Finally returning to Italy (Sardinia to be precise) post Covid in a couple of months to go on residency. In anticipation of this adventure I will upload a few Italy based works from festivals etc that i have made over the last few years. This work  premiered as part of the 2021 Helicotrema festival. Official arty wanky explanation below:
'Whilst my yearly travel to Italy from my hometown of Hobart in Australia is halted due to the pandemic I have been increasingly aware of other more subtle forms of travel. In particular, how sound itself travels has become an important aspect of my research with more sound files being sent across the globe and conversations with other artists via zoom and mobile phone replacing the face to face communication I have been used to. 

Sound travels at 1225kms an hour but ever since radio broadcasting was developed we can hear things from anywhere in the world instantly. Sound can ,in a way ,also time-travel - I can play recordings from the past and re-live the experience of being there. 

With these ideas in mind I wrote (the work  using a live stream audio stream from Venice that was mixed with a live local recording 13.5 hours (the time the sound would have taken to travel to Hobart) after it was broadcast. This combined audio recording of Venice and Hobart formed the raw material which was manipulated and arranged to evoke some of the many sensations of physical travel - movement, wonder, fear, enchantment, loneliness and adventure. 

Unedited field recordings from my archives are introduced at the 4 minute mark - one of the Grande Canal sent to me in 2019 and one of the main highway in my hometown which I sent to a colleague in Italy in 2020. These recordings capture the main routes of travel in their respective cities and bridge the past with the present creating a sound collage that travels through time.

In keeping with the theme of how sound travels the entire piece was written and mixed in 13.5hours, echoing the time it would take for sound to travel between Hobart and Venice.'

Viaggio di andata

to eternity!

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 nomatesensemble.bandcamp.com/album/the-…ely-future But it was so much fun we are back for more.
This track features the following Artists :
Angostura Elwar -  2 x Behringer CRAVE analog synths/Yamaha P200 electronic piano 
Ariad Music- Clarinet/Percussion/Piano
Axel Weiß- Robot Voices 
Dane Renshaw -Drums
Loop(c)y - Electric Guitar 
Paul Miller - Electronic Percussion
Robert Jefferson - Akai Rhythm wolf/GakkenSX-150 ll/Korg Kaosilator
Ten Atmospheres - Field Recordings/Synths
Mat Ward - Double Bass/Noise/Arrangement

Then She Reaches For The Gun - Feather Hunt

Here's another track from our new album .... https://kirby-ward.bandcamp.com/album/rat-palace-sessions
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 - Swamp Fuzz

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 nomatesensemble.bandcamp.com/album/the-…ely-future But it was so much fun we are back for more. In defiance of the usual 10 piece band approach of this project this track is just Johnny Python providing the historically accurate   text and voice with myself making  unneeded backing noise : )

Then She Reaches For The Gun - Their Stage Set Up At That Time Was Amazing

a live cut from our recent Rat Palace Sessions Album Launch. The piece is an improvisation based on a track from the album - which of course is also an improv.  So we are going down the rabbit hole here performing improvs based on improvs, each time changing into something slightly different.

Kirby/Ward LIVE - thumbs

Aporia is an ongoing Internet collab project based around the piano/bass duo 'KIrby/Ward'. Occasionally we capture something at rehearsal that we send to dummer Dane Renshaw (Japan) and guitarist Bruce Musser (U.S.A) to add their respective talents too. Its usually pretty spacious and dreamy : ) This time however the piece we sent out was really busy and instead of trying to pare it back we thought fuck it lets go full hog and make it super busy. So we asked Guitarist Axel Weiß (Germany)and Saxophonist Phil Bywater (Australia) to join the party. So The sextet was born. Of note is that none of the players heard any other parts of the work other than the original Piano/Bass recording, and in the  case of the Saxophones poor Phil didn't hear anything at all! I just used some work he had sent me. So all those nuanced interactions are complete sonic chance. as always Aporia may or may not record more music

Aporia #3 (Sextet)

It has been a bad week let alone the month or the year                                Therefore all you get is this

Indentured Braveness B-side

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 nomatesensemble.bandcamp.com/album/the-…ely-future But it was so much fun we are back for more.

The Soul Craves Oblivion feature the following artists:

Andrew Harper - Field Recordings/Dripping Tap
Ariad Music- Piano
Banalytic  - Chaos Intro
Bellai Pelegrim - Chaos Intro
Chicago Word Brigade - Chaos Intro
Dane Renshaw  - Drums
Glenn Ward - Electric Guitar
Frank Wilke - Voice
Håkan Skeneby - Chaos Intro
Johnny Python - Zappaesque Guitar Quartet
JZsuperstar - Circus Music
Libby Laksmi - Synth Bass  
Paolo D’Emilio - Chaos Intro
Phil Bywater - Tenor Saxophone
Raul Mainer- Chaos Intro
Stan Magendanz - Chaos Intro
The Windscale Blues Experiment - Soprano Saxophone
Timothy Korstad - Guitar/Text/Voice
Thomas Bergheim - Chaos Intro
Tobias Schmitt- Text
Widar’s Spiritual Front - Chaos Intro
W:I:L-o’ the-wisp - Chaos Intro
Wivresse - Text/Voice
Zanshin - Drums

Mat Ward -  Arrangement/Electric Bass/Field Recordings/Marimba/Noise 
Neska and Senna - Sniffing, Walking and Licking My Face

Then She Reaches For The Gun - The Soul Craves Oblivion

Recorded  12 October 2024 at Casa Bagnolo, Milis Sardinia. A performance for processed field recordings and improvised Bass Guitar. Written during my Nocefresca residency and performed as part of the AMACI Giornata del Contemporaneo festival 2024

Conversazioni Difficili con il Mare LIVE

All songs written and performed by Martha Marlow
String Arrangements by Jonathan Zwartz.
Martha performs with a 17 piece string ensemble led by Veronique Serret
Conductor- Daniel Denholm 
Paino- Barney Mcall 
Double Bass- Jonathan Zwartz 
Drums- Hamish Stuart 
Electric Guitar- Ben Hauptmann 
Organ- Clayton Doley
Clarinette- Julien Wilson

2 - Martha Marlow - Emily

The Neo-infantiles are a  band that claim to not be a band, just killing time. The only thing they have in common is being disabled. The Boofer only has one arm and sings and plays the guitar, badly. Breakage plays the drums and has no legs, Breakage has asked me to not disclose that he has no legs (sucker to trust me). Heard plays the bass, badly again, and is profoundly deaf in one of his King Lear's and lives with a screeching noise in it and does not care what he sounds like (I love him like I love me). Forget plays guitar too but Forget has had a severe-traumatic scone injury and never remembers any of the songs. He tries his hardest though and he is also like a brother. Pain builds unity. Then there is Shakes who hangs around and sings sometimes, he has post-traumatic Epilepsy and often fits, spits, froths and shakes. The ladies, punk ladies, love him the most even although he often pisses his pants



STBI has left me more than half-deaf so if the tones are off, don't shoot me. If writing stories is mind masturbation, then what do you call writing songs? >> Still the most pleasant part of my day

Indentured Braveness B-side

THE NEO-INFANTILES

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