Some of the things that I make are 'released' under my given name, tending towards experimental, radiophonic and (occasionally) notated works. You might also see my name when collaborating with other artists or improvising. 

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Corrugated Giaconda and The Labyrinth are two works that were recently commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia in collaboration with Liquid Architecture. They were created in response to two Jeffrey Smart paintings, and the audio was included in an online tour of the retrospective exhibition. You can view the online exhibition here.

My dad used to be in a band called The Corrugations — I went digging for some old cassette recordings, only to find out that they never recorded. I got my hands on some of his old songs though, ones that he recorded on his own. It’s at once familiar and unfamiliar, listening to him singing about breakups and finishing his economics undergrad. I imagine him walking past corrugated fences in late 70s suburban Perth and feel a pleasant pang in the chest at the thought of this youthful melancholy, shared through a kind of time travel. 40 years later, and the cassette has degraded like the posters pasted on Smart’s fence. Like we can see history peeling back, we can hear it in the warped tape, the hiss and hum, the cracking, uncertain tenor of my father’s twenty-one-year-old voice. 

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The Labyrinth was Smart’s very last. He said it was inspired by The Stranger’s Child, a novel by Alan Hollinghurst, the front cover of which depicts a garden hedge maze. Though a labyrinth can be frightening, even panic-inducing for some, I didn’t find this painting to bring that energy. The prospect of wandering this blue-sky labyrinth forever unto the horizon is kind of dismal, but almost laughably so. And it actually doesn’t look like a terrible place to be — the figure appears casually content as far as we can see, sporting a panama hat and basking in the 4pm sun. I wanted to harness a goofy optimism, wobbling forward one foot in front of the other, despite all else, and trudging forward no matter the right angles that life throws at us. The base of this composition is formed by an old cassette sample of a guitar and drum machine, warped and slowed to a sluggish but persistent groove. A pizzicato melody plods along at a steadily awkward pace, and a strange, sighing ensemble of voice and violin form a cloudless sky, hovering above.

Click to view the Jeffrey Smart online tour and listen to Corrugated Giaconda and The Labyrinth. Also do check out the audio works created by the other commissioned artists James Rushford, Alexandra Spence, Martin Kay and YL Hooi. 

Released in 2020, the studio piece Amazing blissful moment (fearful receiver) indulges in the mundanity of life in the 'burbs of Boorloo (otherwise known as Perth), specifically during the first period of Covid-19 lockdown in so-called Western Australia. This piece was commissioned by Tura New Music as part of @The Roots program, and subsequently released independently (listen here).

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I have written a number of ensemble works which have been performed by ensembles across Australia, most notably by Ensemble Offspring and Decibel ensemble. In 2019 I was commissioned to write a new work for Decibel's concert Revolution, presented by Tura New Music, (the 'Difficult Commission' is supported by Bryce Moore, and the Difficult Listening program on Perth radio station RTRFM 92.1). In 2017 my solo work VKW 96FM (duet for voice and radio) was presented as part of the Breaking Out emerging composers concert in The Totally Huge New Music Festival, and featured in a New Waves podcast, presented by ABC Classic FM.

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Listen on Bandcamp

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