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Music Under Lockdown: Melbourne 2020

by Various Artists

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about

Restrictions on movement in Melbourne due to COVID-19 began in late March. These began with restrictions on indoor and outdoor gatherings and working from home, through to movement beyond localities, to compulsory wearing of masks outdoors. At the most extreme, restrictions have forbidden Melbournians from leaving home for more than one hour’s exercise per day, an 8pm curfew, and not moving beyond a 5 km radius of home. The majority of these restrictions are still in place at the time of writing (early October 2020), although we are now at the end of the second wave of infections and anxiously await release from lockdown.

The idea for this compilation surfaced in August, in response to the announcement of the most severe Stage 4 lockdown. “Music Under Lockdown: Melbourne 2020” is meant to document how musicians and sound artists living under these lockdown conditions coped, and what music they made during these times. As well as a listening experience, it is a snapshot of a unique and challenging time for all Melbournians, and especially a vibrant community of sound makers struggling through trying circumstances towards an uncertain future.


Willebrant “Thoughts of Them” (March/April 2020) - This recording was created in the first lockdown in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. It explores the idea of a psychological journey to an uncertain destination and the persona that emerges at the other side of this unprecedented and unexpected global experience.


Katarzyna Wiktorski “Sudden Limbo” (April 2020) - A piece I wrote in isolation during the peak of our first lock down in April, 2020. A reaction to change, loss, stress, grief and the unknown. Recorded between Brunswick, Broadmeadows and Warrandyte (Katarzyna Wiktorski - Piano /Composition /Arrangement/ Mixing & Mastering. Angela Davis - Alto Saxophone. Alexi Kyrkilis-Kalathas – Cello) katarzynawiktorski.bandcamp.com


Ascetik “Paper Crane” (April 2020) - Paper Crane is an improvised ambient piece recorded shortly after Melbourne went into Stage 3 lockdown. The music is inspired by the story of Sadako Sasaki, a girl who contracted leukemia from the radiation of Hiroshima’s atomic fallout. She heard of the Japanese legend that folding 1000 paper cranes would grant you a wish from the gods and so she started folding cranes. She only folded 644 cranes before passing away, but she died peacefully, and the task allowed her to spend the rest of her days filled with hope rather than despair. Just like the paper crane, life is fragile, yet intricate and full of beauty. In times such as these it is necessary to cultivate hope so that it may transcend the darkness.


Katerina Stathis “Beyond Clouded Skies (Eta Aquariid): May 6, 4am” (6 May 2020) - The early morning air captured through sound on the night I got up to witness Eta Aquariid only to find it was covered by clouds.


Propolis “Reprise” (May 2020) - Lockdown restrictions temporarily eased a little in May and we were excited to be able to have a band practice. Mickey recorded this simple lullaby - with Jen on bass, Michael on synth and Mickey on swishy rain jacket - on his phone.


Nick Ashwood and Clinton Green “Hunt Club 1b” (4 July 2020) – This was the last time I played music with another person in the same room at the time of writing (October). Nick was visiting Melbourne and we quickly teed up a jam, just as the second lockdown was rolling out. My suburb was in lockdown, but my studio was nearby in a non-lockdown postcode. We met there and played for a couple of hours. This was the first time we’d played together as a duo. Nick was staying in North Melbourne, and it was announced that evening that suburb would be locked down at midnight. Within a week or two the whole city was as well (CG).


The Man from Atlantis “Watching the Clouds Come and Go” (July 2020) - Watching the Clouds Come and Go was recorded during lockdown and is a response to the hysteria highlighted by some segments of the population. While some of the unhinged pointed their fingers, removed their masks and turned to their crystals and kinesiology to protect them from the 'hoax' of COVID, I sat at a nearby Mornington Peninsula beach and watched it come and go.


Sugar Ross “Field Recording Collage #1” (July 2020) - This recording was originally a one-minute loop for experimentation with reel-to-reel tape that was to be presented at a festival that was cancelled due to COVID-19. Due to the isolation period, I was able to spend more time going through the collection of field recordings on my TASCAM that was piling up from November 2019 - March 2020. I guess the response to the lockdowns here is the natural tendency to take everyday life for granted and then with that, the juxtaposition of these field-recordings, recordings of what was my everyday life between November-March and then that of the everyday life that we have lived since March. The time and ability to create and be creative during isolation and lockdown is immense but to evoke the motivation and passion needed is severely impeded. This track represents that part of my isolation struggle.


Salar Niknafs “Leave No Trace” (July 2020) - For me, [the challenge of] recording in the limits of home isolation was coming up with an objective narrative, some kind of a personal story for the state we're in. I think most musicians are accustomed to spending long periods of time in isolation - not entirely different to the current macro situation - which allows the audience to channel more freely into the creative mindset and vice versa. Plus, now that the social interactions and external obligations are disturbed, one inevitably faces the familiar question “what is worth doing and what is worth having”, which has been a question I’ve been trying to find an answer to through music.


Surveillance “00:53:04:67” (July 2020) - SURVEILLANCE was born amidst the stage 3 coronavirus pandemic lockdown of 2020 as a collaboration between artists Troy Rainbow and MC Lord Magrao, members of Fierce Mild and Guillemots respectively. The recordings were an extract from improvised remote sessions based in Footscray and online files exchange. Implementing overdubs and sound design at a later date to create the final piece. It reflects our state of mind and mental health during a time of uncertainty and social reclusion. Exploring our fears and driven by a desire to create a sonically challenging soundscape.


I Hold The Great Rack “I Fully Believe It” (May 2020) - From I Hold the Great Rack's multi-panelled 'The World Died Today While You Were On Your Phone - Vol.2’ series whilst under lockdown in Reservoir, Melbourne. Set at 90 bpm, the music sets a much darker and brooding undertone than its predecessor, yet retains the infectious combination of granulated trumpet ambience, witty vocals and dank beats that feel simultaneously familiar yet other worldly (supported by the City of Melbourne COVID-19 Arts Grants).


Fuzzy Llama “Revolution Blues” (August 2020) – I’m very influenced by the minimal tracks I’ve been hearing that are designed to be mixed as much as work as stand-alones. This is capturing how I’m feeling at the moment. There’s a deliberate monotony to the track and scattered melodies that replicate our ever-muddled thought processes. It actually mixes nicely with more complex tracks.


David Prescott-Steed “COVID Coin Race Spoon and Cup” (August 2020) - The recording was made during a morning of homeschooling (in a kitchen in Northcote), which included a grade 3 science investigation activity. The audio was part of a slow-motion video made on an iPhone, re-recorded via the line input of a Sony PCM-D50 handheld device. Under stage four lockdown conditions it becomes increasingly important, for personal and interpersonal wellbeing, that we make time for active listening within our domestic environment.


Mick Meagher and Sam Price “Paved with Good Intentions” (July-August 2020) - Lockdown enforced the repetition paradigm, with the art of scale becoming a proxy for the intensity of corporeal experience; did we need another video of 100 people all singing 'Bohemian Rhapsody'? For our collaboration we set out to do what we would have done, play together to make something new and visceral. We did this until the grief of not being able to do so together, in real time, was too great to bear.


Joseph Franklin “A/Biotic Forces: Purl” (September 2020) - This piece was recorded at the annex “studio” that is attached to my caravan home, on a farm on Wurundjeri land (Wattle Glen, Melbourne), surrounded by kangaroos, birds, ducks, chickens, dams, bees, trees, blue-tongued lizards and earthworks. In this time where in-person (human) collaborations are impossible, I’ve expanded my “solo” practice to include preparations, percussive instruments, the environment and animals. The very idea of a solo practice, or even isolation, seems like a distant idea belonging to an archaic colonial past. The materials I worked with in this improvisation include a semi-hollow bass guitar, blu tac, two capos, paper, plastic, 10 yellow box tree pieces (20-30cm in length, 2-4cm in diameter) that I cut from a felled tree, a kick drum from a children’s drum set, and a Korean gong—also played with a kick drum. There are some (unexpected) sounds generated by my kelpie-heeler companion, Huxley. It was recorded with two close mics, a condenser mic for the speaker and a DI signal. This nude, or in-process, work explores rhythmic cycles/relationships, sound-worlds and techniques that I’ve been thinking about for some time now. The primary inspiration was the imagined sound of wooden logs colliding in river water.


Carolyn Connors, from Dispersion with Terry McDermott “Repetition Variations”, “Call and Respond”, & “More” (July-August 2020) - Dispersion is a collaborative project that brings together The Federation Bells (Birrarung Marr) and the human voice (Carolyn Connors, in Carlton North) via software (Terry McDermott, in Rosanna). Carolyn and Terry worked separately throughout Melbourne’s lockdown; in fact, they haven’t been in the same room for a while, possibly years. Terry developed an interface and its performance potentials; Carolyn tested various stages of its development and made short pieces in response to these possibilities. Dispersion was supported by the City of Melbourne COVID-19 Arts Grants.


Erin K. Taylor “New Moon in Cancer” (20 July 2020) - The intention of these recordings is to aid in our journeys through and into ourselves, to help us align to expansive cycles, to provide a safe and sturdy vessel to hold you in your vast entirety so that we may release the old, the stuck, the inherited conditioning that fetters our hearts and our minds. Also to just give us all a break, some space to re-align our nervous systems and be in safe calm holding for a time. Just let yourself go and sink into the sound (erinktaylor.com)

credits

released October 18, 2020

Compiled by Clinton Green
Mastered by James A. Dean
Cover photo by Clinton Green
Shame File Music 2020
sham110

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Shame File Music Melbourne, Australia

Shame File Music specialises in documenting Australian experimental music, both contemporary and historical.

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