As Clocked Out, composers Vanessa Tomlinson and Erik Griswold have delighted audiences with percussive, electronic music which combines the known with the unknown.
This year the duo celebrates 15 years of weird and wonderful experimentation with a two-night extravaganza. 'The Things We Do' will be a celebration of yours and Vanessa's 15 years of making music together.
Apart from the shows, how will you two be celebrating?
(Vanessa Tomlinson) A holiday in Fiji. Just kidding, no time for that! Accompanying the Brisbane Powerhouse concerts, we're gonna be releasing an album of incredibly beautiful works by photographer Sharka Bosakova, who has documented our projects in Brisbane, the outback of Queensland, and China! Earlier this year we released of our eighth studio album, 'Time Crystals', which we've been touring in Australia. 2015 is also a huge year of collaborations, including the multimedia show 'Wandering Cloud', the 'Daughter's Fever' project, and 'Water Pushes Sand', which we're taking that to the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide and the Melbourne Festival in October.
Will it be a 'greatest hits'-style show?
We will definitely be revisiting a lot of 'classic' Clocked Out works from the past 15 years, but we're never satisfied just doing the same thing twice... so what you're going to get is a mash-up of the old and the new. Sometimes we'll have a collage with more than one piece going on at the same time, musicians spread out throughout the space to give you a surround sound experience. Other times we'll present older works, but completely re-imagined for the year 2015, with different instruments, present and past collaborators.
With a different performance for each of the two nights, what can audiences expect from each show?
Yes, the two nights are completely different, with totally unique material and lots of different guest artists. Each night has two parts: Friday night we focus on environmental works – these are works we've created in the outback that respond to sounds and materials of the bush – and we re-visit our collaborative album with Topology, 'From Small Things Grow'. Saturday night we turn to a more zany side, drawing on Dada and Fluxus performance works, and we finish with the focus on piano and percussion, in a new collaboration with Early Warning System.
Will there be a visual element to the shows?
We'll be drawing on the incredibly vivid photographic work of Sharka Bosakova, who I mentioned before, and incorporating her images into the show, to give you the feeling that you are immersed in the environment. Many of the performances over the two nights also have a visual, sculptural element as well... the percussion, toy instruments, some of the Fluxus performance works are very visual!
Which other artists will you be performing with on the two nights?
We're very lucky to be joined by a plethora of amazing artists, including Topology, percussion super-group Early Warning System, some of our long-term collaborators and new ones, too, including: Kristin Berardi, Jan Baker-Finch, Flutes Of The Forest, Jodie Rottle, Janet McKay, The Wild, Ritchie Daniell, Sam Pankhurst, and more!
After fifteen years, eight albums and countless live shows, how difficult is it to narrow down a set-list?
Unbelievably difficult! There's no way we could represent everything that has happened over the last 15 years, but what we have done is to identify the main themes; things we've often come back to over the years. So, percussion, piano, environmental music, Dada, Fluxus, collaboration; and include a selection of pieces to give a taste of our world.
Clocked OutWhat's been your proudest achievement so far in your career?
Thinking back, our international tours and collaborations have definitely been highlights - tours in Europe, the US and China really stand out. But equally it's the events in Brisbane where we've been able to bring people together from different walks of life, different musical and artistic perspectives, to try something new. Shows like 'The Listening Museum' - a controlled-chaos event which had performance, installation and music in the factory of Urban Art Projects, or 'The Cage In Us' (Judith Wright Centre) and The Toy Music Festival (Brisbane Powerhouse) where we brought artists together to celebrate avant garde ideas in a weirdly family-friendly setting!
How have Clocked Out's live shows changed over the years?
The ideas of unconventional performance, in unusual settings has been there from the beginning. Also the idea of transforming sounds and ideas from everyday life through performance. But the scope of work has expanded over time. Some projects have become bigger and even more inclusive. But I think we still remain restless... we're always wanting to try something new!
How would you describe Clocked Out's progression of work over the past 15 years?
Well there has definitely been this trend to expand into new areas and new collaborations: environment, cross-cultural and inter-media projects. But at the same time our core sound has maybe become more distilled, as we hone in on our 'essential' sound. The music and events that we create become more and more connected to our daily lives. It's really about using our art to enter into a dialog with the world.
What has Clocked Out been doing as Ensemble in Residence at the Queensland Conservatorium?
We've been running a regular series of concerts at the Con for several years now, where we present new works and collaborate with local, interstate, and international artists. The Con series has been like a laboratory for Clocked Out, giving us the chance to explore new ideas and experiment with new directions. Many of those experiments then get turned into larger projects. which we tour.
Do you have any new material or projects you're working you'd like to talk about?
There are so many interesting projects happening right now! But probably the biggest one is 'Water Pushes Sand'. That show is 15 years in the making, and we're teaming up with the Australian Art Orchestra and 5 all-star musicians from Sichuan Province. It's an hour-long new piece that brings together Chinese and Australian music and culture. We were in China last month to rehearse, and the band is sounding amazing. Now we have a team in Melbourne working on video and staging to try to bring that cross-cultural experience to audiences in Australia. Fingers crossed we can bring it to Brisbane sometime soon!
