne launch 8th December at the "Make It Up Club", Bar Open, Fitzroy.
[posted 11 November 2009]