Cameos is a collection of pieces I have written and/or improvised and recorded in my home studio over more than a decade. Some pieces were created for a Western Australian puppet theatre work, “Turtle And the Trade Winds” (Sandpiper Productions) and Oddysea (Sensorium Theatre) with musician colleague, Jamie David. Others were devised for “Cinematic Scores”, a series of events offering a unique marriage of film and music (curated by Parenthèses Records and PS Art Space), in which I composed an accompanying live score to the 1922 American ethnographic documentary, Nanook of the North. Others are pieces I’ve recorded that have only now found a home on Cameos.

My love of wind and percussion instruments from various pockets of the world, including instruments I have made, combined with a passion for improvisation, has been core in my work with bands such as Nova Ensemble, Ozmosis, Daramad and my current group, Eastwinds.

I live in a geographically ancient and isolated country with an indigenous heritage dating back at least 60,000 years. However, with my own immigrant ancestry dating back less than 200 years in Australia, the need to explore deeper and by necessity, more remote cultural threads, has taken me on a great journey of self discovery.

Whilst I didn’t start playing music until my early 20s, I have, since my early teens, listened to a great deal of music (insatiably) from what might be termed “the other side of the fence”. These were predominantly less “commercial” idioms, such as jazz, free improvised music, ethnic/world music, blues, folk, country and, yes, rock. The Anglo mono-culture of my suburban Australian childhood (mid-1950s and 60s) and the ever burgeoning diversity of the last 50 years has paralleled my own pursuit of a cultural connection I never really had growing up. I owe so much to my dogged pursuit of less known recorded gems that over the years have become a pantheon of inspiration for me. My hope for you, the listener, is that Cameos reflects some of this inspiration.

14. Soprano Sax And Gongs (16.4.2021)

13. Gaidanitsa And Jawharp (16.4.2021)

12. Whistle And Bonang (16.4.2021)

11. Bawu & Drones (April 16, 2021)

10, Tinklik And Bamboo Flutes (15.4.2021)

1. Whirlies

18. Whirlies. Harmonic Low Flute & Tinklik

Parenthèses Records started of as a witness of some of the incredible new musical collaborations that emerged out of Freeform, the bi-monthly improvisation evenings curated by KULCHA Multicultural Arts of Western Australia in 2009/2010, aiming at getting musicians of different cultural and musical backgrounds to play together in an open and creative way, free from some of the protocols of performer/audience convention.

From watching these new groups form and grow in new ideas, became the desire to start a releasing platform and to become a nevralgic centre for musicians keen to apprehend cultural cross-collaboration and musical exploration spanning through various idioms sitting at the crossroads between tradition and continuum.

With a broad artistic vision, the label's core objective is to engage dialogue between musicians and thus create new inter-cultural collaborative work.
