GEOFFREY DATSON

THANKS TO THE ACADEMY THE NIMROD AND THE ABC

I've been recording sound since my late teens and though it speaks for itself I'd like to add a bit about method and motivations.

I grew up listening to 60'S & 70's pop on a crystal set built by my uncle. The hard highs of its Army surplus Bakelite headset earthed to the metal bed frame still define the excitement of electricity for me; perhaps it was just harmonic shock therapy. In the background was a fairly constant stream of contemporary classical music from my parent's part of the house and of course back then we also had a properly funded public radio station owned by the people of Australia called the ABC. It played shows like My Word, Hancock's Halfhour, The Goons and a fantastic radio travel documentary where the tape machine produced an aural landscape with minimal but incisive and sometimes sardonic commentary, which impressed me how they used sound as much as words.

Dad owned a tape recorder: a Pandora's box of noise. He would audio id the head of each tape with cryptic phrases like "RED LEADER ONE'' (tape, not Communist leader). I hopefully but briefly thought we might be part of a spy network. Our house faced out to sea where Russian/Chinese submarines lurked, waiting to snatch our unsuspecting Prime Minister (Hey could we do that trick again?)

At about 10 years old I developed a stammer so the family ritual of recording Christmas day for the relatives in England was a mixture of fear and frenzy, like having to deal with the sonic equivalent of the mirror phase. My first instrument was the Appalacian mountain dulcimer, a modal and droning sound, sometimes crystalline; sometimes mournful. The manner of it's tuning lends it an archaic quality. The intervals on a dulcimer's neck are such that all notes belong in its tuned mode, making it impossible to play a wrong note! Although the dulcimer itself doesn't appear on this CD it's influence on how I recombine sounds is substantial. The dulcimer led me to music prior to the introduction of equal temperament, and hence the work and philosophy of Harry Partch, (American hobo philosopher, instrument maker sound theorist and poet [1901-1970])

Like the lie of "Reality TV" the very act of turning on a recording device distorts the reality. Charles Cros, a French writer simultaneously theorised a parallel technology to Thomas Edisons phonograph but seemed to be more interested in the metaphysical implications of fixing time. 'If' in the beginning is the word' and you keep on reproducing it what happens?' Try asking a stammerer near you!

I was always most interested in that noise out on the perimeter of the song, the implied melody, and the way sounds combine to become quite different from their component frequencies.

Sometimes the veracity of the song lies in the most minute of clues that often have little to do with melody or lyric. In the same way that the world has become speechless in the face of the fear of the last few weeks - our language, one of order and empiricism, can't convey the emotion. It comes out as babble They may be using words, but syntactically, nothing adds up to a coherent meaning, because we are tuned into the subconscious message it contains. This is the interface of the oracular where the only events worth recording happen. The rest of it is only reproducing the known.

The recording process sometimes involved building solid blocks of disparate noise and eliminating what wasn't necessary. Some seemed to appear almost fully formed and finished on the 1^st take.

We are in a very exciting phase of the evolution of sound. More people than ever before have direct access to refined hierarchies of noise. Affordability and digital technology have transformed the symphonic tradition. Music and song have a tribal and spiritual significance, it's obvious but you'd never guess it by looking at the business of music.

ANNETTE HUGHES

producer singer songwriter

Hughes's deeply obscure artistic career began at age 16 singing in a highschool garage band that folded almost a fast as it formed followed by art school and more equally obscure bands. Hughes moved to Sydney in 1985 with her then husband Ray Hughes to run his contemporary art gallery, and up until 2004, for ten years worked as a literary agent with Rose Creswell.

In 2001, Hughes set up Stickylabel with Datson to make and market his audio poetry and music and collaborates with him, under the illusion that artists can make a living out of their ideas.

In 2004, she and Datson moved to the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast, and Hughes has recently written a memoir entitled Art Life Chooks: Learning to leave the city and love the country, published 1 JULY 2008 by Harper Collins (Fourth Estate), appearing at the Noosa Long Weekend "Reality Bites" non-fiction writer's festival (4-6 JULY 2008); Byron Bay Writer's Festival (26-8 JULY) to promote the book.

MOHSEN SOLTANY (NBP122)

Poet and musician

Mohsen has been described by Thomas Keneally as the WB Yeates of our time. Tom, and many other friends and colleagues who have helped him settle in to his life in Australia will appear on his forthcoming album. Mohsen has composed and recorded the music and Australian voices read his words. The effect is mesmerising. Mohsen is a tireless advocate for human rights and all proceeds from this work will go to support humanitarian organisations. (NBP122 was his number in detention).

Drummer

London based 80's alternative pop band Way of the West had one of the best drummers on the block, the human metro-gnome, Dave Bonnefoy. But now he is in Australia and plays on many of the tracks on this site. He is responsible for the formation of The Towel Heads, a 'new wave' surf band that includes Annette Hughes on bass and Geoffrey Datson revisiting his former life as a member of the Sydney surf punk band Surf Side Six on guitar.

He is a brilliant session drummer with a particular penchant for reggae and dub. His inimitable services are available and he can be contacted through this site.

MATT REDDALL

musician & sound engineer

Matt turned up at a party one night and expounded a perfectly reasonable grand unifying theory of everything based entirely on the concept that there are only three resonances in our perceptual dimension. He then brought round his studio and engineered all the sound on Mohsen's album, and brought a whole new sonic dimension to the work. He is a genius and generous with it.