Musicians know that music can come from any instrument. Geniuses know music can come from anything.
Sxip Shirey is an electric-acoustic composer, performer, and storyteller that has created music through unconventional means almost his entire life, ever since nature called as a child.
“I grew up in the country, and around me was a symphony of sound – crickets, peeper toads, leaves rustling. My love for sound came from the natural world first. I loved The Beatles, then when hip hop hit, I was fascinated by the Bomb Squad that produced Public Enemy and Prince Paul produced De La Soul. I still follow hip hop a lot, because of the production techniques. Then I composed for contemporary dance, and was very inspired by John Cage and Merce Cunningham. A lot of Appalachian folk music influenced me also. I've always been attracted to innovative music, and street music.”
Worlds away from his work now, Shirey’s early recordings expressed the sentiments of a sensitive country boy.
“I remember I had a cheap spring reverb. And I made a very sincere, sweet folk song when I was 16, recording my voice and guitar through this spring reverb into a tape recorder.”
A chance encounter with a schoolmate opened Shirey’s mind to the opportunities composition offers. This led to a career winding through composing almost any music you can imagine, from porn films to wrestling soundtracks to orchestral pieces.
“A big part of my story is that I'm dyslexic. I was a brilliant kid, but did very poorly in school, and couldn't learn music the normal way. In the seventh grade band room, a friend taught me to play the blues on a Wurlitzer electric piano. And I thought, if you compose it, you can play it. So my entire career has been composing my way into the next situation. An orchestral piece of mine will be premiering soon at Lincoln Center, run by this fabulous African American conductor named Rachel Jayson. It's a piece called 'Kendrick' that I wrote after hearing Kendrick Lamar for the first time. She offered me the gig, so I'm always punching up. And sometimes they fail, I've had some big failures. Slowly and steadily, if nothing else, I’ve had a very interesting career.”
Image © Glen Scarborough
“I've composed music for a feminist porn film. I'm working on music for a pro wrestling show. I'm intrigued how music connects the audience to the performance and I get excited to step into new venues to do that. It’s a scientific curiosity, how can I make this work?”
Of all his professional endeavours, Shirey has had a long relationship with circus. It was a circus gig that drew him to New York to begin with. He admires Australia’s support of the art form.
“I've always been attracted to variety shows, circus and carnival. I had some friends that toured with the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, they were an underground circus in New York City. A lot of us New York artists spent time working with them, and I still do. When I first moved to New York, it was to be their band. So I toured with them in nightclubs, crazy shows with people on fire, you probably couldn't get away with that now. I love the art form.”
“It's not an art form in the US like you had in Australia 15 years ago, or the UK or definitely not France. I love circus, because if I perform with the circus, I don't know who's gonna be in the audience. In Brisbane, a whole table of skin care specialists complimented me about the show. That's what I love about it.”
“Circus is about joy, and someone working really hard to do this one thing and amaze you. The reason you have circus in Australia is you have arts funding. That's the big thing. It's hard to explain to people how little arts funding there is in the US. You have arts funding and you built a culture around it. It's amazing. Australia has pride in the homegrown product, so there's a lot of local innovation that I find very positive.”
Image © Glen Scarborough
Shirey will be visiting Australia’s shores performing with acclaimed production company Strut & Fret's 'LIMBO – The Return' as part of Adelaide Fringe, a show blending cabaret, circus and acrobatics in a cheeky and impressive spectacle sure to be a highlight of the Fringe.
'LIMBO', a show seen by hundreds of thousands of people, debuted at Adelaide Fringe in 2013. The genre-defying experience has returned after a five-year hiatus, and Shirey’s unconventional instruments and sounds will create the soundtrack.
“I think the soundtrack, for a lot of people, is surprising. The soundtrack borrows from typical things, jazz and blues and funk, and also Eastern European music. But it's done in a pretty surprising and unusual way. The core is what I call 'jank'. I have harmonicas in unusual keys and minor keys, and I send them through pitch shifters that deepen the sound. I combine them with a sousaphone, and the marching tuba, which looks like a Doctor Seuss instrument.”
“There are bowls and bells and unusual instruments, and Mick Stuart plays this incredible instrument of 15 polymbas with guitar pickups. It has this beautiful sound, like putting your fingers on the tines of a rose piano. The music is very earthy, but surprising. It has experimental elements, but is very accessible. It’s filled with fat hooks and makes you wanna dance, 'cause that's the kind of music I like.”
'LIMBO – The Return' plays The Spiegeltent at The Garden of Unearthly Delights (Adelaide Fringe) 14 February-23 March.
