[reviews [ of sorts ] of others] Deathless

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Above the H Block enclosure, with the roof missing, the day turns into evening sky.
Birds that I do not know the name of, in a frequency range I can not hear, are shouting to each other. From branch to branch. From wing to wing.
Dusk bugs, trying to avoid both the before and after, swim between the chairs, an air breathing fish built like a tank, a cousin perhaps to kin who hear with their legs. Soon, they will be trapped in the gaze of ten million moons.
The percussion of the bats’ echolocation drumrolls the air in search of food, a sound source faster than blinking, swifter than thinking.
Deathless is in front of us.  Dreaming up electronic drone for Yogyakarta, music for the heat, soothing like the shade.
All around us, the green and the brown, of leaf, and bark, and earth. Washed over with waterless waves flow through wet air.

The sole inhabitant of the vertical world, the Lizard, only hears itself.

Yogya falls silent.

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Deathless is an electronic artist from Bandung, Java, Indonesia.

Jogja Noise Bombing

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This festival has been running for many years on local spirit and limited funds. A festival in the spirit of expression outside of any box.  Maybe initially as a gathering to present the extreme and diverse musical explorations, but also to reflect back into the cities environment, the noise that IS the city. For example, the ambient background sound at this cafe I’m sitting at fluctuates in the high 70 decibel range. Above 70db is recognized as a volume in which bearing damage can occur.

30 performers are scheduled to play with an impressive international contingent. The organizers also made additional effort to have a strong number of women performers in the lineup, an important step in a very bloke- heavy music scene.

Friday night is the first of two films screened. Greed for Speed: the Singeli music movement, which is at the best of the Nyege Nyege label from Kinshasa, DCR. It seems like a tight community that contains large parts of both bursting creativity and  in-your-face motivation and desperation.

Noise is Serious Shit. A film about the incredible beast that is the Jogja Noise Bombing Festival. The films core performance footage is from the 2014-2015 festival and also contains a number of interviews with participants and organizers.
A Q&A session after with Sam Kurugu, from Kenya, and the band Duma, speaking on behalf of the Greed for Speed film maker. And talking about Noise is Serious Shit is the filmmaker Hilman Fathoni.
After this is an after party into the small hours.

Saturday:
The afternoon holds the street performance, Jogja Noise Bombing at its rawest (roarest?). I don’t know what part of the city we are in, but it contains a lot of shops, cafes and steady traffic. A crowd is gathered, bursting from the street and onto the road. Yet there seems to be a mindfulness not to be obstructive to others moving through the area.

A stage is set into an alcove, a small courtyard of an abandoned shop. A table is loaded with gear, power comes from who-knows-where, and sound comes from two guitar amps. Three acts play the first location, each presenting fresh ideas through noise. The locals look on, but no one seems perturbed in the slightest. What’s happening here is just another thing in the life of the beast Jogja.

The table and speakers are assembled into a wheelbarrow, banners collected, and a parade gathers to walk 500 meters up the road and around the corner to the new location. This time, under a large shading tree over a driveway into a property. Reassemble the gear, the crowd gathers and go! Two/three more acts in quick succession, each different from the last and all solo performances.

The breakdown/setup happens one more time, and this time, we gather on a corner for the final set. A performance from the wheelbarrow, then the first duo of the day, their set contained an intermission while call to prayer sung or over the city. They pick up where they left off and end the set with everything exploding off the table. The last act argues segues into movement to the night time session of JNB.

Krack Gallery is a collective printing gallery and work space. It has functioned in the location for over ten years and is the venue fit the evenings’ event. First up is a session of local experimental films. One explores a Nietzschian idea from a local perspective. The second is an animation of old photos referencing some historic event. The third is an Indonesian experience of CoVID, reflecting on the fears, struggles, and misinformation of that time. 

The final evening session is the ambient session. Two solo and one duo all accompanied by live visuals somehow managed by an old arts gamer controller or some such thing. I was greatly impressed but the set from Rannga whose music was generated from live coding, something I know zero about.

Sunday:
The stages are located at the beautiful Sangking Art Gallery. One open-air stage and two enclosed. There is always a performance somewhere. It is a decent sized crowded. All spaces feel well utilized and attended. Performances range from a myriad of examples of noise and improv electronic music, experimental gamelan, multi-speaker installation, a collaboration, but oh dance,  and live instruments alone and with electronic processing. There is drink, a coffee shop, a merch stall and the warmest, welcoming and enthusiastic crowd. 

I personally couldn’t have felt more at home here. It’s such a beautiful contradiction that an event of extreme music, whose imagery and symbolism is often full of dystopia ideas, feelings of hopelessness and rage, and pictorially reflective of brutal and graphic ideas, could contain such a joyous crowd of humans.  Impressive!

Bitters and Sweets

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I’m waking earlier than I expect. It’s Thursday and a proper rest day, nothing planned other than where ever my ramblings take me.

And they take me first to breakfast.  I return to the same place as yesterday. I am introduced to the dish nasi lengko. Rice, tofu, tempeh, bean sprouts, chili, and crackers. It is good.  When I convert to Nz currency, it works out at NZ .90 cents,  they don’t let me pay more… that price also included coffee, which seems to typically cost for NZ.50 cents.
I later find out this is a vegan style dish specific to the Cirebon area.

I spend the afternoon repairing my gear.  Somethings had come loose, something had stopped working completely, and I wanted to work on refining something in planning for Jogja. The repair seems to work perfectly, added by the magic of gaffa tape.

Later, I catch up with Sam, a performer from Kenya,  Alif, and  Wawan, the show organiser. Another fantastic meal by the roadside, this time a gado-gado styled dish. The spicy paste is made for each individual dish. All spices and nuts are crushed with a pestle in the shape of a cow horn,  I actually think it’s made of wood.

This is the last time I will see Wawan on this trip. This is one of those things about touring that leave a bittersweet feeling. There has been a lot of contact until now in preparation of travel. Then arrival, anticipating of and then delivery of the performance. Through all this, an intensity of feeling and comradery can develop if it all goes well. It all happens so fast. And then you have to say goodbye. It would be wonderful to say with conviction that we will meet again. But that would be dishonest. Sometimes, things unfold in a way that that does happen, but in this, there are no guarantees. It’s hugs, small gifts, and gone.

Next day,  Thursday, I catch the train to Jogja.  A stranger asks a question, and we start talking. Remarkably, this guy is a scientist at a local university working on microbial compounds that can digest plastics and other pollutants. They can then be converted, he says, into something akin to a liquid fertilizer.  He says he is having great results, producing plants with high nutritive value while simultaneously working on a possible solution to a massive problem of plastic pollution.

The train was less than comfortable initally as the air conditioning was set at 29°c. 

Crossing central Java. It’s easy to be gobsmacked at the astonishing  lush beauty or the window.  Rice fields go all the way to the feet of the mountain and volcano alike. It’s staggering.

I finally get to the homestay after getting lost in a taxi in the backstreet labyrinth of allyways off the main road.  

I settle in and get ready to go to the first event of Jogja Noise Bombing. It is a screening of Greed for Speed, a doco on the Singeli music movement from Kinshasa, and Noise is Serious Shit, a documentary about the history of Jogja Noise Bombing.  It is cool to also reconnect with good friends from previous trips.  This is the sweet of the experiences mentioned above.
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Other notes:
The lock to the room in Cirebon is dodgy.  Not only once have I had to pause and plan my escape from the inside of my room. My small freedom arrives, but I can not figure the reason why it worked or when it did.
—————-
Football is the sport of obsession here. I’ve sat wordless while people have discussed the intricacies of an Italian division from before covid.
—————-
The locals are saying they are finding it hot. So it really is. It’s official. It’s a heat wave! Someone said something like 37°c!

————

At the first event of noise Bombing I go looking for ice cream… nothing anywhere… the last shop I go in had none also, but perhaps I looked desperate. So person in attendance of the shop had one personal ice cream in the frozen foods freezer. She generously offered out to me.. I asked to pay for it  but she refused.  The ice cream is called Choco Corn.. corn cob textured waffled around chocolate ice cream. The ice cream was average, but the experience was excellent!

———-

The days are more full now so writing time is limited.

Go Harder

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With all that previous excitment over, it’s nice to realise that I’ve got a slow few hours ahead before the show this evening. And with that, I take it’s slow.

Wake with the call to prayer from the local masjid. If I listen harder, I can hear multiple different voices interlocking, random, not together, but definitely together, some clear and others wrapped in reverb. I’m not a person of any faith, but there is something that is very welcoming of the tradition of public singing being a regular feature of the daily environment. They are songs without a function for me, and so I can enjoy them at a simple and aesthetic level.

I go walking. I’m the only one walking. Someone wants to sell them time to me and offers their transportation. They laugh that I want to stay walking. I’m looking for breakfast and find a variation on gado-gado, rice, noodles, tempeh, and tofu. And Karpal Api, black and sweet coffee from a packet. It’s a roadside banquet.


Then I find something amazing, Gonjing, fried coconut goodness. I also need to find soap… was harder than it sounds. I go into Indomart, a franchise superette. I look for the obvious to no avail. I get the attention of staff, and my mime routine also fails.  I use Google and receive looks of confusion.  I see later than I typed Soap for Baking.

Back to the accommodation. I entered into a long exchange with Shaiful, the bike who checked me in. We talk via text about music, the similarity of numbers between the Indonesia language and Te Reo, the rates of young fathers abandoning pregnant girlfriends, and anything else that bubbles up.

A couple of hours later, when I go get a taxi to head to the venue,  Shaiful yells across the courtyard, “Go harder” in support.

The taxi massively overshoot the destination, and we end up in the absolute middle of the countryside. Backtracking the venue remains where it probably always was, cuddling side to side with a barbershop.

Kael Caviety. It’s a hip venue adorned with uplifting messages. The main things they do are drinks, ice tea of all stripes, and coffee with scientific precision. Every ingredient of every cup is weighed and double-checked.  It takes pretty amazing a well.. so strong!!

The venue must be the cavity part. It’s a building outside, away from the shop, a small concrete box with AC.
The other performers arrive, as well as the PA and the battalion of scooters.


It’s a nice atmosphere.  I met someone who saw us play in jogja in 2011. And it was nice to see his performance as the opening act.
And when the show started, it rolled smoothly from act to act.
Awkwayz: an electronic duo playing slow corrugations of tones, chord, and atmosphere.
Bootycall: firey and kinetic harsh noise from Copenhagen.
Resurrection the Man: Wawan, the organizers act, noise music born from the belly of an old Kiwi shoe polish tin that left me with a funny impression of dub… don’t know why
Wat Takleaw: started off super dense electronic noise but then opened up into very beautiful, brien and glitch space without losing the intensity
Gorz: do from Peru, Switzerland, guitar, vocals, preprogrammed backing tracks of wonky rock.. if Kate Bush sung in a math rock duo
Orqan: The do from Italy playing electronic smash on self-made instruments, I didn’t fully understand it, but their phones held essential functions in the performance.. maybe bending sound by moving through roll, pitch, and yaw.
Tapiwa Svosve: an impressive scape player of Swiss/Zimbabwean origin.. awesome control of the circular breathing technique.
Noijzu: Unrelenting harsh noise from Chile, I think.
Me: I did what I did. Things didn’t entirely work as planned, but the delivery was still fun. This was challenged by an electrical earthing problem, which presented as continuous small electrical shocks throughout the show. I integrated water into the performance… It’s probably not the smartest idea…
… then a bit of a wait due the last act to arrive, so a spontaneous three-way performance between Bootycall, Orqan, and myself.
Slammy Karugu’s Final Rupture of the Varicose Vein: arrived just after 9 after 30 flight from Kenya with a long stop over on India, then to Jakarta, to train, to venue, to play.  Impressive!! Get the man a drink! Slammed is one half of the duo Duma, whose album of a couple of years ago is ONE of the most intense listens I know. His set tonight was great, different cookies of noise with rising and falling syncopated rhythms like something heavy from the deep… nice!

Wrap up, pack up.  I can’t go with the others for food because me and my 20kg case would be impossible on the back of a scooter. But it’s a bugger though.

Other notes:
The music of the Cafe ranges from Queen to The Smiths, palette cleansing niceness between the sets.
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To my right of my breakfast stool  is the roadside ice market, a makeshift platform of palettes over a large gutter.  Under a couple of layers of tarpaulin are large blocks of ice, attacked with saws and hooks to be then loaded motorbikes, to be delivered to the street side cafes and tea shops I’m guessing.

Saya tidak barbicara bahasa indonisia

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The rising and falling from the two tones of the street vendors bell wakes me. A little ropey seems like a first description of how I feel after yesterday’s travel, but it’s OK, cos I’m in Jakarta! My one and only mission today is to get to the city of Cirebon by train.

Local coffee and fruit are offered for breakfast, and it’s perfect and unhurried. I had different accommodation booked to where I ended up. While in Sydney, an old friend, Chris, from Jakarta, made contact and offered me a bed at his place. A very welcome welcoming.

The train departs Jakarta at 11, Chris advises I get a taxi at 9. We are some distance from the train station, Pasar Senen. It’s good advice. As it transpires, nearly the entire two hours are required … I get on the train with only minutes to spare.

Economy class is perfectly comfortable. The biggest relief, other than being onboard, is that each seat has a power point. This means the phone remains charged. It is the most essential piece of equipment. I am reminded again how much I like Google Translate.

I am also reminded of my näievity, and honest ignorance in being somewhere where daily interactions and engagements are beyond me. I am without local spoken language. I do not speak bahasa, Saya tidak barbicara bahasa Indonisia. I hope that people can make sense of my pidgin bahasa, my arm waving, and that I also encounter people who are gracious enough to help.  I have met nothing by kindness so far.  A serving of humility can go a long way.

The journey across land is flat.  Leaving the frenetic city and the business of its active inhabitants. The unfolding country shows no less sign of activity.  Every spare morsel of land I see seems to be in agriculture, mostly rice, I assume. Rectangular and flooded sections of earth to the end of what I can see. Fruit trees, banana palm, and dwellings in states of construction, habitation, and destruction. An earth in permanent transformation.


I ride the train longer than my ticket brought. I booked the wrong stop, and it is a long way from my accommodation. No one seemed to notice my freeloading, I disembark at Cirebon station. 

I must look like a windfall to the gaggle who facilitate taxis. The fourth person I met in this exchange was the driver. And ‘exchange’ is an exaggeration. They talk, I can not.  I let myself be sheparded into the nearest cab. It’s all plesant enough, fully at my expense, which is still actually not much. Tip for next time… Google Translate’s talk-to- text is very useful… must be online though.

Signing into the motel is more mutual. The back-and-forth of conversation via the app. While the paperwork is being completed. I show the young guy at reception a clip of me making a mushroom’ sing’. He asked if I was a scientist? A ‘strange musician’ said I.


Later, I met Wawan and friends Rinto and Alif. Wawan had been my contact for the show. We have met to eat, but first we must get two more performers the group Orqan from Italy, just arriving in the city from the train station. This maneuver is achieved from the spare room on scooters.

Later, still, somewhere near the middle of the city, perhaps, we are sitting streetside eating hot corn on the cob, and Docang, a spicy dish of vegetables and a fermented tempeh product made with coconut. It’s good.

The night ends with the others off to their accommodation and me back to mine. Alif takes me on his bike, and the streets seem quiet.  And I am sated. And sleep beckons.
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Other notes:
There is a young girl on the train who has a birth mark high on her left check, just under her eye, that has the striking resemblance to a butterfly.
‐——————–
We pass a train graveyard nestled in between fields of rice. I was lucky enough to be standing between carriages looking out the window at the right place and at the right time. I caught a photo of the smallest portion.


—————
I don’t understand the cycle of rice growing. Perhaps it is a harvesting time? Many fields have mounds collected of plant matter, which then seems to them be burned off. Other fields contain the large blacken and burnt carcasses of previous mounds. I wonder if all that carbon aids growth.
–‐————

Bats ARE in the loft.

Out from the darkness

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We are the only vehicle moving towards the airport. The water across the sand is calm, and there is no wind. The birds are still asleep, as is most of the inhabitants of these more solid nests. This darkness is an in-between space, limnal, here it feels like potential is waking up.

Darkness is an experience we all share. We also share our differences in experiences of darkness. We can be in the same physical space and yet vastly different psychic places at the same time. My darkness this morning is important to me. I am up so much earlier than usual with the intention to travel across the city to the airport, flying first to Sydney, then onto Jakarta. Typically, in the recent past, if I was awake at this time, it was because I had lost the ability to sleep. The dark held terrors.

My own personal darkness for the last four years had not felt so pregnant with hope.  Life took a turn for the hard, and then harder again. It’s been a time of involuntary breaking, revision, and then reassembling by brute will, appropriate interventions, and an incredible web of support. I felt kneecaped by a clusterfuck of events that eventuated into a diagnosis of PTSD. Only relatively recently, as each day passes, I can see evidence of this becoming post-PTSD (if that is, in fact, possible). I do know that scars will remain and that I continue to keep figuring all this out. I am forever grateful for those who have stood by me in this time where I have learned again to stand confident on my own.

And here I am. Approaching twelve thousand kilometers high. The horizon is a rainbow, and the outside is freezing at -55°c. Up here is where life like ours can not remain. Though I have read that even in these extreme environments, the life of certain staminas’ can survive. And over ‘there’, where the rainbow meets the Earth, adventure and wonder dwell.

This is my first post-covid tour.  I am on my own this time. I tell people I am traveling with a trio called vegetable.machine.animal, a non-human/technology/human ‘band’. I’ve never been a massive fan of electronic music, yet here i am pedaling a modular synthesizer across the sea.  And I’m no scientist, but I have become immensely interested in the interspecies networking, the symbiotic coexistence, and the evidence of a massively weird and interconnected world unfolding in scientific findings of recent years.

In this ‘band’, I am able to detect an echo of these connections. I have a biofeedback module on the synth.  This enables the electrical signal of living matter to become an influencing player in the circuitry and programming of the synthesizers computers, producing random, dynamic, and interactable sounds. I hear these sounds and then attempt to drum along .

This is the project I want to now take out into the world. This is how I want to reconnect. I heard a story once about how the great navigators of the Pacific had the skills to be guided by the dark. It was only in that darkest of environments that the next passageway became obvious. If you could read the stars, then you could identify the direction to head towards when the next sun rose. I am happy to be reminded that the darkness, among other things, is also full of awe.
‐———————–
Hours later:
It pays not to think too hard about the concept of trying to sleep in a tube hurtling above the earth. Fortunately, it’s so uncomfortable, and trying to bend into some form of sadistic yoga pose provides comfort only in knowing that at least I tried to be comfortable.. not that I was.
———————–
The old boy in the chair behind me has burped constantly from Darwin to Dempessar. I am not not impressed.
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Just like this morning, we seem to be the only vehicle on the road.  Out my porthole, over the wing, I see layers of pinks, blues, browns, and greys… like sediment,  less geological… is atmoslogical a word?.. probably not.

Maybe it's smoke from a volcano, photo taken from plane


There is a cloud in the distance that looks different, darker, and taller with solid mass.  I wonder if at this altitude that it might be from the active volcano north towards the Philippines.  I’m no  expert, but it didn’t look like cloud, more the haze of smoke. It has none of the fluffiness and features of the cloud forms beneath it.  A thick and flat featureless gray  smudge that spans what I can see of the horizon.
 
——-‐——–
I see land mass below.. or are they shadows of cloudbanks? ill-defined and uncertain… I imagine the landmass rising and falling like they are relations to some mighty cetacean kin.
—-‐————–
The slightest shift in something.. air pressure? angle?  Incline?  is reminiscent of some mighty bee bending is snout to some destination called flower.
—–‐——-
It’s been a long day.

v.m.a Java Tour 2024

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I’m feeling incredibly lucky to get back out on the road with a new project, full of uncertainty, adventure and connection. The trio vegetable.machine.animal is fortunate to get to present their sounds at the long-running and inspiring Jogjakartan music festival, Jogja Noise Bombing.

I’d first heard of JNB when on tour in this city with mr sterile Assembly, we made made friends with one of (many) key instigators of the Jogja noise scene, Indra Menus. You may recognise his name for the sounds he added to the record of Buru, on the Run Peter Run ep, and Cut Hunter, from the album HELLo.

Needless to say, one show is never enough and v.m.a has a 6 date performance schedule in the first two weeks of May.

May
Wed 1: Cirebon: NHC Fest – Venue – Kael Cavity
Sun 5: Jogjakarta: Jogja Noise Boming – Day 2, Venue – Sangkring Art Space
Thurs 9: Malang: Malang Noise Festival, Venue – Malang Creative Centre
Sat 11: Malang: Venue – Semaru Art Gallery
Sun 12: Jakarta: Venue – Tanam Bunyi
Mon 13: Jakarta: Venue – Pecah Kongsi

DRONEmusic revealed

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So it had come to our attention, that our final show, is also an album release show. Hadn’t really planned it that way but sure why not… so we’re going to release our new album HELLo properly into the world… and by default then we are also making this our release show for the album GOODBYE as well.

So I thought I’d take a wee bit of your time to chat about some of it’s content 

DRONEmusic is not, as some might assume, about the sound art of the same name. It IS about the devices used for surveillance, conflict, and now delivering pizza.

The inspiration for the structure of the song comes from an incredible set of poems by Teju Cole called Seven short Stories About Drones.

Released onto Twitter in 2013, Cole composed this succinct tweets with the opening line of seven popular works of fiction. This opening was then swiftly followed up with an abrupt ending regarding Drone warfare in some way. I read somewhere that it was an attempt to engage middle-class liberal and literate folk into the horror of this new technology.

Our adaption moves away from literature and the the targets for assassination in our verses are political, indigenous, social and spiritual leaders.

The book Drone Theory by Grégoire Chamayou was also an important read, alongside other only reporting on massacres, events and mishaps…like the destruction of a wedding.

Our Lyric:

Hanging on the cross will break the pattern

Draw attention from afar

Baptize troublemakers in their ashes

Incite rapture in a tiny star

Waiting for a bus and feeling nervous

Someone’s watching Rosa sitting there

At a job that’s mostly boring

Till the targets sitting in crosshairs

Reaching up, her hand in Nana’s

The Reaper locks in on their stride

Lining up the cross on Whina

Collateral damage tallied for their side

Growing up in a poorer part of town

Locally, Lomu’s hope was not so known

He’d pull a crowd, to the game

Send a Signature Strike, to shut it down

Martin had a dream and a need to speak

A way with words to avert the violence

The Predator locked on his open mouth

The microphone broke as cries filled the silence

River cools the feet of united voices

Gandhi hears a whine cutting through the din

Mozzie’s on the hunt for a feed

A Hellfire Missile turned it all to steam

Silhouette on the snow, it’s not a dove Put the Drone to work

There’s money to be made, infertile plains Put the Drone to work

Pull up the pegs, on Surveyor’s lines Put the Drone to work

Weaponise the laws, just point and shoot Put the Drone to work

On the land and in the sea, Everywhere and Everyhere 

In the tech and In the fear, In atmos- and psychosphere 

Mine the sky, mine the sky, mine the sky, mine the sky.

Glowing like its all radioactive

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We had the wonderful pleasure to flaunt our wares live on air at the local and independent radio station Radioactive.fm. Was real nice to be welcomed in and made super comfortable.

Please enjoy this video produced by Radioactive.fm, and be sure to check out many of the other fine acts that they showcase weekly in this format.

Review: Muzic.Net.Nz

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New Zealand’s globetrotting punk rockers, drummer/vocalist Kieran Monaghan and bassist/vocalist Chrissie Butler, release their sixth and final album twenty-two years, two months, and five days from the date of their inaugural show.

In 2001, Mr Sterile Assembly was an unlikely three-piece; guitar, drums, and trombone. Over many years and manifestations, the band from the end of the world with something to say found people and places with ears to hear it. Collecting luminary musicians and collaborators like Aaron Lloydd, Cara Conroy-Low, Chris O’Connor, Dan Beban, Dave Mike, Elisa Kersley, Francesca Mountfort, Jana Te Nahu Owen, Jeff Henderson, Miles Climo, Sarsha Douglas and Vlada Plackic along the way, Mr Sterile Assembly (MrsA) went on to support famed acts such as Crass, Sabot, Jello Biafra, and Miss Moon. HELLo (alongside simultaneously released EP Goodbye) is the final note of a lauded run. 

Guest appearances include Hannah Salmon, vocalist for Unsanitary Napkin and Displeasure, Adam Tomasek – trumpet from the Czech group Uz Jsme Doma, long established noisenik Indra Menus from Yogyakarta, Indonesia and the fungi influenced electronics of Pōneke based vegetable.machine.animal. Drums and bass were recorded by Vanya of scumbag college studios. All else recorded, except guest tracks, were recorded at Happy Valley. HELLo was mixed and mastered by Stephen Cole at What Studios Liverpool, UK. 

Catastrophic Engine sets a familiar tone for the new album with a relentless two note melody over driving cymbals and syncopated hits on the dry snareless tenor between seamless dips from the primary meter. Due to the mixtape nature of the collection, lyrics of the Orwellian monologue are less discernible by ear than in past releases but are well worth looking up! They read like poetry and sing like punk. Group singing underscores the communal nature of the project/movement with a variety of varied, cartoonish timbres reminiscent of a Rocky Horror Picture Show chorus. 

For some unknown reason, track number two on any album is always a favourite. Run Peter Run is a classic from statement to execution. The bass rips along like an engine giving pursuit beneath increasingly urgent, threatening, and varied utterances of “run, Peter, run.” My first thoughts were of Beatrix Potter’s “Peter Rabbit” and a vintage children’s song called Run, Rabbit, Run in which “every Friday is rabbit pie day.” Upon googling, I came across an apparently popular Christian song also called Run, Peter, Run which goes, “Run Peter, run! Go tell your friends! Run Peter, run! Jesus rose again!” Both potential references make fine political social commentary in my mind, but the final lyrics ” – “’68 Olympic Game, Starters gun Outer lane, Silver race Winning fame, Dias rise Changing fate” – clarifies reference to the story of Peter Norman – Australian Olympian who stood solidly alongside fellow Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who became infamous for the Black Power salute on the dais during the medal ceremony. Norman’s willingness to stand beside Smith and Carlos earned the ire of the institutionally racist Australian authorities. Forty years passed before the Australian government offered a posthumous apology to Norman for the treatment he received for standing in ally-ship with Carlos and Smith in the fight for justice. “The right act costs more, conscience like a crime, divisions laid open, where is your line?” The song’s opening refrain, “Run, Peter, run” becomes even more sinister as one imagines the utterance from the lips of the law. 

Historical reviews that describe MrsA as “cohesive” and “challenging”, “hardboiled but somehow never difficult to listen to”, “at times is brilliant”, and having “a slight sense of claustrophobia, a threat of some sort, with song subjects based in the harsher realities” still ring true. The gradual introduction of more electronic moments and motifs suggests the chronological evolution of the band and contributions of collaborators along the album. Topics which fail to escape the final judgement of Mr Sterile Assembly include conspiracy theorists, confirmation bias, classism, climate change, and the pitfalls of capitalism. The final note of the album and of Mr Sterile Assembly’s notable career encapsulates all this in a song called Didn’t. In a breathless, wailing, wall of driving bass and drums, Mr Sterile Assembly sums up their message for us. “We didn’t survive [insert every aforementioned topic and more] just to roll over.” MrsA leaves us with a final call for defiance, and hope. 

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