"The thirty minutes of "Iland" are highly impressive, in that the fusion of these different kinds of electroacoustic presage cracks our fake tranquillity, dragging us into an uncertain kind of awareness that doesn't admit the presence of danger but at the same time almost expects it with unpronounceable pleasure. By alternating movement and stasis, Caddy and Soddell manage to express an otherwise undefinable sense of inner connection with something that resembles the various phases of a nightmare, but one that - one way or another - has an happy ending." Touching Extremes - Massimo Ricci (February 2007)

Anthea Caddy & Thembi Soddell ::: ILAND (2006)::: Track 03 (excerpt) :::

"Soddell's work with dynamics is extremely accomplished, alternately forcing close attention and then rewarding it with shocking explosions of activity that bring any absent-minded trains of thought right back into a brutal present. This strategy is analogous to the remembering of a dream, the recombining of dreamed events into a comprehensible sequence. The work suggests all the uncertainty of a nightmare recounted, with all its gaps and discontinuities of narrative. The virtue of this for the listener is that it will keep you on edge throughout." Michael Day, Diffusion-Sonic Arts Network.

Instance (2005)::: Track 07 :::

Live recording of duo performance with Tony Buck at the NOW now Festival of Spontaneous Music in Sydney, 2007.

Tony Buck & Thembi Soddell Duo Live at the Now Now Festival 2007

“Insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast. 

The predominant quality of the slow form is viscosity. 

Experience is thick. Perceptions are thickened and dulled. Time is slow, dripping slowly through the clogged filter of thickened perception. The body temperature is low. The pulse is sluggish. The immune system is half-asleep. The organism is torpid and brackish. Even the reflexes are diminished

In contrast to viscosity’s cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own, a means of knowing and commenting on its own behavior. There is too much perception, and beyond the plethora of perceptions, a plethora of thoughts about the perceptions and about the fact of having perceptions.”

Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted (1993)

The Absence Of Inclination (2013)

A stereomix of a 10.2 channel installation, as part of the group exhibition 'Tracts' curated by Ben Byrne.

From the catalogue:

Window is a black, nondescript box, which the audience must enter to experience. Pulling aside a curtain on one side of the box, one person at a time sits in its centre (in so much as they can fit), pulling the curtain back down so their head and body is enclosed in the pitch-black space. Sound becomes their only point of reference, filling the space from 10 hidden speakers (and 2 subwoofers) placed at varying heights and distances within the box, in a unique configuration for sound spatialisation. Through this, the listener becomes immersed in a sonic world that shifts from the real to the imagined via fragments of field recordings, electronics and abstracted sounds. This sonically sculpted space ranges in intensity, from dense washes of noise, to sounds on the threshold of perception, mimicking the manifestation of memory and emotion.

Window (stereomix) (2008)

Second track from first solo album 'Intimacy'. Purchase album online from http://cajid.com.

02 Withdrawal ::: Intimacy (2004)

Thembi Soddell (b.1980) is an Australian sound artist, electroacoustic composer and practice-led researcher with an interest in psychology, perception, extreme emotion and the subjectivity of experience. She works primarily with the sampler, generating sounds from field recordings, instrument textures, played found objects and synthesis to form surreal and ambiguous realisations of place and experience. These volatile, filmic sound worlds exploit the dynamic extremes, toying with the listeners' sense of expectation and disquiet.
 
She creates work for recording, installation, live performance, and concert presentation. Her CV includes the release of four major composition works for CD; guest curation for the National Gallery of Victoria’s Melbourne Now: Now Hear This sound program (Melbourne, 2013-14); works exhibited at the Wellington Art Gallery (Wellington, 2013), Parisonic Festival (Paris 2011), the National Gallery of Australia (Online 2004) and the SFMOMA (San Francisco 2002); solo performances at Australian experimental music festivals such as the Totally Huge New Music Festival (Perth 2009), What Is Music? (Melbourne 2004) the Liquid Architecture Festival of Sound Art (Auckland 2006, Sydney 2005, Melbourne 2001); and two European tours in duo with Anthea Caddy including performances at the Hörkunstfestival (Erlangen 2006), Biegungen Festival (Berlin 2009) and Instants Chavirés (Paris 2006).
 
Thembi has a BA in Media Arts (2002) and is a graduate with honours in sound art (2005) from RMIT University’s School of Art, where she is now a PhD candidate. Her research focuses on the articulation of firsthand experiences of mental illness and psychological distress using sound art practice. She also assists in running the Australian experimental music label, cajid media. Thembi has an ongoing duo with cellist, Anthea Caddy and has worked as sound designer and dramaturg for choreographer, Tim Darbyshire.

Thembi Soddell

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