Hi and welcome to the 4th track by "Then She Reaches For The Gun". Huge thanks to all the artists involved. Once again its great to have new artists involved ! Its humbling that so many people want to be part of this madness : ) 

The project’s inspiration is two fold: Firstly its a homage to some of the stuff i grew up listening to like Mr. Bungle and other noisy bastards where anything goes, and often in quick fire succession and secondly it” a chance to work with an never ending stream of talented musicians that i have known for years either in real life Australia or via the Internet. Each track will no doubt change depending on who has sent me what. 

This track is titled This Misunderstanding Suggest Tenderness
 Its a phrase i saw in the comment section on one of Ilaria Boffa’s wonderful Sonopoetry, and from that Ilaria expanded and wrote the poem that opens and closes this work.

This Misunderstanding Suggest Tenderness features 

Ilaria Boffa - Poetry
Primaloop  - Drums/Percussion
Dani Kirby - Piano
Vartch - Voice
Holy ShitShow - Midi Strings
Axel Weiss - Guitar
TexMex Shaman - Talkbox
Chicago Word Brigade - Electronica/Keyboards
Martin Pozdrowicz - Sample Pad
Wüst - Electronica/Keyboards
Me -Midi Woodwinds/Noise/arrangement

If you would like to be part of this ongoing project

The process is simple, I collect a bunch of random recordings from people and then see what i can arrange from it. Nothing subtle here, just huge noisy fun : ) I am open to anyone that thinks they might like to be part of this mess. Drop me a message and i will send you my email. The only criteria is that i wont be using samples from TV/film/other music etc, so just original stuff played on instruments, field recordings, stupid drunk conversations etc. Cheers!

This Misunderstanding Suggests Tenderness

Timpani driven up tempo string and brass piece, and title track for 2nd No Mates CD coming up in November 2013

Timing The Kill

I was a bit late to this wonderful party but thankfully the wonderful Hell Feeder team let me in the door. Please check out all the great re-mixes by artists via the Hell Feeder page.

hellfeeder.com/mabon

Heres the background......
The celebration of the Autumnal Equinox, Harvest Home, Mabon, the Feast of the Ingathering, is a modern Pagan ritual of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth and a recognition of the need to share them to secure the blessings of the Goddess and the God during the coming winter months. The name Mabon was coined by Aidan Kelly around 1970 as a reference to Mabon ap Modron, a character from Welsh mythology. Among the Sabbats, it is the second of the three Pagan harvest festivals, preceded by Lammas / Lughnasadh and followed by Samhain. (Source Wikipedia)

Hell Feeder shared our track Mabon to remix with a number of invited artists from Soundcloud.
These artists were handpicked simply because we were big fans of their creative output.

Below are artist links to those who contributed towards what has proved to be an exciting and eclectic aural project. Thanks to everyone that got involved.

Order Of Thee Octopi @jameshootman
Drown / Backstab @drown-dub @backstabmusic
Blink Twice @blink-twice-archivale
Tuonela @tuonela-1
Negative Headphone @negative-headphone
Grim Heka @grimheka
Insatiable Void @insatiable-void
Lady Of Fire Poetry @ladyofire
Boson Spin @boson_spin
Wayfarer DG @user-996383829
taRka @myrhyum
Enigma Curry @enigmacurry

Hell Feeder - Mabon (No Mates Ensemble Remix)

A New Year - a new project : ) 
Grundomma is myself and my brother Glenn Ward. Its been a few years since we actively made music together...but now seems like a good a time as any. We live a few 1000 kms apart across Australia so this a file swapping exercise. The first track "Flying" features Glenn on rhythm programming, synths and sampling and yours truly on Basses and glitchy noise stuff.. this will no doubt change with each future track. Thanks as always for stopping by. Grundomma salutes you : )

Flying

Hi and welcome to the 7th track by "Then She Reaches For The Gun". The ever changing line up has some new members this time around as we tackle Lewis Carroll’s famous nonsense poem The Jabberwocky. I haven’t read Carroll since I was a teenager so it was a cool trip down memory lane doing a bit of background research for this piece. Big Thanks to Gary Rees who first sent me an English reading to the work a few months ago. It sat on my desktop for a while as I wondered how tackle the work. After a while it seemed obvious the best (and most fun) approach might be to get some translations recording in other languages… so thats what we did, hope u enjoy 

The Jabberwocky features the following artists


Tuonela - Electronica
Yui Nikaido - Voice (Japanese)
Gary Rees - Voice ( English)
Raul Mainer - Voice (Spanish)
Antonella Eye Porcelluzzi - Voice (French)
Paolo D’Emilio - Voice (Italian)
Frank Wilke - Voice (German)
Hverheij - Guitar
MatVee - Electronica
Widar’s Spiritual Front - Electronica

Me - noise, digital orchestra/piano

More about Then She Reaches For The Gun

The project’s inspiration is two fold: Firstly its a homage to some of the stuff i grew up listening to like Mr. Bungle and other noisy bastards where anything goes, and often in quick fire succession and secondly it” a chance to work with an never ending stream of talented musicians that i have known for years either in real life Australia or via the Internet. Each track will no doubt change depending on who has sent me what. 

If you would like to be part of this ongoing project….

The process is simple, I collect a bunch of random recordings from people and then see what i can arrange from it. Nothing subtle here, just huge noisy fun : ) I am open to anyone that thinks they might like to be part of this mess. Drop me a message and i will send you my email. The only criteria is that i wont be using samples from TV/film/other music etc, so just original stuff played on instruments, field recordings, stupid drunk conversations etc. Cheers!

The Jabberwocky

a little grab from a recent gig in our home town of Hobart

Live@The Founders Room Kirby/Ward

The Vociferous Mapping Of Your Unlikely Future
 https://nomatesensemble.bandcamp.com/album/the-vociferous-mapping-of-your-unlikely-future

So after 18 months, 50 musicians, artists and poets, 100’s of files, several innocent bystanders and of course some beautiful dogs and cats and I am proud to announce the debut album from Then She Reaches For The Gun. 
It’s been an immense pleasure to work with all this amazing talent! 
The album is titled The Vociferous Mapping Of Your Unlikely Future and features 10 tracks with the final track featuring every single one of the contributors somewhere in its 21 minutes : ) 
Here is the full credit list:
Adam Meredith - Voice
Anita Hustas - Double Bass
Agnostura Elwar - Electronica/Guitar/Piano
Antonella Eye Porcelluzzi - Voice 
Ariad Music- Clarinet/Percussion/Piano
Axel Weiß- Guitar 
Bellai Pelegrim - Electronica
Brendan Corey Benson - Guitar
Carolyn Wigston -Voice
Chicago Word Brigade - Synth/Noise/Poetry/Voice/Voice Guitar
Dane Renshaw - Drums/Voice 
Dani Kirby - Piano/Voice
Dough Factory - Electronica
ElectroTrek - Vibes Synth/Voice
Fake Stereo Machine - Field Recordings
Frank Wilke - Trombone/Trumpet/Voice
Garbage Truck Disco - Guitar/Pixies Tribute
Gary Rees - Voice
Glenn Ward - Beats/Guitar/Voice
Gonzalo Serrano - Acoustic/Electronic Drums
Holy Shitshow - Digital Strings
Hverheij - Electronica/Guitar/Nursery Rhyme Glockenspiel/Voice
Ilaria Boffa - Poetry/Voice
Juan A Miñana - Electronics/Noise
Life in The Movies - Electronic Percussion/Synths
MatVee - Beats
Martin Pozdrowicz - Organ/Pad
Muterial -Electronica
My Nocturnal Twin - Guitar
Nosensend - Synths
Paolo D’Emilio - Poetry/Voice
Paul Miller - Beats/Keyboards/Synth Bass/Voice
Phil Bywater - Tenor Saxophone/Voice
Primaloop -Drums
PuppetXeno- Guitar/Synths
Raöulfr Maganhar - Field Recordings/Voice
TexMex Shaman - Guitar/Talkbox
The Windscale Blues Experiment - Saxophones
Thomas Bergheim - Bass/Guitar/Keyboard
Timothy Korstad - Electronica/Poetry/Voice
Tuonela - Drones/Electronica
Widar’s Spiritual Front - Electronica/Percussion
W:I:L-o’ the-wisp - Double Bass/Guitar/Keyboards
Wüst - Electronica
Vartch - Disco/Noise/Synths/Voice
Yui Nikaido- Voice


Hacho, Lola, Neska, Senna, and Yoda  - Barks/Hisses/Meows/Purrs/Howls and Heavy Breathing

Mat Ward - Arrangements/Beats/Bass/Digital Orchestration//Field Recordings/Intonarumori/Noise/Percussion/Piano/Voice

Mark Rothko Conducts A Small Ensemble Of Drably Coloured Sex Toys (Orchestral Dog Mix)

The Vociferous Mapping Of Your Unlikely Future
https://nomatesensemble.bandcamp.com/album/the-vociferous-mapping-of-your-unlikely-future

So after 18 months, 50 musicians, artists and poets, 100’s of files, several innocent bystanders and of course some beautiful dogs and cats and I am proud to announce the debut album from Then She Reaches For The Gun. 
It’s been an immense pleasure to work with all this amazing talent! 
The album is titled The Vociferous Mapping Of Your Unlikely Future and features 10 tracks with the final track featuring every single one of the contributors somewhere in its 21 minutes : ) 
Here is the full credit list:
Adam Meredith - Voice
Anita Hustas - Double Bass
Agnostura Elwar - Electronica/Guitar/Piano
Antonella Eye Porcelluzzi - Voice 
Ariad Music- Clarinet/Percussion/Piano
Axel Weiß- Guitar 
Bellai Pelegrim - Electronica
Brendan Corey Benson - Guitar
Carolyn Wigston -Voice
Chicago Word Brigade - Synth/Noise/Poetry/Voice/Voice Guitar
Dane Renshaw - Drums
Dani Kirby - Piano/Voice
Dough Factory - Electronica
ElectroTrek - Vibes Synth/Voice
Fake Stereo Machine - Field Recordings
Frank Wilke - Trombone/Trumpet/Voice
Garbage Truck Disco - Guitar/Pixies Tribute
Gary Rees - Voice
Glenn Ward - Beats/Guitar/Voice
Gonzalo Serrano - Acoustic/Electronic Drums
Holy Shitshow - Digital Strings
Hverheij - Electronica/Guitar/Nursery Rhyme Glockenspiel/Voice
Ilaria Boffa - Poetry/Voice
Juan A Miñana - Electronics/Noise
Life in The Movies - Electronic Percussion/Synths
MatVee - Beats
Martin Pozdrowicz - Organ/Pad
Muterial -Electronica
My Nocturnal Twin - Guitar
Nosensend - Synths
Paolo D’Emilio - Poetry/Voice
Paul Miller - Beats/Keyboards/Synth Bass/Voice
Phil Bywater - Tenor Saxophone
Primaloop -Drums
PuppetXeno- Guitar/Synths
Raöulfr Maganhar - Field Recordings/Voice
TexMex Shaman - Guitar/Talkbox
The Windscale Blues Experiment - Saxophones
Thomas Bergheim - Bass/Guitar/Keyboard
Timothy Korstad - Electronica/Poetry/Voice
Tuonela - Drones/Electronica
Widar’s Spiritual Front - Electronica/Percussion
W:I:L-o’ the-wisp - Double Bass/Guitar/Keyboards
Wüst - Electronica
Vartch - Disco/Noise/Synths/Voice
Yui Nikaido- Voice

Hacho, Lola, Neska, Senna, and Yoda - Barks/Hisses/Meows/Purrs/Howls and Heavy Breathing

Mat Ward - Arrangements/Beats/Bass/Digital Orchestration//Field Recordings/Intonarumori/Noise/Percussion/Piano/Voice

Mark Rothko Sex Toys Pt 2(Current Tasmanian Business Speak Mix)

Produced for the wonderful https://citiesandmemory.com/ as part of their SOUNDS of Italy project. Original field recording by Giuseppe Calisti. I just turned it into the mess you are now hearing : ) Official arty blurb below

Leaving Sicily is a poetic remembrance, expressed through sound, of my travels across the Island in 2017. For me the Island was a constant  barrage of wonder; both beautiful and terrifying, welcoming and isolating, modern and ancient and familiar yet alien. The piece heavily manipulates samples from the field recording captured at The Falcone Borsellino Aiport to express some of the dichotomies above. Leaving Sicily finishes with the ‘raw’ sound of the crowd of the airport terminal representing the transition from my surreal and personal travel back into the world of normality - just another tourist in the crowd about to return to his normal life.

Leaving Sicily

Aporia is 
Dani Kirby: keys/voice
Bruce Musser: guitar/keys
Dane Renshaw: percussion
Mat Ward: bass/electronics
we may or not make more music : ) voice/keys/bass recorded live at Rat Palace, Hobart. Guitar/keys/percussion recorded  Japan/USA.

Aporia #1

Some more from the now defunct halls of the Rat Palace (RIP). This is Hexfarm together for the first time in many ears. After a lengthy free jam we stupidly/delightfully attempted to play through some of our old tunes - most lasted not very long before descending into " what the fuck came next"... This one is so abstract we bluffed our way through, although there is perhaps more recorded laughter than actual notes. A true story of Arachnid Love.

Rat Palace Jams - Hexfarm/If I Was A Spider

Mill Lane is our temporary rehearsal space this year - located in the nth suburbs of Hobart its a huge warehouse that is in the process of being emptied of museum equipment. Each week the space gets bigger and more cathedral like as the crates go out the roller door. Heres a little taste from the other night.. you will need to excuse me on 2 fronts - My zoom seems to be reaching the end of its life so the recordings is pretty scratchy and 2 I reckon i am a bit out of tune... anyway the energy is good and the ears locked in to what the other musician is doing which I guess is the main thing. Happy Riffing

Kirby/Ward riffing at Mill Lane

We did another piece , so maybe we will keep doing it 

Aporia is
Dani Kirby: piano
Bruce Musser: guitar
Dane Renshaw: drums
Mat Ward: electric bass

Aporia #2

Hexfarm is 

Phil Bywater - Saxophones/Flutes
Dane Renshaw - Drums
Mat Ward - Bass Guitar/Vox

The first new track from Hexfarm - who  have managed to jam once a year in 2022 then 2023 for the first time in many many many years. 2 of us now live in Australia with our Japanese residing Drummer flying in once a year for some fun. This was recorded remotely and hot mixed in my home studio - rough garage sounds : ) Lots of improv stuff on tape to see the light of day too in the vault

Momma Don't Like You No More - Hexfarm

Its a slow album in development but heres the 2nd track of Intonarumori Duets with the wonderful AEP interpreting the Italian classic  Sì Viaggiare. The Intonarumori on this occasion is being played in a kind of pizzicato manner. Full album out sometime next year as this project is fitting in around other bigger projects. As always thanks for stopping by : )

Intonarumori Duets #2 -with Antonella Eye Porcelluzzi: Voice

Kirby/Ward droning out at the  Mill Lane warehouse we inhabited for the first half or so of 2023 (thanks Marek!). A surprise (to us too) bit of prog evolves in the middle then yep back to drone. The acoustics of this joint were in a league of their own. This was recorded and filmed with the place empty just before it was sold. A cavern to say the least. Also released today is the accompanying video .   https://vimeo.com/877694656?share=copy

Kirby/Ward - Warehouse Drone

Full album on bandcamp - mikebenoit.bandcamp.com/album/reconfi…-combinations
Mike Benoit is a wonderful sound artist who reached out to me this year with the idea of taking some raw improv piano playing and reworking them to produce original tracks. This appealed to me because 1 - I ain't the greatest piano player so this was flattering and 2 - I spend so much of my time reworking other peoples sounds it would be awesome to be on the receiving end for a change : ) .The album features 4 tracks, each one originally recorded on a different piano then given the treatments by Mike.

Preview: Mike Benoit & Mat Ward - Reconfigured Combinations

Hexfarm is

Phil Bywater - Saxophones/Flutes
Dane Renshaw - Drums
Mat Ward - Bass Guitar/Vox

Track 2 from Hexfarm - who meet once a year to jam for a couple of days then head back to their various corners of the world : )

Cost/Benefit Erection - Hexfarm

Occasional collaborators as a duo and as part of Aporia  - https://soundcloud.com/no-mates-ensemble/aporia-1
Softlands - Guitar/Ebow/Synth/Music Box
No Mates - Bass/Glicthy Noise/Piano

Late, Then Never - Softlands/No Mates Ensemble

Here's a track from the forth coming album ....
The Rat Palace was our studio from when we first started seriously working together in 2016 until the landlords decided it was time for the artists to go and the tourists to come. It had been Mat's base since 2009 and hosted dozens of artists and musicians since it first started in 2006.
As the name suggests the place was run down, lacked various things like hot water, proper access and heating but it had a vibe, and the people we shared the space with all felt and helped to create it....Art was everything, day after night after day for years.
These 7 improvisations are a tiny fraction of the jams we had there, just a few highlights from 100s of jams. They are raw, unpolished and unconcerned with anything outside the moment. We rarely 'rehearsed' as such at the Rat Palace - just played.
Things come and things go - Vale Rat Palace, you were amazing.

Kirby/Ward -  Rat Palace Sessions Track 1 : Frantic. New Album out March 16

3rd track from Grundomma
Grundomma is myself and my brother Glenn Ward. It's been a few years since we actively made music together...but now seems like a good a time as any. We live a few 1000 kms apart across Australia so this a file swapping exercise. Pretty Fucken Colours features  samples from the documentary 'JIsoe"  - an hour long look at the life of legendary graffiti artist and train bomber Justin Hughes.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp8ZNqaG-dE
Filmed in 2005 Its a fascinating look into disaffected Australian suburban life, street art and mental health. Thanks as always for stopping by. Grundomma salutes you : )

Pretty Fucken Colours

One of the first people I met on this platform was the wonderful Societe Cantine. He listened with open ears and offered indepth thoughts on my music and sparked conversation and experimentation. He, himself a mind-blowing sound artist, has released a  string of albums over the last decade that still sing with originality and genre breaking optimism. We danced round the edges of collaboration for a longtime, adding little bits of sound to bigger projects or producing video. Just before COVID hit the world we finally met in Paris - I had so much talk about, as did he.. like children we struggled with face to face language; his english is good, my french is terrible : ) We decided that we should finally start collaborating in depth and this is the first piece - conceived and played with, back and forth during lockdown COVID times. Naturally enough we titled it Language Gap after our initial stumbling meeting. It got an honourary mention in the 2023 One Minute Radio Festival and through that has been played all over the world . Fardeau Losange (as he now known) and I are working now, very slowly on some sort of album - it will take forever, but its almost secondary to the friendship that has grown around the music we have listened to, written and shared on this platform.   https://societecantine.bandcamp.com/album/lopacit-des-interlignes

Language Gap (Fardeau Losange/Mat Ward)

Dani and i the night before the launch of our new record just trying to shake off the cobwebs as we have had a few weeks without  jamming and now we better get our shit together: )  Album info .......The Rat Palace was our studio from when we first started seriously working together in 2016 until the landlords decided it was time for the artists to go and the tourists to come. It had been Mat's base since 2009 and hosted dozens of artists and musicians since it first started in 2006.
As the name suggests the place was run down, lacked various things like hot water, proper access and heating but it had a vibe, and the people we shared the space with all felt and helped to create it....Creativity was everywhere, day after night after day for years.
These 7 improvisations are a tiny fraction of the jams we had there, just a few highlights from 100s of jams. They are raw, unpolished and unconcerned with anything outside the moment. We rarely 'rehearsed' as such at the Rat Palace - just played.
Things come and things go - Vale Rat Palace, you were amazing.

Kirby/Ward - Album launch Improv

Then She Reaches For The Gun was a one off project, bringing together more than 50 artists from across the globe, releasing an album in late 2022  https://nomatesensemble.bandcamp.com/album/the-vociferous-mapping-of-your-unlikely-future   But it was so much fun we are back for more.

The following Artists appear on this track :
Angostura Elwar -  2 x Behringer CRAVE analog synths/Yamaha P200 electronic piano 
Ambient Annie    -  Electronic
Banalytic  - Noise 
Chicago Word Brigade - Metal Electronica
Dane Renshaw  - Drums/Voice
Dani Kirby              -  Piano/Voice  
JZsuperstar - Doors/Keyboards/Water 
Libby Laksmi   -   Jazzy Loops      
Oberlin   -   Electric Guitar
Paul Miller - Electronic Percussion/Funk/Keyboards
Phil Bywater - Saxophone/Voice
Rosin Dust - Field Recordings/Saw/Violin
Robert Jefferson - Percussion
Wivresse - Electronica/Vocals
Mat Ward - Noise/Bass Guitar/Voice/Arrangement

Then She Reaches For The Gun - This Isn't Even Creating A Sense Of Space

Dedicated to Jello Biafra :)

Hexfarm is

Phil Bywater - Saxophones/Flutes
Dane Renshaw - Drums
Mat Ward - Bass Guitar/Vox

Track 3 from Hexfarm - who meet once a year to jam for a couple of days then head back to their various corners of the world : )

Drink Wank Cry - Hexfarm

So I Ran My Camera P5 ( TET Offensive )

Meet Me at Midnight By The Highway and We Can Dance With The Cars ( For Carolyn)

On a Train To Meet My Lover (NoMates/Caveman420)

Movement 11 from my 2020 exhibition 'La morte mi troverà vivo' (death will find me alive). I dont know where to start or finish with the story of this piece - if you want the long version please go to bandcamp https://nomatesensemble.bandcamp.com/album/la-morte-mi-trover-vivo  there 3 essays on the exhibition in the notes and of course the whole work which is 90 minutes long. This piece for Intonarumori was the starting point for the show, written and recorded to be played at Luigi Russolo's grave as a form of 'calling ' to his spirit. La morte mi troverà vivo is a kind of sonic seance where i composed music as an evocation and used occult number theory to manipulate field recordings to capture what i term an 'imagined response from the spirit world'. The work was made in Italy July/August 2019 and exhibited in Hobart Tasmania in Jan/Feb 2020. I will post visual links and more info at a stage, though of course its a sound installation (i managed to get the whole room to softly rumble with speakers installed out of site in the walls and under the floor)so there isn't heaps to see. :) Thank you all, sorry to ramble !!

Piece For 3 Intonarumori (La morte mi troverà vivo  - mov. 11)

Soundscape constructed from field recordings captured whilst exploring the Parco Regionale della Murgiua Materana last year just outside Matera - A unique and ancient landscape with multiple levels of history everywhere.

Matera Rituals #4

Music and things that might sound like music by Mat Ward. Noise Art/A  Piano and Bass Duet with Dani Kirby/A 50 plus member Art Ensemble called Then She Reaches The Gun/Deep Research Into Luigi Russolo and his Intonarumori .. thats just the stuff I post regularly : ) Thanks to everyone thats ever stopped by. Music is The Best!

Popular tracks by No Mates Ensemble