Fladik Down Under!
Australian avant-garde and experimental/improvisational gems from my trip back home to regional Victoria.
Sup lovers?
Today I'm going to be taking a short detour from the direct Zorn orbit. This time my travels have taken me homeward to Australia, for the first time in two years (!). Armed with my ever-evolving passion for all things improvised, I’ve decided to take a look at some of the local offerings here in the humble state of Victoria. As far as avant-garde and experimental jazz music goes, one does not automatically associate Australia as being a particularly bustling hive. It’s exorbitantly expensive to travel over here from the rest of the world, and as far as household names are concerned, we’ve got The Necks… and uhh… well… at least we’ve got The Necks! But that can’t really be all?
Of course not – according to drummer/percussionist Brian O’Dwyer the experimental scene in Melbourne and surrounds is alive and thriving. One half of the critically acclaimed duo ZÖJ, he and Iranian Singer/Persian Kamancheh and Qeychak player Gelareh Pour are two improvisational musicians based in none other than my own hometown of Ballarat.
The pair have just finished a successful tour of Europe playing a variety of intimate venues across Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Germany, and Belgium, only to return home to another set of shows straight afterwards via New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland.
All this on the back of their critically acclaimed studio album Fil O Fenjoon (Parenthèses Records, 2023) – a masterfully produced collection of intensely beautiful improvised works. Don’t let the whimsical cover art fool you - this record is wonderfully dark. Fans of the moodier, dreamier works of Arooj Aftab might be drawn to their stylistically similar ethnomusic fusion, and Pour’s stirring vocal talent. According to Nick Cave: “The exquisite genius of Gelareh Pour, we simply are not worthy.” (I would tend to second that notion.) Pour is accompanied by O’Dwyer’s patient, often-malleted drums, thoughtfully fleshing out the dramatic soundscapes and heightening the aura of anguish and disdain.
If that’s not enough to make you want to check ‘em out, I don’t know what else to tell you. :-)
I was curious as to why such an obviously capable and talented team wouldn’t simply move to a different country to try and grow their projects. “Ballarat is like a base for us,” O’Dwyer states, “We have commitments here.”
However, there is no shortage of interesting opportunities to perform, record, and collaborate. Hello Daydreamer is a bush-studio in the Macedon Ranges, just one hour’s drive from Melbourne, where ZÖJ recorded their second album, due for release in 2025. “A friend of ours has a property in [rural Victorian town] Romsey and it's beautiful – backs onto the bush, it's just gorgeous. He built a studio there and it feels more like a bit of a retreat. It's like an Airbnb… but with mics. He built it and kind of blew himself away with how nice it was. So he started offering residencies like: ‘I need to share this.’”
Now, how cool is this?! …
This breathtaking retreat is available for hire, whether or not you are a musician, starting at around a very fair $150 USD per night.
Another gem from my hometown is the jazz cafe/music store L’Espresso. This place has been an institution in Ballarat for longer than I have been alive. Formally operating as ‘Oregon Imports’ in the 70s, the owner Greg is a huge fan of jazz and avant-garde. His experienced, refined taste is reflected in his glorious collection of up-to-the-minute CD’s and vinyl. (So, yes, naturally, he has The Necks!) As you can see on the blackboard his recent additions are constantly updated, along with the regular staples “Loads of Miles Davis, Coltrane, Blue Note etc.”
Aussies love a big breakfast and I can absolutely recommend their Eggs Florentine, a freshly squeezed orange juice and a damn good quality coffee. With a name like L’Espresso you can bet these cats do not fuck around.
Just 77 kilometers North East of Ballarat is a little rural town called Kyneton, which just so happens to be the home town of fellow Aussie-based-in-Germany, Shannon Barnett. I first met the trombone superqueen at the Moers Festival in Germany – it was quite late at night, we were all trying to get back to the hotel, and the shuttles only came by once every half hour. You don’t often stumble across an Aussie accent in North Rhine-Westphalia, so you can imagine our combined surprise to discover each other, around 16,343km away from our homes, typically separated by an hour's drive.
Professor Barnett has received the German Jazz Prize in 2022 for Brass Instruments and played in countless ensembles, including her own fantastic Quartet, the likes of which you can check out here:
Creative, brilliant, and with just the right amount of sass and spunk, Barnett’s attitude on the trombone is as shiny as the instrument itself! ^_^
June 2025 will see the release of her album of originals How Much is the Moon? and she already has a few shows lined up in late January in Zürich, Köln, and Berlin. Barnett is also looking forward to a trip home with a gig lined up on March 13 in Brunswick, Melbourne at Tempo Rubato. You can get tickets here!
Two years ago I had the chance to attend a typical Tuesday at the Make It Up Club – Melbourne’s weekly avant-garde and improvisational night. This legendary improv night is fast approaching its 30th year anniversary, existing since 1998! It’s held in a small upstairs bandroom in Bar Open of the alternative suburb, Fitzroy, just on the cusp of the Central Business District. Brian O’Dwyer tells me this is still the club where improv musos go to first cut their chops. Their minimalist flyer presents each artist in the same font in a flat hierarchy. Everyone is on a level playing field here, and their Bandcamp blurb sums it up nicely: “(…) Committed to nurturing, presenting, and promoting avant-garde improvised music and sound performance of the highest conceptual and performative standards, regardless of idiom, genre, or instrumentation.”
On the night that I visited in 2022 we witnessed three shows:
– Intense drumming and processed trumpet experimentation.
– Woodwinds, percussion, and electronics between two local avant-garde masters.
– Invented acoustical tools processed with Kyma.
The prices have since been raised to $10 AUD concession and $15 AUD regular, but honestly, it’s still peanuts. If you are ever in town, don’t miss the chance to hang with these funky freaks.
Ramble Records is a mail-order Melbourne-based label, run by guitarist Michael Sill. Ramble was also the first Australian label to stock Days of Zorn, so, naturally, I love them for supporting independent artists! <3 Sill has a couple projects on the go including one under his alias the Man from Atlantis.
“I was fortunate (…) to connect with the Indian Slide master Manish Pingle who I became a student of and subsequently incorporated these learnings into my writing. These compositions are further explorations in Hindustani music combined with my usual experimental/psych shtick.”
Here is a collab he did with Washington guitarist Blake Edward Conley in a band called Secret Teeth. Different guitar sounds are presented, from gentle fingerpicking to fuzzy overdriven psychedelia, alongside whirring, meditative drones in this set of moody duets, ranging in mood from simply peaceful to grittier, and more contemplative jams. Although ultimately quite different, if you enjoy blissing out to the vast, ambient soundscapes of someone like Fennesz, perhaps this combination of guitar and electronic accompaniment could be something for you.
As far as Australian improv is concerned, Sill recommends two new releases coming out next year, 'spirits of the dead are watching' and 'Nature's God', from a band called Believe, consisting of the following exceptional musicians, all very insteresting to check out in their own rights:
Laurence Pike – drums and percussion
Clayton Thomas – double bass and objects
Peter Farrar – alto saxophone and percussion
Novak Manojlovic – piano and percussion
So that’s about it from me in Oz, lovers. Hope you’ll enjoyed the good shit I’ve happened upon while visiting my home. I will be returning to Germany in a few days and back to my regular updates and reviews in no time, but for now, I’m off to go catch some more of that glorious Australian sunshine on this bright and beautiful 25C degree day in December.
Happy New Year to all, and see you in 2025 for more crazy adventures!!
XOXOXO
Love,
Flake
CEO Fladik