From a rolling window, the view goes all the way to the Moon. It is so full of itself, I watch it settle down for the day, encouraging the Sun up in the opposing direction. There’s horizons to the left and right, I feel as if I am wearing the space travelers as earrings. Terrestrial mist lifts as our rock turns towards the light. Night is replaced by long, shadowed fingers stretching out in awakeness. 

This train is southbound to Newcastle, Australia. 

———

One round of a week has passed, from Monday to Monday on the TRIO tour of the southern landmass. It’s taken this long to find this time to write.

It’s not uncommon, at the start of a major project, to have feelings that ricochet from exuberant enthusiasm to wobbly confidence. The greater the wait, the bigger the swing. So it’s fortunate then that my first show is on the first night after the first full day. Distraction redirects worry, focus is found, there’s work to do, and months of preparation and planning are now converted to action.

Show number one is at the Cave Inn Experimental music night, in downtown Brisbane. The Inn is a pizza & beer joint in what seems like a semi-industrial section of the cities CBD. I do not think many come here by accident. Arrival is intentional. It is a trans-welcoming space in an area of panel and paint shops.

The audience is hearty and attentive. I play first in a choice to bookend the evenings drummers at each end of the show. It’s a good first performance, cauterising any persisting doubts I may have entertained earlier. I have a freshly plucked mushroom from a roundabout in Tingalpa as a bandmate, and it certainly brought the magic. The second act is solo, leaving me with the impression of J-Pop-with-guitar-solos-by-The-Shaggs; the final act is a jazz-metal trio from Sydney, sax/gat/drums, they have made a massive road trip just for this night. They are robust, tight, and forthright. Tomorrow they make the return trip.

———

I have no idea what shape the city takes. This bus could simply be traveling the insides of the belly of a glowworm cave for all I know. The streetlights dispense tight conical brightness, and the blackest scarf of night sits upon the lamp poles’ shoulders. I see the inverse silhouette of houses, evidence of our arrival into habitation, floating rectangles of illuminated glass, and lace in this black and wet night. This is Lismore, the destination for this bus, and my show. It seems to be a city of water and thunder.

I am collected by Michael, and swiftly enfolded into the lovely creative community that circulates the venue/gallery Elevator ARI. People gather into chairs and cushions as the first act, Noise xhurxh, assembles. It’s an open invite band. A message is sent into the ether, or at least a chatroom, announcing a show – who then turns up is who turns up, that is the band for the night. There are a collection of acoustic and electronic instruments, and the boundary of stage/audience is broken when one of the performers shares his electronic machinery with this watching audience. The watcher becomes performer. The P.A funnels hums, glitches, effected voices, drums punctuate and rattle inside it all – it sounds perplexingly Australian.

Can we call Noise xhurxh a community project? I think so. But something like this is made more possible by having regular, welcoming, and dependable access to a space – that space is Elevator ARI. The venue/gallery has been functioning for a number of years now. It was drowned in a massive deluge several years ago but has been reactivated with funding, enabling the installation of measures to enhance its flood resilience as protection into the future. Surely, this provides security and stability of space for the community who utilise it. I hope it is unlikely, with that sort of civic investment, that the doors are going to shut any time soon, at least by political administrative means, places like this are essential.

After the show I camp out in a studio/shed, I have a short sleep. I am introduced to a digesting, and wild, carpet python living, currently, in the overhead beams of the shed. I’m told it’s safe. I don’t think I’m worried, I’ve just never spent a night with one. I later discover that the main impediment to sleep is a crowd of hungry mosquito, but eventually it must become too cold and they disperse. I sleep four hours and then catch a the early Thursday morning shuttle-bus back to Brisbane.

I’m transported away, the city still holding tight the cloak of invisibility, this time it’s a tangled shawl of fog, cloud, and dawn. 

— — — 

I return to the city to present an ‘Introduction to vegetable.machine.animal’ to PhD. students at the Queensland Conservatory mid-afternoon. I follow on after a fascinating presentation from Sami performer, Hilda Landsman. At times, concepts from my work mingle alongside ideas she discussed, yet at other moments in the discussion, I point out that I think my work is aimed more at ‘western’ cultural perspectives – in that I mean that there are many examples of Indigenous cultures who have expressions of human life inextricably intertwined with the non-human. I reflect on my personal cultural background – that concept has been a void.

On the bus ride to Lismore, I was contacted by Leighton, who at very short notice offered me a spot to perform at an event he was hosting the next day. It was confirmed Thursday mid-morning. So, with that new addition in mind, I uber across the Story Bridge to the Institute of Modern Art, the longest running private art dealer gallery in Australia. It is an evening of quirky Pop, of which I qualify my engagement as being POPulated by microbes. I am given freshly collected mushrooms and toadstools from people who saw me play on Tuesday. These become my bandmates for the night. But they are initially cantankerous and withholding of voltage. It is an awkward beginning, but midway through the voltage picks up, and the set tumbles along swimmingly. 

— — — 

Fridays show is as far from the shiny dealer gallery as you could get. It’s a squatted gig organised by ATOPOS, underneath the M7 offramp on the main motorway to Ipswich. I would never have found it without assistance. Before any equipment arrives, the site is checked to see if it is the home for any rough-sleepers, it looks like it has been in the past but not tonight. Drums, speakers, and everything else is lugged across grassy flood banks, avoiding the boggy slush hiding under the grass. Just before darkness descends, the generator arrives, and all equipment flashes into life. Sounds are checked as 16-wheelers thunder overhead. The first act is deep under the bridge. In the almost pitch black, the only visible light is the reflection caught from the surface of a mini-lake of surface flooding. It adds nothing to where we crouch. An electrical device makes a cymbal sing continuously, a violin is played quietly, almost imperceptible at times, and moving through the darkness is a voice singing something like a lullaby in Czech. There were maybe 30 of us trolls under the bridge for the performance. I’m second, playing my fifth show for this week (I also played the Saturday, back home, before I left). The night has truely fallen, all I can see are attentive silhouettes, I have a bromeliad for a bandmate and it is interestingly active even though the sun has long gone – many photosynthesising plants go ‘quiet’ after dark – bedtime, I guess. Third is an electronic set, heavy and repetitive irregular loops, the performer crouches gargoyle-like, hunched in intensity, belching a hefty bottom end from the gapping maws of speakers. Finally, a duo of improvised clarinet and electronic and irregular tabla play, a groove is suggestively hidden in the pattern recognition of the mind. People have found it and are swaying away. 

I watch planes pass over, flying foxes settle in tree tops, and I feel the weariness of the first week settle in satisfaction. 

The show packs up, and we do the cross-country run with gear back to vehicles, then back to home. 

Thanks to: Ben Shannon,  Boddhi, Yvette of ATOPOS, Queensland Conservatory, Leighton and Sandra, Institute of Modern Art, William, Michael, Swerve, Shaun and Harriet

With thanks to CNZ for the funds to make this possible