RENOWNED poet John Kinsella and sound artist Simon Charles will join forces at the Audible Edge music festival in Fremantle.
Their performance Pressure Bells will combine spoken word and electro-acoustic sound, exploring what it means to live on Noongar Ballardong country from a settler perspective.
“For John and I, a big part of this perspective addresses themes of colonial and environmental injustice, and reflects on how we can live ethically, honour, and respect country and its First Nations custodians,” Charles says.
“’Pressure’ refers to themes around the fluctuation of air pressure and how these move across country, and ‘Bells’ refers to the church bells on Holy Trinity Church in York, and their resonances which similarly move across country encountering pockets of resilience amidst the vast agricultural project that is the West Australian Wheatbelt.”
On the night, Kinsella will perform his poetry, accompanied by a small ensemble of guitar, alto flute and double bass.
• (above) Sound artist Simon Charles and (below) poet John Kinsella are performing in Fremantle.
Charles will also accompany, playing fixed media samples (mostly field and hydrophone recordings taken on Noongar Ballardong country).
In pursuit of authentic sounds, he scaled the Holy Trinity Church tower to get some atmospheric recordings of the bells.
Pressure Bells is the second collaboration between Charles and Kinsella, with the pair exchanging poetry and filed recordings over the past four years.
“John is a phenomenal artist with an incredible commitment to the ethics of his work. His creative energy is infectious and I feel we are very much aligned in our sense of purpose in undertaking artistic practice,” Charles says.
A highly respected Perth poet, Kinsella is the author of more than seventy books of poetry, fiction, criticism, plays and collaborative works.
An in-demand composer and sound artist, Charles has performed all over the world including festivals and concerts in Los Angeles, Berlin and Oslo.
Blending traditional instruments, field recordings and other-worldly noises, he creates a beautiful, minimalist and at times eerie palette of sound – imagine the soundtrack to Solaris (2002) meets Philip Glass. Charles is currently working on a new piece with Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, a percussionist based in Meanjin.
“I’m also working with Berlin-based musicians Jon Heilbron and Rebecca Lane on a piece that is adjacent to the air pressure themes that John and I also explore in our work,” he says.
“All these involve field recording to some degree and explore ways that field recording can augment that context of instrumental performance, locating it ‘in-the-world’ rather than something closed and abstract.”
But right now, Charles is getting ready to perform at Audible Edge, a festival of exploratory music.
This year is the first time it will be held in one venue—Victoria Hall in the heart of Freo.
Festival highlights include Jonnine (half of cult icons HTRK) with a rare solo set of skeletal, atmospheric songs, an extended set from legendary Naarm underground DJ Emelyne, and Irish musician Cal Folger Day performing a mythical “pop-opera” spin on Augusta Gregory’s retelling of the myth of Gráinne.
The festival is on Friday May 1-Sunday May 3. For more info and tickets see events.humanitix.com/ae26.
by STEPHEN POLLOCK