Comments Off on The Jazz of Nala Sinepho: A soundtrack for the age of core-core and introspection
The world moves too fast. Each day bleeds into the next. Lectures bleed into work, work bleeds into sleep, sleep bleeds into breakfast, Monday bleeds into Friday, and eventually, life will bleed into death.
The world moves too fast. Faster than ever. Advanced technology has enabled us to do more than ever before, but just as we have become able to do more, so too has each day become an instrument for completing a growing to-do list, upon which crucial time for ourselves rarely makes an appearance.
The music of experimental Jazz musician Nala Sinephro provides a refreshing answer to the increasingly chaotic world we live in.
Nala Sinephro’s Jazz
Jazz has always pushed boundaries. Playing with increasingly complex musical arrangements and improvisations is the genre’s bread and butter. While these elements are certainly not lacking in Sinephro’s jazz, they are aided by a characteristic style of meditative calm.
Among a series of tightly crafted ambient, and yet emotionally charged soundscapes, adventures into melody and rhythm are timely responses to our world; a world increasingly saturated with noise and jargon.
Space 1.8
In 2021, Sinephro came out with her debut album Space 1.8, blending the ethereal tones of the harp with powerful jazz improvisations and synths into a sound that was — and still is — fresh and distinct.
Alongside collaborators Nubya Garcia and the Ezra Collective, Space 1.8 moved away from the bombastic and instead looked to evoke introspection and reflection. With each track, Sinephro crafted a spiritual space, both open and calm. The album was a pivotal release, striking a chord with listeners around the globe, and breaking new ground in both the jazz and the ambient genres.
Endlessness
Now, her second album, Endlessness, is here. Sinephro pushes her experimental ethos even further, in a 45-minute exploration of jazz stripped to its ambient core. Shimmering arpeggios, yearning saxophones and pulsating rhythms decorate the bones of the project, while thematic throughlines of recurrence colour Sinephro’s reborn sonic cosmos.
While Space 1.8 offered continuous variation, Endlessness is wholly minimalistic. A single arpeggio motif guides us through the album and results in a deeply cohesive and meditative experience, though some may find this a repetitive trap.
And yet, it is this very sense of repetition that I find deeply intentional, mirroring contemporary cultural shifts in the digital world, especially viral online artistic movements like core-core.
Core-core and Introspection
It is in core-core that seemingly random, often emotionally charged images and sounds are paired to invoke a mellow appreciation of our shared human experience, helping us process and navigate a world of overstimulation, nostalgia, and often overwhelming existential helplessness.
Both core-core and Sinephro make heavy use of recurrence, spontaneity, and subtle emotional shifts. Both ultimately function by taking something simple — be it an image, a video, a melody or a motif — and developing it into something deep and meaningful through prolonged repetition, layering and an emphasis on difference.
In both core-core and Sinephro’s jazz, simplicity is utilised as a powerful tool for emotional resonance, invoking an atmosphere that is equally soothing and haunting.
As core-core engages us, it creates a space for reflection. Sinephro’s Jazz does the same. We are offered a peaceful refuge from an increasingly fragmented life, from our penchant for instant gratification and endless doom scrolling. Sinephro’s music encourages us to slow down, to focus on each note, on each moment that captivates us, and also to appreciate all the space in between.
In a world where our attention is constantly pulled in multiple directions, we often need a counterpoint, or perhaps a cure. Something just like this, which demands of each of us patience, and rewards those capable of giving it with peace, if only for a little while.
Ultimately, in an era of information overload, Nala Sinephro’s music captures a cultural moment where introspection, minimalism, and fluidity are central to how we should be navigating the world. Both of her albums, Space 1.8 and Endlessness, provide much-needed room for reflection. Whether it’s through the loops of a synth arpeggio or the hypnotic pull of a jazz motif, her work aligns with the current cultural landscape — offering, in the vein of core-core, a soundtrack for those seeking solace in a world of never-ending noise.
For those who feel overwhelmed, I ask that you listen.
Slow down, breathe, and listen.
Have you ever been listening to a song and are so taken aback by an unhinged lyric that you have to go back and check that it’s exactly as insane as you thought it was? Yeah, me too. Typically I don’t listen very closely to the lyrics of songs. However, every so often, there’s one so special it requires recognition. Here is a collection of a few of my favourite lyrics that have stopped me in my tracks (pun intended).
If you, like me, have a middle-aged white Australian father, you’ve probably been forced to listen to a lot of Triple J over the years. When I was fifteen, Pond came out with their album The Weather and to say my dad was obsessed is an understatement. This meant anytime one of their songs was played on Triple J, my dad would turn it up and sing along — horribly off-key, mind you. Truly nothing is more horrifying as a teenager than hearing your dad fucking belting the line, ‘in between my penis and chin/is camembert and shame’ (Pond, Sweep Me Off My Feet). The moment has never left my brain since and probably never will.
Being on Youtube in the mid to late 2010s, you may have come across the animation community and its even smaller subset, the animated meme community. Me and my brother fucking loved to show each other the most stupid videos from there, like Momotaro by Ap Selene and Vivziepop’s Timber. I still maintain that some of those songs were good. One of our absolute favourites was the reanimation of Pokemon Sun and Moon characters to You Reposted in the Wrong Neighbourhood by Shokk. The image of Professor Kukui dancing hard to ‘I’m a menace, a dentist, an oral hygienist’ is timeless. The original may have been deleted, but I still go back to reuploads every now and again.
For one of my introductory courses in first year, the professor would play the music video for a song at the beginning of each module (so usually one or two a class) that was in some way related to the content we would be learning. We were forced to listen to all manner of wild songs at 8 am on a Tuesday morning, but I can’t deny that they were part of the reason I loved that class and went to every lecture, even with that brutal start time. One of the most memorable was the 17th song in which the line, ‘I’m learning to hate all the things that used to be great when I used to be bent!’ was uttered. Honestly, the entire song, I Want to Be Straight by Ian Dury (ft. The Blockheads) is mad, so I would encourage watching the music video or even just listening if you feel so inclined.
In the past couple of months, a lot of my friends have moved houses and as the fantastic friend that I am, I helped. On one of these expeditions, after we had moved most of the boxes into the new place, we were taking a break and listening to the radio (which station I couldn’t tell you for the life of me). We were sweaty, exhausted and overheated. Basically we were delirious, which means that only something truly out of pocket would’ve shaken us out of our stupor. It was actually an earlier lyric from the song that caught our attention (breathing out a hole in my lung) but the later lyric is one that stuck with us so bad we immediately had to look it up to make sure we didn’t hallucinate what we had heard. We hadn’t, and that lyric was; ‘I’m a sex change and a damsel with no heroine’, from Silverchair’s Straight Lines.
When I told my dad about this collection of silly song lyrics that he had originally prompted, he was at first amused but then said he had the perfect song to add to it. He was right. The entire song is a collection of lyrics that I’m frankly astounded made it past a producer but the one I’ve chosen is tame enough that it’s entertaining but not batshit enough to be concerning – like some of the rest of the song is. That lyric is ‘I like football and porno and books about war/ I got an average house, with a nice hardwood floor’ from Dennis Leary’s song Asshole.
Those are all lyrics that have really stuck with me, but there are others that I believe deserve an honourable mention:
‘May God rest that twink, he is no more’ – Lynks, USE IT OR LOSE IT.
‘Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil’ – Ministry, Jesus Built My Hotrod.
‘Sipping tea by the fire is swell/ pushing people in is fun as well!’ – Starkid, Different as Can Be.
‘I get eaten by the worms/ and weird fishes’ – Radiohead, Weird Fishes.
‘I have a big gun/ took it from my Lord’ – MELL, Red fraction.
‘Doctor holding a big bottle of tonic but the bottle’s full of rings and the doctor is Sonic’ – Tom Cardy (ft bdg), Beautiful Mind.
‘And I’ll blend up that rainbow above you/ and shoot it through your veins’ – Owl City, Rainbow Veins.
‘I got money and fame and fancy clothes/ I got a cat food sponsor deal’ – 2winz², Just One Day.
‘Your waitress was miserable and so was your food’ – Alex Turner, Piledriver Waltz.
‘He keeps begging me to eat me out, I said, / “You gotta take my tampon out with your mouth”’ – Ayesha Erotica, S&M remix.
‘Sixty-nine is the only dinner for two’ – Childish Gambino, Heartbeat.
‘Bish I’m a star but not Patrick’ – Lisa (BLACKPINK), Ddux4 (JP. Ver).
‘The whole world is my daddy / wabi sabi papi’ – Okay Kaya, Mother Nature’s Bitch.
‘Pick my shorts out my ass with my blood-stained hands’ – Ashnikko, Cheerleader.
‘You won’t doo-doo me, I smell TNT’ – Kendrick Lemar, United In Grief.
At any given moment in time, there are countless ripples travelling through spacetime, traversing the very fabric of our universe. These ripples are known as gravitational waves, and were first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 in his general theory of relativity.
Almost a century later in 2015, direct evidence of gravitational waves was finally obtained when the Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) detectors, located in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana, USA detected the long-awaited signal.
The 0.2 second audible signal, which was described to resemble the “chirp” of a bird, was actually the product of a black hole collision. This event occurred more than 1 billion years ago. Two massive black holes merged into one, warping the fabric of spacetime and sending ripples through the universe which were eventually detected on Earth as tiny vibrations.
The successful LIGO experiment sent its own waves through the science community. The search for gravitational waves had consisted of decades of unrelenting hard work by over a thousand physicists around the globe and billions of dollars of investment, so the news was both extremely exciting and highly anticipated.
Now you might be wondering what is next for gravitational wave research. After all, the amazing detection of gravitational waves was already accomplished in 2015.
However, in reality, the exploration of gravitational waves has only just begun as researchers continue to use LIGO and a growing network of detectors around the world (e.g. LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration) to investigate the nature of our universe. In exciting news, the ANU, as part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), will play a central role in this global venture.
Last year I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview Dr Lilli Sun and Dr Jennie Wright, astrophysicists from ANU’s Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics to gain some further insight into the current field of gravitational wave research and ANU’s new LIGO remote control room.
Firstly, could you explain what a gravitational wave is in simple terms?
Jennie: A gravitational wave is a sort of stretching and squeezing of spacetime itself. When we have mass in the universe, it causes spacetime to curve, as explained in the theory of General Relativity. A gravitational wave is like a ripple instead of just a curve that stays still.
Lilli: You can also think of an analogy like a water wave – for example, dropping a stone in water and then seeing ripples spreading out. When we have something very heavy, like black holes that collide, they trigger those ripples in spacetime.
What are your specific research focuses and what are you currently working on?
Lilli: I do mostly astrophysics; using gravitational waves to study black holes, neutron stars, and even searching for dark matter. I do a lot of data analysis to see what the gravitational-wave signals tell us – e.g. whether it tells us that Einstein and his general theory of relativity is right or if there is something unexpected.
One of my projects is about searching for dark matter particles using gravitational waves – we don’t know if they exist or not, but analysing gravitational wave signatures is one possible way to look for them. I also work a bit on detectors, working with instrumentalists like Jennie.
Jennie: What I work on is somewhat related. I’m an instrumentalist as Lilli said, so I’m an experimental physicist and my job has two parts. Half of my time I spend at ANU, working on technologies that we can use to improve gravitational wave detectors of the future. We’re making them more sensitive so they can see further out into the universe and also can see a wider range of signal frequencies. And so, I work on developing technology that basically tries to distinguish things near the detector that look like gravitational wave sources, but actually aren’t – like a truck breaking near the detector, or just air moving near it.
The other part of my job is to help improve the current detectors. Since we use light in the gravitational wave detector to measure the stretching and squeezing of spacetime, we want to have as much light in there as possible. But, because mirrors and optical systems aren’t perfect, we sometimes lose quite a lot of light, so I look at those diagnostic measurements to try to figure out where we’re losing light.
Now that gravitational waves have already been detected, what is next for the field of gravitational wave research?
Lilli: There are many aspects actually: the 2015 discovery was only the beginning. The 2015 event for two black holes colliding into each other and the famous 2017 event for a two neutron star collision are very highlighted events, but now we are collecting many more of them including some special systems. The large number of detections will bring us important information of the population.
There are other types of gravitational waves. For example, we are looking for very faint gravitational waves from a single spinning neutron star. Neutron stars are not perfect spheres, so when they rotate they can generate very weak gravitational waves, which is something we are searching for. Another example is to probe dark matter using gravitational waves. So, we need more sensitive detectors and more of them in the network.
Moving onto the ANU remote control room, what exactly is a control room and how specifically would the remote control room work?
Jennie: So, a control room is usually a room you have next to a lab with an experiment in it: usually one that needs to be in either a really clean environment, or a slightly dangerous environment. So, you set all the physical parts of it up, so you can obtain electronic signals through to your control room that tell you what is happening. And then you can do all the data-taking and analysis from that control room.
In LIGO, they have the control rooms right next to the detector because they don’t want to be walking around next to the detector while it’s running, as they might introduce noise to it. They also have a whole bank of screens which decipher how each sub-system is working.
About the remote control room: whilst we don’t have a gravitational wave detector in Australia, many Australian scientists have been involved in gravitational wave detection from the start, and so this allows us to participate in improving the detector remotely. So, you can see on some of the screens here, I have a read-out of the different sub-systems and if they’re working correctly. For example, green tells us that they’re observing data and red tells us that they’re down and need to be fixed. And this is all in real time.
That’s really useful, because before we had this, we just had the little screen on our computers, and you had to try to view everything simultaneously and it was quite difficult. My colleagues and I will also occasionally do shifts when the detector is running, because we might have to call up people in other countries. If there’s an exciting gravitational wave event, we sometimes need to announce things to other astronomers, so they can point their telescopes to certain parts of the sky.
Lilli: Although it’s a ‘remote’ control room, you can still control some of the sub-systems of the detector. It’s just that we need to be very careful, especially during observation. There will be someone in charge in the real control room, and we can collaborate with them. The advantage of having the remote control room is that it makes it much easier for Australian colleagues, as we are not close to the detector, but we can read off the real-time information in a much more convenient way, on the other side of the world.
So, the detector isn’t always on all the time?
Jennie: There’s a trade-off between the physicists who work on improving it, and the astronomers who want to collect data using it. If you improve the sensitivity, you’re more likely to see really exciting events we haven’t seen before. But if you increase the time the detector is on for, you’re also more likely to see more events. So, there are sometimes periods where we’re not touching the detector for around 18 months, and periods where there is no data collection for a year, and maintenance and upgrading occurs.
From a bigger perspective, what role is Australia and ANU playing in the further research of gravitational waves?
Lilli: Australia is one of the major collaborators in the large international LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA collaboration. There is a large group here working on gravitational wave astrophysics and detector science. These days, Australian scientists also want to propose and work towards building an Australian detector in the future, which is pretty exciting.
Right now, we are also thinking about the next generation detectors – like what kind of design and technology is needed that can give us a one-order of magnitude increase in sensitivity, which can get us much deeper into the universe. Australian colleagues are working on both the existing science of gravitational waves, but also the future.
Jennie: In the past, Australia has developed sub-systems which are now used in the detector, contributing mirrors for example. Also, Lilli is in charge of the calibration group for LIGO, and that’s just an example, but we have a lot of staff in Australia who are leading some aspect of the LIGO scientific collaboration’s research. We’ve also been instrumental in the design of something called the Squeezer which is used in LIGO to improve its sensitivity, making the detectors the quantum instruments that they are.
Lilli: Regarding astrophysics and data analysis, there are quite a few large groups from different Australian universities within OzGrav working on the data being collected these days. A lot of studies are carried out in Australia, but we also work very closely with international colleagues.
What are some benefits of these large-scale projects, e.g. do they help bring countries closer together and encourage international cooperation?
Lilli: I think yes, definitely. These days, it’s getting difficult to do small narrow research projects by yourself. With projects like gravitational wave detectors, you have large instruments, and that involves many different aspects: you need to work with engineers on different sub-systems, theoretical physicists to understand how the astrophysics work, software engineers and data analysts for dealing with huge amounts of data, and also astronomers who do different kinds of follow-up observations. All these people are playing important roles, and they come from different countries, different parts of the world. Close collaboration is critical.
Jennie: I think it’s really useful to have these big projects, because any falling out between countries can get in the way. It also definitely broadened my horizons, as I’m from Scotland, which isn’t as multicultural. Without science, I definitely wouldn’t have travelled and experienced different cultures as much.
Last question, what’s your advice for students looking to get into this field or just interested in your research?
Lilli: I think there are lots of chances for students to talk to us and do small projects. If they’re really interested there are lots of ways to get into the field. We do lots of summer/winter projects and we also teach undergraduate courses, where we discuss gravitational waves at a more basic level. Many students are interested, and we have extended discussions and they come to us for small projects or Honours and end up staying for PhD.
Jennie: I think definitely the best way is just to email someone who works in the fields. Academics love students being interested in their research, otherwise they wouldn’t be working at a university and teaching. I’m really happy whenever a student asks me, and I think that’s how I got involved in the field too.
Lilli: Yes, definitely talk to academics and lecturers in the field if you’re interested.
Jennie: And I think that’s the same in all areas of science as well, people are super keen to tell you about their research, you just have to ask them.
Photograph of some of the screens in the control room.
Dr Jennie Wright (left) and Dr Lilli Sun (right) in the remote control room.
A huge thank you to Dr Lilli Sun and Dr Jennie Wright for taking the time to do an interview and for so generously sharing their knowledge.
Comments Off on Back to Basics: 20 Years of The Presets – Woroni Artist Series
Some of our 2000s-born students at ANU may be unfamiliar with the iconic Australian duo, The Presets, but I am fairly confident they would recognise their dance tune “My People”, a certified banger but also a frustrated, desperate call to arms from Julian and Kim about how Australia treats asylum seekers.
To celebrate their 20th anniversary, The Presets have embarked on a 20 Years in 20 Nights Tour. Intentionally playing smaller venues in low-key places, the tour is intended to be a departure from festival style gigs. Instead of a traditional performance, the gigs will be DJ sets that aim to go “back to basics” and feel more like a house party, where artist and fan can dance and enjoy the music together.
Ahead of their show at Kambri ANU on August 26th, I sat down with Julian to talk about the tour, electronic music today, and what album clubs can do for your friendships.
Thank you for joining me. The tour has started and you guys are three shows in I believe, and it looks like a lot of them are selling out which is really exciting. How are you feeling?
Yeah it all sold out on the weekend and yeah, now a lot of them are selling out. It’s fabulous. We’re really enjoying the tour.
How does it feel to be touring? You guys haven’t toured since 2018, how does it feel to be out there again?
Yeah, that’s right, actually, now that I think about it. I mean, we’ve played a lot of festivals and one off things but yeah, first actual Presets tour in, goodness, in five years. It’s great. It’s wonderful to be back out there and it’s great to play rooms where everyone’s sort of, you know, come along just to see us. It’s nice to meet all of the fans again, for sure.
Yeah, absolutely. Does this feel a bit different to other tours you’ve done in the past? Or is it feeling kind of just more of the same? Do you feel like you guys have changed how you’re touring at all?
Well, this time around, it’s a DJ tour. So we’re not performing live, we’re bringing our records along and it’s more of a 20 year celebration party, a birthday party, really. So that’s quite different. That’s something we haven’t really done before and it’s fun because…obviously we play a lot of our own music but we can also play a lot of, I guess, obscure remixes that people might have forgotten about and different versions of things that we don’t normally play live.
Plus, of course, you know, we can play a bunch of music by other artists that really inspired us that we love from back in the day or new tracks that are out today that we really love. So it’s more like a house party that we’re throwing, with all the stuff that we like, to celebrate 20 years.
Yeah I saw that you guys said you wanted to do this tour to be more like a house party. How do you envision the vibe being more like a house party? What are you guys kind of hoping for people to feel when they’re there?
Honestly, we wanted it to feel like what it felt like when we used to go to clubs. When we were younger and we were starting out, you know, I can say there’s a bit of a trip down memory lane for us.
And we’re getting quite nostalgic and over the years when we perform at festivals, they’re always great fun, but sometimes you’re 10 feet above the audience, 20 metres away from the front row and there’s like 20 security jobs between us and the crowd. You know, it’s hard to connect with an audience at a festival sometimes. That’s why we wanted to perform, you know, in a much more intimate setting and have these parties so it just feels like you know, much more of a visceral kind of celebration, rather than like an outdoor festival experience.
What inspired you guys to come back on the road and tour again after such a while Was there something that made you think you might want to go on tour again?
Well, two things. Post Covid-19 has been weird, to be honest. Like post-Covid-19, the industry hasn’t really come back in the way that it used to be. It’s really strange out there.
And so we’ve been getting a lot more offers to DJ at festivals or DJ events rather than play live, because I think for some events, it’s quite expensive to get the production and everything that’s needed to book bands. So that’s a bit of boring behind the scenes thing about how the industry is going, it’s kind of changing. Plus we got an opportunity recently to do a little DJ gig in Sydney, at a tiny little club where we first started playing 20 years ago, and the tickets sold really quickly for that and we thought, well, this is so much fun, and people obviously really want to come and have this different experience.
So there was that, and then you know, the 20 year anniversary of the band was coming up this year and we thought, what would be a fun way to celebrate 20 years? You know, we could do a handful of shows in the big cities like we always do, or we could do something a bit more intimate and special, and do a whole heap more shows but in a much smaller environment and we can really get close to and really party with our fans.
So yeah, it’s super fun. To be honest, it’s been a bit more enjoyable for me than performing live. Just being able to sort-of play some records and dance, you know, with our fans, has been great fun.
That sounds like an absolute blast. Your fans have been with you for such a journey, as you said you’ve hit the 20th anniversary. Are you expecting it to be a lot of those old hardcore Presets fans, or are you seeing some new fans rolling in?
It’s been a real mix, you know, for sure there’s been some oldies there that used to come to the very early shows, you know, 20 years ago. And then some of them are bringing their kids along this time. You know, it’s crazy.
There’s a lot of young people there as well. So it is a real mix, it’s a real lovely vibe. The cool thing is no matter what age people are that are coming, everyone’s there for a good time and everyone’s dancing and jumping around and yeah it’s been a real blast.
That’s fantastic. You guys have been making music for so long, do you feel like your sound has kind of evolved? Is there any new stuff that you’re throwing into this setlist? Or are you busting out some of the fan favourites?
It’s a real mixed bag. I mean, certainly we’re throwing down some old favourites, we can’t do a Presets show without doing that. But we’re able to sort-of reimagine and rework some of the older tunes into more kind-of club adjacent or club versions, which is really fun too, to just sort of strip them back and just reimagine the songs a bit. And then plus, yeah, we get to choose a bunch of music from other artists that we really love, like old classics from back in the day that inspired us, and you know, new music from today that’s really exciting us as well. So, I mean, it’s such a huge world, you know, the club music scene, like there’s so much music out there to choose from. It’s a lot different from when we’re doing our own shows, where we’re performing and we’ve only got 40 songs to choose from now, now we’ve got 40 million songs to choose from.
You’ve talked about some remixes, I know a lot of your tracks sometimes get remixed by a bunch of really cool and different artists. I was wondering if you guys had any artists or people in mind that you would love to see remix one of your tracks? Or just a dream collaboration you would like to see happen?
Wow. Obviously you know, we have favourite artists that really inspired us when we first started, I mean, obviously the big examples of bands like The Chemical Brothers, or Daft Punk or Basement Jaxx you know, a lot of these bands that were around when we started and that are still around today.
Gosh, it’d be lovely to get one of them to remix us one of these days, but I can’t see it happening. As far as collaborations go, I mean, we do work with a lot of other people just solo, Kim and I, we work with other artists and produce other bands and co-write songs with other bands. So we keep pretty busy doing that outside of the Presets.
But it’s funny, I don’t know, I’m thinking about my favourite acts, I’m kind of happy to not collaborate with them. I like them just the way they are. I’m not sure what I would bring to it, to be honest. But who knows, gosh, if The Chemical Brothers knocked down our door, I’d certainly be saying yes to that.
You were talking about how you’re really excited to hit some of the smaller places and more intimate shows. Are there venues or cities from past tours that you’re excited to come back to? Or any memorable past experiences or places that you’re really just excited to perform again?
Honestly, just excited for everything.
The one thing I’ve learned over the years is sometimes the really hot shows, the ones that really blow up, they’re the ones you don’t expect. You might be doing a huge festival somewhere and it’ll go okay, you know, but then you’ll play a tiny basement in Cleveland, Ohio, or in Berlin or whatever, and that’ll be a crazy party and really, really fun.
And it’s the same in Australia, you know, you’ll expect sometimes a show in one of the capital cities is gonna be really great, but it might be a little flat, and then you’ll have a really cooking show, you know, at a smaller venue later on. So it’s very hard to predict. But I will say that so far, the three shows we’ve done already have been so much fun, and just what we had hoped, you know, just people jumping around having a good time and done. Yeah, it really has felt like just partying with friends.
Yeah, that sounds fantastic. The visual aspects of your shows are always really captivating. I remember seeing you guys a very long time ago, it would’ve been 2009 or something along those lines, but I remember even back then, the visual elements were so fun and captivating. I was wondering whether your fans are going to see stuff like that visually in this performance or because it’s a DJ set, is it going to be kind of more traditional, like house party vibes?
Well, it’s a bit of both. I mean, one thing we did want to do with this tour is get back to basics. So much electronic music is based these days on massive production and huge, huge screens and huge you know, pyrotechnics and everything. The whole EDM thing, it’s kind of become crazy, the whole stage show that people put on. And yeah, and we’ve been doing that over the years, obviously with our own shows.
So this one we had tried to get a bit more back to basics and make it more about the music. And just more about just partying and dancing, you know, because I guess.. I’m sounding like an old fart here, but I remember in the old days when you used to go to a club, it wasn’t even so much about the DJ, you know, you just sort-of danced. And then after a while, people started facing the DJ, and then it became this kind of DJ worship thing. That always weirded me out a little, because I always loved electronic music for the anonymity of it, you know? But I’m kind of getting off track a little bit here. But yeah, I mean, we do have some obviously a lot of visual things that we’ve curated over the years and design that we’ll be bringing to this show. But we’re trying to make it a bit more just low-key and cool, and not so much like, ~show business~ you know what I mean?
That’s great. I’d love to know and I think our readers would really love to know as well, what you’ve been listening to lately? I know with lockdown, we’ve all maybe sunk back into our music caves a bit. I’d love to know what you guys are listening to?
Oh, my goodness, it’s such a hard question. Yeah, well, there’s two main things I listened to. One of them is just listening to new techno music and electronic music, and every day you dive into this world, and there’s like 100 acts that you’ve never heard of, you know, it’s like, ‘oh my god who are these people making this music?’ You know, from Europe and the States and Australia, you know, there’s so much going on. And then the next day you’ll dive in, and there’ll be 100 more artists you’ve never heard of. It’s a crazy, huge world of artists making beats and then usually none of them I even remember their names.
Yeah, I mean, there’s a bunch of Australian DJs doing such great stuff. There’s that girl Haai, she’s smashing it, she’s such a great DJ, I love her. Dj Boring is another Aussie DJ doing huge things. So they’re two Aussie DJs I really adore. And then there’s like 100 more that are just kind-of a bit more underground and they’re really smashing it over there. It’s crazy to keep track of. And then the other music I listen to, it’s kind of weird. I have an album club with some of my friends, we started during COVID-19 and every week someone picks an album and we listen to it, and then on Monday night, we get together on Zoom and we just talk about it together.
Kind of like a book club?
Yeah it’s kind of like a book club kind-of thing, for us old men. But yeah, we really love that, and every week it’s something very different, like it’s some obscure 60s jazz record, or it’s some new sort-of Middle Eastern thing, or it’s like a techno album or whatever, you know, it’s always something really, really different, so I really enjoy that too. But, gosh sorry, I’m sure you were hoping for me to tell you to check out some new artist.
No, that’s a fantastic answer. Honestly, that’s brilliant.
I highly recommend album clubs for people. It’s been such a fun way to keep in touch with friends.
Everyone gets so fragmented and everyone’s on social media and just communicating with each other with, you know, emojis and gifs. And just hanging out with your mates on a Monday night talking about an album you all listened to over the week, it’s such a nice thing to do. So hopefully, maybe some people might read this and be inspired to do that.
I hope so, that’s a fantastic suggestion, I love that. Well, thank you so much for sitting down. Good luck on the rest of the tour. It looks amazing. You guys are performing at the Uni in late August, so I’ll see you guys then. Thank you so much for having a chat with Woroni.
Get tickets to see The Presets on Saturday 26th of August 2023 at Kambri ANU
To celebrate their 20th anniversary, The Presets have embarked on a 20 Years in 20 Nights tour. Intentionally playing smaller venues in low-key places, the tour is to be a departure from festival style gigs. Instead of a traditional performance, the gigs will be DJ sets that aim
Comments Off on INTERVIEW WITH TEENAGE DADS – WORONI ARTIST SERIES
Rather than brave the chilly walk to Civic or the daunting descent down the stairs at one22, head out to Belconnen and enjoy the musical delight of something that isn’t a poorly done remix of Rush or Padam.
As part of our Artists Series, Woroni Content Editor Lizzie sat down with Teenage Dads to chat about life on tour, crowd culture, and the big scary P word (pop!).
Thank you guys so much for taking the time to chat with me.
That’s okay, we’re not doing much.
That’s surprising because you guys have been busy!
Yeah, I mean, we actually are doing certain things, getting ready for Splendour in the Grass, but the whole point of the next few days is to rest after our US run and then get ready for the festival.
Yeah, absolutely. So you guys have been touring all across Europe, are you guys excited to tour in Australia? Do you find it different to being on the road in Europe, versus you know, being on home turf?
Yeah everyone’s pretty different. It’s kinda weird…we skipped winter this year.
That’s one benefit I’d say. I feel like in our experiences so far overseas, overseas is just set up far better for touring. We were joking with Lime Cordiale a lot how you do a weekend in Australia, you would feel absolutely ruined. Whereas you do two weeks in the UK or Europe and you’ll be fine.
Why is that?
I think partly the distance stuff but also, you don’t really have to fly anywhere. I think the whole process of finishing a gig in Australia, you go to the hotel room, you sleep for a couple of hours, get up, airport, fly, and just that whole process kills you.
Whereas you can just take trains and stuff around Europe and it’s much quicker, much easier on your bodies, I guess?
Yeah. It’s just that’s the way it’s kind of felt anyway, but we’re still really looking forward to being back home. I think it’ll give us a new perspective.
The water is better in Australia.
That I don’t doubt. What are the crowds like over there? Are they different to your home base fans here, who maybe have known you guys for a while?
It’s a little bit different, in different areas the crowd is more cool than other areas, and some places are more inclined to dance and sing, and some places it’s more of like a ‘hands on hips, just watch’. But I feel like people still will come up everywhere and say how much they enjoyed the set. It’s just very, very different in some areas, people don’t show it during the set as much.
I imagined in Australia crowds kind of go a bit more wild. But that might be a stereotype.
I think the big part of it, particularly for us, is you kind of just can’t really compare the two just yet because, like you said we’re an Australian band and we played in Australia for years. So people kind of definitely know who we are, so there’s a more likely chance of fans being really big fans. Whereas overseas they’re seeing us or hearing us for the first time, so they’re not going to be absolutely losing their mind or anything like that.
Having said that, Dublin particularly popped off. They’re really loose people there.
Maybe they have something in the water?
Yeah or just the Guinness, maybe.
All those sorts of cultural differences, like when we did the first Dublin gig, instead of a one more song chant they’ve got “Olé, Olé, Olé!”.
You never get that here. Then you get the odd Australian that’s there being a dickhead going “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!”
That’s so good. Maybe for some of our readers who aren’t super familiar with your stuff, how would you guys describe your sound to our readers and listeners?
Do we get like, ‘describe your sound in three words or less’?
I’ll be generous. I’ll give you five.
Too many!
2
First word is alright. Yeah. Alright .
Allright…Let me see. That’s four!
What’s the closer?
Rock! Indie rock. We just tell everybody it’s indie rock, indie pop.
I was in a record store the other day in Toronto. It was massive and I was just looking at the way they categorise things. Most of the bands and artists that I listen to were all in indie pop. So I was kinda like,’ all right, I can see us being in the indie pop category, if that’s what this classifies’.
For ages we were scared of those words, we’d go, “yeah, we’re a psychedelic rock band”. You didn’t want to use the word pop, or indie.
I would say we probably describe our band more so now as not psychedelic. Just to kind of really reaffirm that we don’t think that’s what we are. Maybe to all the Woroni readers out there: Teenage Dads are not a psychedelic band!
And they’re not a surf band!
If you guys could have your way, no strings attached, no limits, who would you love to go on tour with, supporting?
Abba! If they’re free…probably hit them up.
Queen. That would be a good one. Kinda sick.
Prodigy.
Dolly Parton.
Dolly Parton would be sick, do you think her fans would like your stuff?
I think Dolly and I would really get along well.
That’s all that matters.
So true, it’s about the vibes. Great answer. If you guys were to make it really big, which I feel is not too far off, who would you bring on tour to support you, what upcoming artists?
There’s a really cool indie folk artist in Nashville…. Dolly Parton?
Um….. that’s tough.
Let’s plug all the bands that are supporting us on the next tour. We’ve got the Moving Stills, Death by Denim, Betty Taylor, Aleksiah, Siena Rebelo, Bocce in Tassie. I think that’s everyone! It’s always really cool picking support, sometimes you want to… you feel like you need to do it on a strategic basis to help pull more people to the tour and that sort of thing. But it’s also just really fun if you can set that aside and bring your friends along
So what’s next for you guys? I mean, I’m sure you’re exhausted and this is the last thing you want to think about, but the people want to know – are you thinking about another album, less touring, a break maybe? What are you feeling?
We’ve got a new song that we just got back from a master, but apart from that nothing’s really ready to go.
Yeah on the music front, we are working away, but we don’t know when things will be… we don’t have much information to divulge…
That’s all right. Keep your secrets.
We do have this big Australian tour coming up, which will, I think, bring us to nearly 100 shows this year, which will warrant some rest. We don’t have a whole lot planned for the November/ December period, but who knows, things might pop up.
Sounds like you guys are overdue for a little vacation.
Want to stay on campus? Check out the Kambri website to get tickets performances like the DMAs and Safia!
Interview with Teenage Dads – Woroni Artists Series. Live Show at University of Canberra Saturday August 12.
Comments Off on Interview with Chri$tian Gate$ – Woroni Artist Series
Chri$tian Gate$ is an up-and-coming alternative rock and pop artist from California, USA who has recently released his debut Extended Play (EP); Why Do I Hear Breathing?. The 20 year old musician boasts an impressive social media presence and is slated to perform at Lollapalooza 2023. We sat down with Chri$tian Gate$ to discuss his debut EP, his creative process, and the importance of social media for young musicians.
Let’s start with our first question. You’ve recently released Why Do I Hear Breathing?. We just want to know what’s the song that you’re proudest of on the album?
I think Never with You Again is probably my favourite. When I first wrote it, we made the acoustic. My friend, Sarcastic Sounds, played the acoustic while we were all on a writing camp together and I had a feeling, I was like, “I feel like if I get my heart broken, I want to use this”, and then my heart got broken. So then I immediately drove to my producer friend’s house and I was like, “hey, I need to write something to this, let’s record something”, and I sat in the car for like 30 minutes. I wrote the song and I was like, “hey, can we record?” He’s like, “no people are sleeping in my house”. And I’m like, “well, what can we do?” and he’s like, “we can try recording at the park”. So then we went to the park and we recorded the whole song and somehow it sounds like it was recorded in the studio and I think it came out really, really dope.
That’s amazing. What was the hardest song to create on Why Do I Hear Breathing?? Obviously you recorded in a park for one of your songs. But was that the hardest song or were there other songs on it that you were like, wow, this is really difficult, but you’re glad that you got it done.
Most of them came together pretty smoothly. [The song] Why Do I Hear Breathing? had some issues with putting it out. Some people were not letting it happen, like holding it back, but then it finally came out. So maybe that, but everything else seemed to work out fine.
You’ve mentioned that getting your heart broken, I’m very sorry about that, was sort of your main source of inspiration. Is that sort of the whole main inspiration for Why Do I Hear Breathing? or is it just what you were feeling at the time of writing each song?
If you go in order, the EP is the different insecure thoughts you can get throughout a relationship until it inevitably ends. So each song in order are just my thoughts. And then the final song [BREATHE] is just like a bonus song about me having a twin and then murdering him and dressing in his clothes to reap his fame.
You’ve released songs before Why Do I Hear Breathing?. Did the EP have a different source of inspiration or was this just like continuing on from what you’ve started with?
I think it was pretty similar, but I’m making a new EP and that is coming out pretty soon, in the next few months. And that one has a very different inspiration. I can’t say what it is yet, but it is totally different, but it’s really cool.
So tell me a little bit more about your creative process just in general. What is your starting point when you are making a song?
I would say I start with someone who knows how to play guitar or piano really well and we just go through a bunch of different chords. Once we find a chord progression that fits the vibe I’m in, we go from there and then kind of figure out what we want to write about. Most of the time it’s true experiences that I’ve been through or those of people close to me. It’s like I’m telling other people stories who wouldn’t really be able to tell the stories themselves. And that’s pretty much it.
I’m excited to listen to it when it comes out then! So moving to more about you as a musician. We’ve seen that you are performing at Lollapalooza this year, but you’ve also performed live before. What is your most memorable live performance so far?
I did a show in Chicago and there were two fans that wanted me to sign their chest with a Sharpie. I had to sign everybody really fast and I signed both of them and they said “we’re gonna go get this tattooed” and I was like, “no, please don’t”. It was like a big giant ugly signature on their chest. I told them, “please don’t, just send me a picture of you with a tattoo artist and then I’ll come back and I’ll do it better and then you can get that tattooed”. I was gonna do it like way smaller, but they went and they sent me videos of them just getting those tatted. It’s cool that somebody would do that, but it sucks that they did it.
Are you looking forward to performing at Lollapalooza? I’ve sort of seen who you’re performing with and it’s quite a big show with big names.
I’m excited. There’s a lot of people there that I’d love to see and I got a lot of friends performing there. It’s gonna be really cool. It’s my first festival. I’ve never been to a festival before, so I can’t wait.
You found your footing in the music industry and popularity through TikTok and other social media. Do you think the value of platforms like TikTok is for young emerging artists like yourself and other people?
I think it is priceless. There’s no other way that I know of to get a similar result within a similar amount of time. It’s probably the best tool that you could ask for.
Do you have any advice for young people looking to get into the music scene?
Only do it if you really, really want to do it and you don’t care about money. A lot of the time the money won’t come for a while. If you’re motivated by the wrong reasons, your music is gonna suffer and your mental health will suffer as well.
Finally, do you have anything that you would want people to know about you?
I’m making a new EP and I’m excited about it. It’s a folk, borderline country-but-not EP and it’s way different but way different in a cool way. And I’m just, I’m so excited for this to come out.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time.
Chri$tian Gate$’s debut EP Why Do I Hear Breathing? is available to stream on all major platforms. The music video for Never With You Again is out now on YouTube.
Comments Off on Interview with Boo Seeka – Woroni Artist Series
Boo Seeka is an Australian electropop artist currently touring Australia, with a show in Canberra on the 2nd of March. He has featured on the Triple J Hottest 100, played Coachella, and recently released his sophomore album, Between the Head and the Heart. We sat down with Boo Seeka to discuss his creative process, his musical influences, and the highlights of his career.
Let’s start with our first question, you’ve obviously recently released Between the Head and the Heart. We just want to know what’s the song that you’re most proud of on the album?
There’s a few, but I guess the most iconic one that kind of set up the whole record for me was I Like It Like, purely because I actually had a whole record written prior to the one that I wrote for Between the Head and the Heart and I guess where I was at in my life at that particular time and some stuff kind of happened, pretty spontaneously, that I wasn’t expecting that. Everything that I’d written for the record, it wasn’t speaking to me personally at that time. I scrapped it, and I had this moment where I just was standing in front of a mirror, and it was almost like I had this sensation of myself talking back to me through this mirror. I just started writing down like this conversation that I was having with myself, which turned into I Like It Like, so I guess for me, I got to give that song a highlight for the record, considering everything kind of grew from there.
That’s really interesting. You’ve spoken on having to sort of redo the whole record, essentially having to make a brand new record. What was the hardest song on the record to make?
The hardest song was Happen. I’d written the song and we had a demo, and we liked the demo of it, but it still wasn’t speaking to us. And then, literally, I think probably every other song that was on [Between the Head and the Heart] really didn’t take any longer than a day to record it, but Happen probably took nearly three weeks in itself to find the way that I wanted that song to come out.
For me, it was also another stepping stone of not worrying too much. You know, obviously I want things to be cohesive, but not worrying too much about it all sounding the same. I think for me it’s making the sound around the song that I want to write, to have the justice that it needs. So for me, that’s going into the next record that I’m writing now. It doesn’t necessarily have to be one particular sound across the whole record. You know, I think there’s other ways to artistically make it cohesive as a record but serve each song differently in a way so that it has the justice musically for the lyrical content that I’m writing.
So obviously you’ve written two records and you’re currently writing your third. What’s your main source of inspiration? Does it differ between each album?
Yeah, if you speak to most artists, we’re all sponges. I don’t think there’ll be that many artists out there that don’t take in anything that doesn’t inspire them within a day. But I guess the most key one for me is just my brain will suck in a lot of things going on in my world, and yet I find it very hard to just talk to people in a normal conversation about what I’m feeling. But I find it very easy to get it out through a song. So for me, the inspiration is getting out all those thoughts, whether they’re negative or positive in my head through music.
It’s really interesting to hear your opinions on people’s inspiration for music and everything, and how you don’t sort of have one thing but rather everything that you do in your day to day life. So to talk about other musicians, just briefly, what is your dream music collaboration? Like if you could collaborate with anyone in the world, alive or dead, who would it be?
Oh, that’s a hard one. It’s a very hard one actually. I’m going to be a bit sneaky here and pick two. Alive? I’d say Billie Eilish. I just think she’s absolutely incredible in everything that she does. And you know, she’s just doing her, and I think that’s a very inspiring thing.
Someone that’s passed? I’d say George Harrison. What an iconic songwriter. I came from a singer-songwriter background before I started writing electronic music and I still do to this day. Most songs written by me are on an acoustic guitar. At one point in my career, I reckon I’ll do an acoustic tour, with all the songs basically stripped down–bare minimum, to an acoustic guitar– because I really do think that not all songs, but a majority of great songs, can all be stripped down to literally just a piano and a guitar and a vocal. To me, George Harrison was just so iconic in his writing. That would be pretty, pretty awesome.
Our Art Editor is sitting just outside the frame and nodding. Those were good choices for musicians.
Aw, sweet. Thank you.
You’re on tour around Australia now. But I want to know; what’s your most memorable live performance so far?
Well, there’s been so many. There’ll be a few for different reasons. I was actually in a band prior to Boo Seeka and I felt like I cut my teeth with those guys, and learnt everything that set me up to be able to do Boo Seeka the way that I’m doing it. I owe a lot of credit to those guys, but they got to an age where they didn’t want to do it anymore and it was, honestly, the most devastating time of my life, getting told that they didn’t want to do it anymore. To me, I had nothing else to do but play music.
When Boo Seeka kicked off, and I guess having that first iconic moment of completely selling out your first-ever show. You know, you’ve worked so long to get to a point, and then you finally fill the room. I think that would be one iconic moment for me in my career.
Playing Coachella last year was obviously a massive one. Definitely a bucket list thing I never anticipated in doing. Playing Red Rocks in Denver. Growing up as a kid, watching DVDs of Red Rocks with all the bands and artists that I love with my parents, and then actually standing on that stage and playing to a packed house was a moment I’ll never forget.
And I’m just so thankful for all the stepping stones that I have been able to do, from the festival scene within Australia and playing all those iconic festivals. Playing regional tours and capital cities and packed rooms, and having people have that experience of singing back to me songs that I’ve written for myself but connecting in their own ways with me every night. I’ll never forget that and I’ll never get sick of it.
That’s amazing. I follow these big music festivals and it’s really amazing to see people’s progression from small Australian shows and festivals to these massive American festivals like Coachella and Red Rocks. It’s really awesome to see and really interesting to hear it from someone who’s done it.
If you’re able to, can you tell me about your creative process? I know we talked about where you find your inspiration, but once you’ve got the inspiration, how do you go about making a song or a record?
There’s definitely a lot of different ways, I’m not really the guy to just go “right, today I’m going to write a song”. It works for a lot of people. One of my best friends ever, he’s basically my brother, another very incredible and inspiring person, inspires me every day in writing. But he writes in such a different way, he wakes up at like three-thirty or four in the morning, every morning, and just writes. His kind of thing is writing at those very early hours of the day when his brain is fresh, which is a very inspiring thing. But in saying that, I’ve tried that twice and it’s not for me. I like my sleep.
I think for me, again it’s just sucking in inspiration, walking down the street, to finally putting the jigsaw puzzle together in my head, or that there’s a certain line that will set up the whole rest of a song of what I want to say. That might be me just literally humming out a line for a couple of hours just by myself. I’ve always got a guitar laying around the house and picking it up and strumming a couple of chords, and it really is to me like putting a puzzle together. You find one piece and you find the next piece and you put it together. Sometimes those pieces come really quickly and you put the whole thing together in literally 15 minutes. Sometimes you have to put down a couple of pieces and walk away and come back and look at it again and connect more things. I wouldn’t say there’s one specific way that I write music, but in a whole, that would be how I go about it.
You’ve been making music since 2015, so about eight years. Tell me how your creative process differs from how it was 8, 10 years ago.
The first three songs that I wrote were Kingdom Leader, Deception Bay, and Fool. They were literally tracked, recorded, mixed, and mastered in three days. Three songs in three days. That was coming out of this big turnaround in my life with my previous band. It was writing about taking on this new journey and being the ruler of my own kingdom moving forward. Then meeting Sam [Croft], and everything that he brought to the band. We were in sixth gear straight away, we literally put out a song and then, two weeks later, we left on tour. After that tour, we had the whole year booked out. So for us, writing became part of being on the road. When our manager at the time was like, “right guys, it’s time to do a full length record”, most bands will pull off the road and book time into a studio and won’t tour.
For Sam and I, we just loved being on the road and finding that we’re getting more inspiration being on the road. So for us, we basically set up a little recording kind of vibe that we could take literally around the world. We were recording in hotels and in RVs and in buses and at airports. Some of the sounds that no one will ever pick up, I think there’s only been about two or three that have actually picked up some certain things. There are sounds in that first full length record that were literally Sam going around and recording different street sounds and building them into beats. I think that was a big thing that Sam brought to the project at that time that gave that first full length record a bit of a worldly feel.
Whereas now? Writing a record was very different compared to [Never Too Soon] for Between the Head and the Heart, because we couldn’t tour. I was almost struggling to find what I wanted to write about for the next record because for me, again, I pick up inspiration from being outside. Like I hate a regimented kind of routine every day. I hate doing the same thing twice. I like to do everything different, every day, as much as I possibly can. [Lockdown] was really hard for me. I went digging in deeper, inside my soul and into my head to write Between the Head and the Heart. Very different to the first record.
I guess the world has changed a lot in the eight years since you started making music as Boo Seeka. It’s really interesting how your creative process has changed with the world. You were nominated for a Triple J Unearthed Award and you were also on the Triple J Hottest 100. What do you think the value of platforms like Triple J is for emerging artists in Australia? What was the value of that for you and what do you think it is for other people?
It’s massive, I genuinely think Triple J is one of the greatest platforms for any up and coming band ever. We got Unearthed through Triple J, but still to this day, I’m going on and finding new music. I go back on that platform and just go searching for bands all around Australia. Whoever came up with that concept is a genius because you find bands that aren’t packing out rooms all around Australia, not selling out thousands of tickets but you go and find them and you go “holy crap, like, I love this music” and you hope that you see those bands go out and tour. But there’s bands that I follow on there that I’ve never seen play a show but I love listening to their music. You know, I think it’s just a great platform to go and find new music and things that you’re into and see where music is going. It’s an incredible platform.
A final question. Do you have any advice for people looking to get into music here in Australia, like getting into the music scene?
I guess it’s a little bit cliche – it’s very cliche. I just genuinely think it’s where every musician needs to start; just do it because you love it. Like genuinely just do it, doesn’t matter whether you’re in your bedroom or not. There’s some artists who don’t even want to tour, they don’t want to play in front of crowds, and they do it because they genuinely love playing music and writing songs. But if you’re getting into this game to be famous and play in front of a packed room, then you’re doing it for all the wrong reasons.
Don’t get down on playing to one or two people. You should be going into any gig, whether it’s one person or 10,000 people, playing 100% exactly the same as what you would do in a big crowd. I’ve always had that philosophy since I played in my old band. We literally played to two people that were sitting in front of us and the bar staff, and those two people sitting in front of us owned a very well known guitar company that I’m still endorsed by and set us up for life with guitars. It showed me that you just never know who’s sitting in the room. So always get out there and do your best.
That’s great advice. Thank you so much for the opportunity to interview you.
Boo Seeka will be playing in Kambri at ANU on March 2nd with support from Apricot Ink as part of his Regional Tour around Australia.
In 1977, NASA launched two Voyager spacecrafts, the first of their kind ever to leave the solar system and venture into the vast, infinite space beyond. Within each of these spacecraft is a gold-plated record, a relic meant to convey to any other life-form it might encounter the entire human experience. On this record are images ranging from simple geometric shapes to complex, abstract works of art. And there are also 90 minutes of audio.
90 minutes.
90 minutes to capture all the sounds of the human species. How do you capture something so complex in sounds that might be incomprehensible to any other organism? How do you capture human emotion and convey it to something that might not even experience it?
Despite this monumental task, Carl Sagan and his team attempted to capture our sounds, our languages, and our music onto the record. Those 90 minutes are an intricate tapestry of audio from across time and space. There is a message from the UN General Secretary and greetings in 55 different languages. There is Mozart, and there is Beethoven. There are the fundamentals of sound itself, and there are those who have supposedly mastered it. Yet amongst these iconic, universal pieces of music is a blues song by a relatively unknown artist, Blind Willie Johnson. His song, ‘Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground’, nestles amongst giants to capture one of the most integral emotions of what it means to be human, or as Carl Sagan put it, “cosmic loneliness.”
We know very little about Blind Willie Johnson. So little that there exists only one confirmed picture of him. We know he was born in 1897 in Texas and that his mother passed away shortly after. As a child, we know his stepmother blinded him by throwing lye into his eyes.
We know he then turned to playing the guitar, travelling around the state, preaching the Christian faith of which he was a devout follower. Johnson lived in poverty his entire life and struggled until the very end. When his house burned down in 1945, he had nowhere to go. So, he slept in the charred ruins where his bed once lay. Here, he contracted a disease; sources differ on whether it was pneumonia or malarial fever. When brought to the hospital, he was refused treatment. He died shortly after. His wife Angeline alleges that he was denied treatment due to his disability, while other sources say it was because he was black.
Within his discography is that very song on the Voyager Golden Record, “Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground.” Yet it is not Johnson’s own composition. It is his three-minute adaptation of a song layered with history and meaning – a hymn sung on slave plantations, in black churches by preachers, and at funerals in the American South. Johnson’s rendition does not sing the lyrics in English or any other language. Instead, he moans in an anguish that captures and echoes the history of the song, of his own life, and the collective suffering of both. A history that is conveyed in three minutes.
It is a song that echoes our deepest vulnerability, transcending any language to convey to the great beyond the insular depths of our sorrow and loneliness. That is the song’s thesis when considered in isolation, but when we peer behind the notes into the stories that have shaped it, we see perhaps a more prescient idea of what it represents – persistence.
Our species has faced great horrors and resisted great evil to survive. We bear those scars and share them as a collective. Willie Johnson endured a profoundly racist country that not only considered him unequal to those he performed for but also looked down upon him for his disability.
Yet he persisted.
A man who had sight cruelly taken away from him created and captured a testament to our perseverance. Our sorrow and the collective loneliness that pervades our existence now hurtles through the vast expanses of space, seeing more of our universe than our species ever has.
The Voyager Golden Record was designed with longevity in mind and will likely outlast human civilisation. Our existence, however, is inherently ephemeral. We are collections of stardust that dance in sorrow for the duration of our lifespan, capable of great kindness and destruction, only to return to dust when our dance ends. But through our creativity and passion, we can create what transcends our own mortality into great, immortalised art.
In however many years, if ever, should the Voyager Golden Record meet any other civilisation, it might witness that very testament to our perseverance. Or it might never do so and keep exploring the universe in the darkest of nights, and the coldest of spaces, forever cosmically lonely.
Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 6 ‘Dive’
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Comments Off on Meet Her at Midnight: A Review of Taylor Swift’s Midnights
In her critically acclaimed tenth studio album, Taylor Swift examines her darkest dreams, deepest insecurities, and most secret desires through a dazzlingly brilliant return to pop.
Republic Records released Taylor Swift’s highly anticipated tenth studio album on 21 October 2022. In the lead-up to its release, Swift described the 13-track album as “the story of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life.”
Working exclusively with long-term collaborator Jack Antonoff as producer, Midnights sees a return to pop for Swift. She experiments with electropop, synth-pop, dubstep-inspired rhythms and bass, and house-inspired beats, culminating in an incredibly intimate, assured, and heartfelt album showcasing the singer’s lyrical genius.
The album begins with Lavender Haze, written by various collaborators, including Zoë Kravitz. As described in a featurette video, Swift sings of the “all-encompassing love glow” associated with falling in love. She also criticises the gender roles and stereotypes that have cruelly confined her throughout her career: “All they keep asking me / Is if I’m gonna be your bride / The only kinda girl they see / Is a one-night or a wife.”
Anti-Hero is perhaps Swift’s most vulnerable and honest song on the album. She sings of self-hatred, insomnia, and body image, surmising: “It’s me, hi / I’m the problem, it’s me / At teatime, everybody agrees / I’ll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror / It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero.” Confessional and confronting, Swift accurately articulates the universal feelings of insecurity, depression, and loneliness. Her relatability is a testament to her songwriting. In the dramatic bridge, Swift sings: “I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money / She thinks I left them in the will / The family gathers ’round and reads it / And then someone screams out / ‘She’s laughing up at us from hell’.” While humorously depicted in the music video, the lyrics portray the difficulty of creating genuine relationships with fame.
In the fourth track, Snow on the Beach, Swift collaborates with Lana Del Rey. However, as the internet has jokingly pointed out, Del Rey seems largely absent from the song, providing backing vocals, as opposed to the eagerly anticipated duet. Nevertheless, the lyrics are beautiful and create a romantic atmosphere that transports listeners to a winter wonderland: “Now it’s like snow at the beach / Weird, but fucking beautiful / Flying in a dream / Stars by the pocketful / You wanting me / Tonight feels impossible.”
Vigilante Shit and Karma mark a return of Reputation-esque revenge narratives. In Vigilante Shit, Swift evokes her femme fatale, singing, “Ladies always rise above / Ladies know what people want / Someone sweet and kind and fun / The lady simply had enough.” Karma has become an instant favourite due to its rhythmically pleasing chorus: “Cause karma is my boyfriend / Karma is a god / Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend / Karma’s a relaxing thought / Aren’t you envious that for you it’s not?”
The album fittingly finishes with another love song, Mastermind, which recounts the strategic first meeting with a lover. It’s a song that makes you smile, beam, and rejoice in happiness because what’s more beautiful than love? Swift is honest and personal, and the lyrics reveal why love is so pertinent to her character: “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid / So I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since / to make them love me and make it seem effortless.”
But that’s not all! In fitting Swift-like fashion, the album’s deluxe version was released hours later, titled Midnights (3am Edition), with seven bonus tracks. These songs reinforce the same themes of the original album, with three tracks produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner.
One of these tracks is Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve, which emphasises the power of Swift’s songwriting as she pens a track laced with regret, remorse and anger at an ex-boyfriend. Swift does not hold back: “If you never looked my way / I would’ve stayed on my knees / And I damn sure never would’ve danced with the devil / At nineteen.” She says, “Give me back my girlhood / It was mine first,” and ends the incredibly confronting song with “I regret you all the time.” Swift cleverly utilises religious imagery to depict the horrible reality of Hollywood relationships between young teenage girls and men (usually) in their thirties.
Midnights has had an extremely positive reception. It broke the record for the most-streamed album in a single day in Spotify history and received five stars from The Guardian, The Independent UK, and Rolling Stones. It also became the best-selling album of 2022 within 24 hours of release and has had the largest vinyl sales of the century. Yet, critics like the Evening Standard have argued that “it’s hard to spot anything that sounds like a smash hit.” However, this does not necessarily mean that the album is lacking in quality. In fact, Swift is at an advantage to her peers. Her clever songwriting has procured her a devout fanbase throughout her fourteen years in the music industry, which guarantees immense success with each album release. This essentially allows Swift to create records for the purpose of storytelling, as opposed to releasing a manufactured and generic pop song that may be a hit on the charts but is lyrically meaningless. As The Guardian asserts, Midnights is an album that “steadfastly declines to deal in the kind of neon-hued bangers that pop stars usually return with, music brash enough to cut through the hubbub.” Overall, the album demonstrates Swift’s versatility as an artist, as she experiments with her musicality to remain both original and comfortingly familiar. Midnights is a masterpiece, and Taylor Swift is truly a mastermind.
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Comments Off on Friday Night Party: What just happened?
Campus is finally back at full post-COVID pace! Now that some of Australia’s freshest acts have played and the stage is quickly being packed down, the last big event of the ANUSA calendar is behind us. So for everyone looking to reminisce on the day and the people across campus left listening to the second-hand sound, Here’s the Friday Night Party write-up. I’ll take you through each band’s big moments and let you know what worked, what didn’t, and sprinkle in plenty of personal anecdotes for good measure.
Saint Beryl
ANU’s own Saint Beryl started off the day with storm clouds churning above. Their set pulled my mates and I towards the siren call of Phoebe Bridgers’ ‘Kyoto’ ringing across Kambri. After passing through the security check, I was immediately hit by Burgmann’s BNO Band using their energetic vocalists and explosive horns section to breathe new life into every song they covered. Together they teased a wild crowd out of Lorde’s ‘Green Light’ and showed just how hard a student band could rock a professional stage.
However, after the crowd dispersed at the end of their set was when the sobering reality of Friday Night Party started to hit. With low ticket sales and few big early afternoon draws, the generous site on Fellows Oval emptied out. As one instantly memorable partygoer kept dancing, the rest of us were left with not much to do but find a bean bag and wait for the next set.
Sputnik Sweetheart
Almost in reaction to the low-energy start to the day, this four-piece band of Canberra locals came with one goal, to get the relatively small crowd moving. It’s hard to think of a more iconic Bush Capital experience than jamming out to these guys on a cloudy day underneath the Telstra Tower. With their signature Alt-Rock sound and Aussie Grunge aesthetic, Sputnik Sweetheart brought their best material. Kicking off their set with the energising ‘Lindy Hop’ and then, without pausing for a breath moving into ‘Us Girls’ gave the event a much-needed kick into action. Their set rushed by wildly and set the tone for the fast-paced night to come.
Birdz
Nathan Bird, AKA Birdz, describes himself as “a proud Murri man with Badtjala, Juru, Scottish and Melanesian heritage”. The Australian rap legend came onto the stage with the sun setting, passionate and ready to play the music he sees as a “declaration of survival”. After winning the crowd over with the charged anthems ‘Black Child’ and ‘Aussie Aussie’ he masterfully controlled the energy of the growing festival. Tempering the frenzied mosh’s energy with the emotive ‘Fly’ and closing with his definitive ‘Bagi-la-m Bargan’, Birdz closed his set on a powerful note. In a week filled with discussions around Australia’s tenuous postcolonial identity, Birdz ‘politically driven sound reflected his valuable personal experience, creating an evocative shared moment with the crowd.
The Lazy Eyes
After becoming the unexpected openers of this year’s Splendour in the Grass, the Lazy Eye’s are launching their career with some serious energy behind them. The band had some recently acquired die-hard fans to satisfy and, as an act just building their reputation, immediately needed to win over the rest of the crowd. As Australia’s newest Psychedelic Rock offering, this group of high school friends seem set on carving themselves a place in the genre’s history alongside acts like King Gizzard and Pond. Opening with tracks ‘The Island’ and ‘Fuzz Jam’ from their April 2022 debut Album Songbook, they quickly introduced the ANU to their unique sound. Their synth-pop cover of the Bee Gees ‘’More Than a Woman’’, from Triple J’s Like a Version was a highlight of the night. Especially considering this was the first time they’ve played it for a live crowd. Closing their set with the experimental and mood-shifting ‘Where’s My Brain???’ The Lazy Eye’s had the now fully assembled, hundreds strong sea of students absolutely ready for more.
Confidence Man
With heavy rain and severe wind predicted for this point in the night, Brisbane’s Confidence Man shrugged off the dire forecasts. Bringing their well-choreographed, quick change-filled routine to a miraculously storm-free night the Indie Electro Pop group lit up the stage. The absurdly confident leading duo of Janet Planet and Sugar Bones showered fans with champagne between their tried and tested hits ‘Does It Make You Feel Good’ and ‘Boyfriend (Repeat)’. After falling in with a group of die-hard fans and singing along to every song I knew at least half the words to, I was definitely feeling the magic of their set. Treating their audience to a series of dramatic and festival-worthy looks, the band really brought their self-reported “own portable rave” to Fellows. Once they had wrapped up their set and left us with their classic ‘C.O.O.L Party’ I’d been thoroughly convinced that, to quote the track. “I’ve been to heaps of parties . . . and to be honest, this one is the best. It’s the Party of the Year”
Skegss
With just the headline act to go, the night had already served up plenty of instantly memorable experiences and given me a new appreciation of some of my favourite songs. The energy I’d already given to the event brought me gently into Skegs’s peaceful and nostalgic opening track ‘Stranger Days’. Then, without a second’s hesitation, the surf and garage rock trio of Byron Bay locals switched gears into their high-octane tracks ‘Paradise’ and ‘Spring Has Sprung’ ringing the festival’s energy to a resounding crescendo and whipping up a few lightheartedly aggressive mosh pits in the process. Closing the night out with this iconic Aussie group then having rain finally start falling only seconds after their final song seemed like the perfect end to the night.
After bringing these acts together for one incredible night, Friday Night Party made good on its promise of being 2022’s “biggest party on Campus”. While avoiding catastrophic weather and concerns about low turnout, the event explosively capped off the year with one last big event everyone, even ACT Senator David Pocock, could get involved in. I can’t wait to see another Friday Night Party in 2023 so that this exceptional ANU tradition can continue on and I can keep enjoying some of the country’s biggest new acts right on my doorstep.