Breath
By Ryan on January 12, 2020 8:50 am
As I am sure a lot of you are aware Australia has very literally been on fire this week and although I am very fortunate not to have experienced this disaster first hand, the effects of it have been inescapable.
Just 2 days ago my partner was ushered off of the road to make way for dozens of military vehicles travelling to fire zones amidst a smokey twilight. She described feeling as though it was the end of days. The closest fire to us is 150km (that's about 100 miles in the old language), yet the smoke is strong enough and thick enough that we have to close up our house at night in order to sleep without coughing up a lung. I can't even imagine what it is like for those who are living through this on the frontline. I don't think I have the facility to comprehend this.
Earlier this week I was contacted by local musician and former weeklybeater Tristan Louth-Robins who was putting together a compilation of experimental South Australian music and was taking submissions. The purpose of this compilation is to raise funds for those effected by the fires and I'll post details here as they become available. This piece is my submission to that compilation.
Breath is a collab between my partner Kelli Rowe and I, it comprises 6 free-running tape loops whose volume, pan, and eq are defined by a number of random processes and evolve and change over time. All of the material contained in the loops was created/collected during the turmoil of the last week.
I was inspired to write this piece by a trip to the supermarket. While packing groceries in my car I overheard two men discussing the recent bushfires and within minutes both men became violently angry towards each other. Their anger was not aimed at the fire, climate change or our lacksadasical government, their anger was directed squarely at each other. Both men felt as though they knew how they personally could have prevented such a disaster and both men disagreed with the others idea. I found their disagreement to be pointless, ignorant, even disrespectful. I mean, can you imagine losing an entire farm, watching thousands of livestock burn to death, shooting those who were unlucky enough to survive (very true story) and then be told by some useless luddite that he had the answers all along! Disgusting.
So what is the right response? I have no idea. My partner and collaborator, Kelli Rowe, works for a suicide prevention organisation here in Australia. Day in day out she is supposed to help people in crisis, talk to people who are at the end of the line, in situations and circumstances that most of us (who have the luxury of composing music in our spare time) will never even get close to. The model used by Kelli's organisation is built on one idea, sitting with the pain. You listen, you offer no support, no encouragement and definitely no solution (as if there is one) and by doing this you take on some of this trauma. It is a surprisingly simple idea to just listen to someone but so many of s find it so hard to do.
I like tape loops because they are chaotic and unpredictable but hidden inside there is music if you want to find it. Kelli and I wrote breath so that you could spend a little time listening and sitting in the pain.
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)
