5 Reasons Sound Matters

Legends of Queensland’s underground music scenes descend on Metro Arts for the Sonic State Queensland Week Microfestival.

The microfestival brings together nationally significant musicians who have each been leaders in their field, setting up spaces and contexts for audiences to connect to new work by experimental music makers. Curated by sound artist Luke Jaaniste, the artists include: Lawrence English, Nicola Morton, Andrew Gibbs and Chris Perren.

A celebration of spatial and sonic experimental music-making in Brisbane, Sonic State is an all-ages event with music performances, free workshops, artist talks and an opening night celebration.


Opening the microfestival will be one of Australia’s key media artists who established the global multi-arts organisation Room40; Lawrence English. Known for his ambient, experimental and evocative electronica live performances and installations, here are 5 reasons sound matters to Lawrence:

Politics

Ok, so we remember the protest songs. Don’t we all. That is not the extent of politics in sound though. As a listener, as an agentive participant in the world around you, you are engaged in the politics of perception. You are accepting or refusing possibly ways of being in the world through the capacity of your sense. Music is one of the languages of sound, there are many accents within that one language, but there are many other languages out there too. Be open, be hungry, be politic. Sound is promiscuous, it moves around corners and allows you to receive so much more than the horizon of vision often does. Seeing is believing is just one possible position to assume.

Club Sound Witches

Sex

Big Black summed it up it up pretty well with 'Songs About Fucking' let’s face it. But sound and music isn’t just about the loins. It’s about the whole god damn body. Sound occupies, it envelopes, it consumes. You cannot refuse it unless you physically move yourself away from it. There are no 'earlids' and if we recognise the body as an ear, well then the whole thing becomes a whole lot more seductive and compelling. You feel me?

Vibrational Affect

Haven’t heard of it? Time to start contemplating the nature of vibration in our universe as a means of informing a possibly ontology. Like it or not everything is vibrating, everything is pulsing and when the rhythm stops everything ends! Everything!

Lawrence English

Listening

Listening is not hearing. Listening is the creation of a space from within the space. Hearing is the passive sensing of the world around us, listening is the agentive practice of extracting signal from empirical noise. It’s too easy to be dulled in this life. Too easy to live, but not really be alive. Practice listening, be agentive, be present. You might find there’s a whole new way of sensing the world right there inside you!

Music

Music is one of the fundamental expressions of the human condition. Be it with lyrics or instrumental or any of the other countless forms of recorded materials out there, music and its related fields of sound arts and the like offers us a chance to enrich our lives in a way that few other art forms do. Now, in this age of capital conflict around the ‘value’ of all arts (especially music which suffered/ enjoyed an industrialised commoditised revision in the mid-20th century), this is an ever pressing issue. How can we assist each other to persist and go on offering moments of transcendence. Let’s go back to the old master Plato to sum this up; "Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” Thanks dear sir, could not have summarised it better myself.

Andrew Gibbs

Sonic State Queensland Week Microfestival takes place at Metro Arts 9-12 June.