
‘a strange and beautiful world conjured among the bricks and grime, the litter and the 7-11 stores’
On the eve of an Australian tour and a UK tour, pianist-composer Alister Spence spoke to Phil Sandford about his influences and approach to music.
It can all shimmer and ripple like an ambient cloud, underpinned by a deep oscillation from Zwartz’s bowed bass under trills and pings from Dewhurst’s guitar, before bursting forward with irresistible momentum.
On the eve of the 2013 Kinetic Jazz Festival (22-27 January) Phil Sandford spoke to two of the artistic directors, Graham Jones and Jepke Goudsmit, about their background and their vision for the festival.
‘That’s the thing about this music,’ Nock adds, ‘you can’t just write it without the musicians. It’s who you’re writing for. One of the things that I am really trying to do with the piece is to show that it is a living music in that it depends on the people playing it.’
He remains only interested in musicians who ‘slam their heart down on the table, and go, “There I am!”‘
In an Arts scene that’s eternally struggling with funding constraints and the drudgery of applications to funding bodies, the idea is seductive: take control of your own funding and free yourself from that disempowering application / rejection cycle you’re forced into via the more traditional funding rounds.
A sudden noise that wakes you in the night. A shadowy movement glimpsed down a darkened alley. The sensation that there might be someone in the room with you. Waiting. Conjured into life by Tamara Saulwick’s riveting solo performance and Peter Knight’s visceral score.
‘…we might fall on our arses once or twice, but it’s often when you’re searching that the best things happen…’
Marc Hannaford releases two digital recordings – a quintet release called ‘Ordinary Madness’ and a trio release ‘Sarcophile’. We ask him ‘why digital?’ and talk about the music…