During the NZSM/Toi Pōneke arts residency, 2024, I was introduced to SOUNZ– the Centre for New Zealand Music. To be honest, I knew about SOUNZ in the peripheral cul-de-sacs of my brain but I thought it was mostly for classical music. And it is, but it is also much more.
It says about itself that it “…champions and promotes the sounds and music of Aotearoa, New Zealand.” It contains a huge collection of music score and such, but I was totally unaware that it has a substantial audio/visual component.
SOUNZ offered to come and video a number of performance associated with the vegetable.machine.animal Guest album launch, as well as a couple of the performances attached to the accompanying exhibition being held at Toi Pōneke. For free! With multiple cameras! and they would do the grunt of editing etc! Quite an amazing offer. My tasks were to perform well, and be responsible for recording the audio – this is quite likely a barrier for many but less insurmountable these days as digital recording devices get smaller, easier to use, and more available.
The video work was completed by Chris Wilson, a production team of team of one. Amazingly easy to work with, and very considerate in the way he set multiple cameras around the stage in ways that did not seem invasive or impinge on the ability to perform. A terrific experience.
I wish again to offer many thanks to the other musicians who took part in these performances: Kedron Parker, Gemma, S. Thompson, David Long, Chrissie Butler, Timothy Morel, Sophia Frudd, Andrew Faleatua (unfortunately not filmed but an audio recording was collected) and Ruby Solly. They are all incredible music makers in their own rights and are worthy of your aural attention.
GUEST has grown into a beast, a beautiful, shimmering monster-body of work that is a full culmination of the 2024 residency.
GUEST has become an album, excerpts from collaborative recording sessions October-December 2024, edited and mixed into 13 tracks, to be released on LP, CD and digital. The album launch is May 30 at Pyramid Club. Performing alongside vegetable.machine.animal with be album guest musicians Chrissie Butler, indigogue brown, Kedron Parker, Timothy Morel, Gemma S Thompson and David Long.
GUEST the exhibition opens at Toi Pōneke on Friday May 30, 5.30pm. There will be a short vegetable.machine.animal performance, but mostly it’ll be a celebration. The exhibition will be centred around hound interspecies sound installation. Alongside this will be images painted during this process, Leadlight window, and the launch of the book SOUNDBITTEN, personal sound stories capturing earworms, aural observations, accidental hearings and imaginary backing tracks.
There are four weekend event during the performance, three concerts and a panel talk. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to perform again individually with DSLB, Ruby Solly and Andrew Faleatua. The talk, called A Guest among the Guest, facilitated by K Monaghan, Assoc. Prof. Dr Julie Deslippe [Victoria University School of Biological Sciences] and Dr Eli Elinoff [Victoria University School of Social and Cultural Studies].
And then we go on tour!!! All date below but will continue to be updated as more events finalised.
Many thanks to Te Kōkī – New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University, and Toi Pōneke for the ongoing support in completions of this project, Audio Foundation Records, Pyramid Club and to all there others who have helped out along the way!
PRESS RELEASE
What would it sound like if we could interact musically with plants and fungi—if humans stopped to listen and respond? vegetable.machine.animal is an interspecies improvisational trio exploring this question through a hybrid sonic language of biosignals, modular synthesis, and live drums.
Led by drummer Kieran Monaghan, the project transforms living data from plants and fungi into voltage, translated into sound via modular synthesizer. Monaghan responds in real time, creating a feedback loop between human, organism, and machine.Their debut album, GUEST, was recorded during the 2024 Sonic Artist Residency (Creative New Zealand / NZSM / Toi Pōneke) and emerged through open-ended, intuitive sessions.
A diverse group of collaborators was invited to join the process, including Kedron Parker, Nico Buhne, Bill Wood, Ruby Solly, Indigique Brown, David Long, Andrew Faleatua, Andy Wright, Gemma Thompson, Timothy Morel, Mo H. Zareei, Tae Kyung Seo, Issac Smith, and Chrissie Butler.Rather than guiding the music, contributors were invited to follow it—adding their voices to a living, shifting ecology of sound. The result is an album that is rhythmic, irregular, immersive, and alive.GUEST is co-released by Audio Foundation Records (Tāmaki Makaurau) and skirted Records(Te Whanganui-a-Tara).
Kieran Monaghan is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, writer, recording artist and sound engineer based in Te Whanganui-A-Tara. He is a prolific creative and organiser, with an irrepressible DIY ethic, known for his experimental and innovative approach to performance and sound making.
ALBUM RELEASE TOUR
May Friday 30 – ALBUM LAUNCH – Pyramid Club – with Chrissie Butler, indigogue brown, Kedron Parker, Timothy Morel, Gemma S Thompson and David Long – TICKETS
July Thursday 17 – The Blue House, Patea Friday 18 – Last Place, Kirikiriroa/Hamilton – with Moon Hotene and Halcyon Birds Saturday 19 – Instore – Flying Out Records, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, 2pm Saturday 19 – Audio Foundation, Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland – v.m.a with Taekyung Sea, O/PUS and Oxsen Ox Thursday 24 – Common Room, Heretaunga /Hastings – with Invisible Plain Friday 25 – Snails, Te Papa-i-Oea./Palmerston North – with Powers, Saturday 26 – Porridge Watson, Whanganui – with XRVR & ROC///OPT/ Sunday 27 – Common Ground Presents, Pae Tū Mōkai/Featherston – with indigogue brown Thursday 31 – Brayshaw Park Chapel, Te Waiharakeke/Blenheim – with Twin Rudders August Friday 1 – Space Academy, Ōtautahi/Christchurch – with Cuticles and Haunts Sunday 3 – Union Chapel, Ōhinehou/Lyttleton – Tropical Hot Dog Night! – with Greg Larking, Beth Hilton, Taipua Adams, Gemma Syme, Nic Woollaston, Rory Dalley, Dave Imlay Wednesday 6 – Te Atamira, Tāhuna/Queenstown – solo Friday 8 – Live to air on Radio One Friday 8 – The Crown, Ōtepoti/Dunedin – with HōHā, Sewage and Murgatroyd Saturday 9 – Threes and Sevens Records, Waihōpai/Invercargill – with Murgatroyd and Hattford
Where we reflect back on the 12 weeks of residency, review whats been done, offer thanks, and review objectives, and round it off with some plum porn
All Hands Make Light – One word removed to change the phrase completely Taken from the band of the same name
I reside, now, post-residency. Is the past tense of Residency, Residensed???
What an opportunity it has been, to have twelve weeks funded, supported, and committed, to the exploration and development of this project. A dedicated time to explore ideas, sounds, and thoughts, to make new connections and networks, to further hone technical skills in recording processes, editing and mixing, image-making, and presentation. To play fast and slow, to play solo, to collaborate, to demonstrate, and discuss this flight of fancy of mine.
When I applied for this residency I provided some goals and examples of evidence of work, that I would develop during this time. Gathering recordings was one of these outputs. And since late September, when the position started, these recordings grew into a substantial two-fold project.
Firstly, I made numerous solo recordings, exploring various ideas like suspended guitar, plant-driven percussive mechanisms, and the good old-fashioned banging away on my trusty drum kit. It has been great to have extended time to experiment. I’m yet to start editing, but I hold an excited anticipation of what will be discovered.
Secondly I held weekly recording sessions for collaborations. This was an opportunity to invite some very inspired performers (Chrissie Butler, Gemma Thompson,Bill Wood, Andy Wright, Tim Morrell, Sophia Frudd, Baxter Grey, Ruby Solly, David Long, Andrew Faleatua, Issac Smith, Kedron Parker and Nico Buhne) who I felt would enjoy playing plant and fungal electronic sounds. Each session was dramatically different from the next and collaborators worked with a wide range of instrumentation including electric guitar, drums, percussion of all sorts, trumpet, cello, electronics, taonga puoro, violin, fagufagu, drums, electric piano, and voice. I also got to collaborate with Mo Zareei who worked with live-mixed bio-signals from VMA, in his own studio setting. I feel lucky to have had the time to interact and play with these extraordinarily talented musicians and sound makers and I look forward to listening back to these session in early 2025.
Another continuous aspect of the residency has been image-making. This visual component helps me anchor learnings from readings in a way I can easily reference. They help me to hold multiple ideas and points of view in eyesight simultaneously. I will include the images in the exhibition at Toi Pōneke in June. Twelve of the images have just taken a little excursion to Queenstown, where they have been included in the Use Your Words exhibition at Te Atamira Gallery, which is pretty cool.
A set of images now on display at the Use Your Words exhibition at Te Atamira in Queenstown. Photographer: David Oakley
The last component of this residency and a commitment from the outset has been documenting this residency. I proposed to write online weekly to express thoughts and ideas that were of interest at the time. Although I have blogged in this way many times in the past, one joyful evolution was the inclusion of soundbites, which have concluded each post in a section called Soundbitten. These soundbites started as a whim in the second week and grew quickly into 55 miniature stories that circulate around a key sound source or reference. Over the weeks, I became more conscious of needing to listen to notice the sound stories in the present, alongside trawling memory for meaningful sound memories from the past. The compilation of writings has now been complied with the page ARCHIVE: 2024 Creative New Zealand/NZSM/Toi Pōneke Sonic Artist-in-Residence. The text is currently being arranged into a limited edition print version, available on the opening night of the exhibition in June 2025. I hope it has been something that you have enjoyed.
So here I am newly residenced and it is interesting to reflect on what I expected to do and what I actually did. I suggested I would explore the idea of “a sonic practice for the Anthropocene”. I wanted to explore and develop a sonic practice that:
● places the ‘human’ not at the centre, but as an active ‘collaborator’ in a trio of non-human/tech/human.
● insists the voice of the ‘Other’ is amplified and essential to the voice of the ‘Whole’.
On reflection, I think I have achieved what I set out to do, but the journey is continuous. Decentering the ‘human’ from the centre of the performance and investigating the ideas of a horizontal, interactive, and interspecies framework has been a shared experience. Collaborators frequently stated that it was both novel, and musically exciting, to listen to and respond to ‘other’ in the room. And from my perspective, though I was facilitating these meetings, I did not feel that the spotlight was mine.
As this project continues to develop, I realise the more I become reliant, dependent, on the ‘Other’. There is no way to make this happen without ‘them’. It’s less about ME and more about THIS. Publicly, we are becoming inseparable.
In these crisis times, many would argue that we were never separate, and that reestablishing a re-connectivity to the natural world is essential for any version of future viability. It is not my intention to sound grandiose, but I hope this project is a contribution towards that future-focused mindset. A future that welcomes both diversity and uniqueness, makes space where the needs of the individual are respected but do not trump, dominate, or compromise the needs of the myriad cohabiting communities.
Soundbitten:
These days, I only ever see you at the supermarket. In other times, it was at gigs. I’d just brought an ice cream for moko, you were bus-waiting with hubby. Always, we hug. You tell me “ I’ve been reading your writing”. Recount back to me the stories I wrote. Those little bits of sound, experiences that could have been yours. I listen back. Bitten, it’s life after the bite.
Margaret Sparrow, song bird, vasectomy queen. I’m on a slab, voluntarily. Shaved, prepared, anesthetized with local. It’s simple; revel, snip, seal. Twice. She works, cautery device in hand, singing with her sidekick, to work songs of Gilbert and Sullivan emanating from a tape deck on the shelf, “I am the very model of a modern…”… Hello mr sterile!
These hills were quiet when we arrived. Denuded of green by farming and fire. Then it was gorse, blackberry, weed. Once upon a time, here would hear the heat, the sound of ‘progress’, the colonialist act of razing. But if abandoned, the wilds return. Hushed at first. Now, the dawn valley’s boisterous with chatter, choir, clarion call, chimed bell, clacked gong.
From a distance, a whisper this way comes. Hush turns to hiss. Like the persistent sound of approaching train, but not. It falls, dancing. One thing meets another thing, times multiple. The raindrops play the leaves like drums, the percussion of wet onto leaf litter. Then the downpour hits the roof, a curtain, a wall, a wave of water, tap-dancing.
How does the plum sound? Do branches hear pollinators in blossom? Do flowers sigh in post-coital germination? The bees gleeful buzz when dusted in pollen? Who hears petals fall? Or the nutrients, fluids, directed to the swelling buddings? Does the Sun sing lewd songs to make the fruit blush? It’s unknown, but I know how the light tastes. Hear my delight as juices burst free.
Thank you to the following: ●To the collaborators who came along, shared their skills, talents, and willingness to play with this project ●The staff of the New Zealand School of Music who supported my explorations and requests ●All the staff at WCC Tōi Pōneke Arts Centre for making me feel welcome and sharing lunch time banter ●CreativeNZ for the funding ●To all those people who stopped by and shared their curiosity ●To the other art workers in residence at Tōi Pōneke ●Thank you to you for reading this far! ●And the most massivist! Thanks! always, always, always to Chrissie for everything!!
Once upon a time, I worked in health as a nurse. A key principle when working on a ward was to plan for discharge on admission, thinking about the exit during the entering. It helped with treatment planning. I don’t do that work now.
When I started this residency, there was no way I wanted to think about it coming to the end. But 12 weeks is twelve weeks, time passes, and I catch myself thinking about how to wrap it all up, planning to ensure I have captured as many recordings, and as much other material, as possible, especially with a view to the coming year.
When I think about the shape of 2025, the first few months will be busy assembling the recordings into albums. At present, there will be at least two, one of solo works, and a second of exquisite excerpts from the collaborative recordings gathered during this time. Also there will be an exhibition, scheduled for June at Toi Pōneke, and this will be the grand culmination of this residency, the release of the albums, a sound installation, and accompanying media like video and pictures. I’m also in the early stages of blocking a tour of Aotearoa in July, from top to bottom [if you are interested in a show in your town, then please make contact]. And towards the end of the year, both Chrissie and I are going to Tainan, Taiwan, for a residency.
There have been some substantial life changes in recent years. This has, in its own way, moved these opportunities into focus. For the next few years, the primary efforts are to apply maximum effort to see where this project might go. To commit my finite time to see how this work can develop. All the previous projects, tours, and paraphernalia have been gleaned in the spare spaces around a life of full-time work and parenting. I see this, now, as my one chance to push the potential of this project as far as my bravery will take me, and without expectation. The doing is a success.
Someone asked me if I’d like to continue with a hired studio so I could come and go as I please in an ongoing way. I feel the answer for now is, “No thanks”. I like the delineation of time, the finite space, and the limited resources. The idea of time ticking away helps me to focus my attention. I work better if I have a clear idea of my limitations, boundaries, or some provocation to work towards/against. I would be useless if I had access to all the toys all of the time. It’s one of the reasons I like my limited drum kit. It has specific dimensions, tones, and voices, but I am constantly exploring to see how far I can push these set parameters into new areas that will be interesting to me. It’s like the entry point is set and fixed, but I’m constantly searching for new exits.
Defience on a powerpole
This was the week of the Toitū the Tiriti Hīkoi. Estimates of between 45,000 to 100,000 people gathered in the city to oppose The Treaty Principles Bill, proposed and pushed by the right wing party, ACT. It is a dog whistle for racist politics and behaviour, and an extraordinary waste of money given ACT’s coalition partner said they will not support any further. And some astute analysis has pointed out that this has nothing much to do with equity or equality of race politics, but more to do with the removing of any obstacle for corporations as they eye up resources for exploitation. It was a remarkable gathering to be among, incredibly focused, uplifting, and clear in purpose and message. It is the largest protest in this country’s history. It was not the end of a process but a start. Tiriti forever!
The various assembled instruments of Kedron Parker. Photo: K Parker.
This weeks collaboration partners were musician David Long, sound artist and photographer Kedron Parker, and son Nico Buhne. Each session was incredibly different from the other. David brought cello, acoustic guitar, and effect pedals. Kedron brought hand-made drums, a two-string viola, random percussion, voices, and other sound making nic-nacs. Nico brought a trumpet and tootled beautifully. Both fantastic sessions, which are cooling their heals on a hard drive, as I need some distance between the recording and the mixing. This boundary is essential.
Percussive petals inside drums, inside drums Photo: K Parker
Soundbitten:
It gathers like wind in restless trees or baritone bees. Not hive mind, but like-mind. Individual x thousands. 10,000 sing, unison in union. Over the hush of 12,000 a Kuia calls. 20,000 in tune. 30,000 walk the talk, 40,000 vocal, 50,000 loud. Numbers are drowned out. It sounds like carnival, kids, music, chant, laughter, haka, solidarity, opposition, a position.
12 women’s fingers resonate the mouths of wine glasses. Old men beat a table with canes, slam books, teach pain. The sauna roars with laughter, amplifies the shame. Madonna screams at photographers, fights the paparazzi, wrestles them into stones. The music is the metal of strings and of metal. Jarman’s Garden is full of silence till the sound comes. Lights…
It’s her mother’s flower, her late mother. Although the flower is cut from the root, it contains the energy of life from the cells within, decaying. She lost her, recently, it’s still fresh. Fresh like a flower removed from the stem. But with two sensors on the greenery, essence appears, invisible but audible. And she can interact in any way she sees fit. We hear her.
He speaks words – they hear lies – they hear facts. He talks to camera – they hear inflammatory – they hear solidarity. He says sentences – they hear confusion – they hear inclusion. Like all good performers, he knows his audience. He’s going to make it all great again. They applaud. He shouts at them. They cheer. The music must be loud. He dances.
It’s a box of sound reels but no machine to translate. Those voices lost, there but trapped, obsolete. A suitcase full of cassettes, duplicates, one-offs, moments captured on magnetic magic, parts of parts of the past frozen in time, sometimes in 4/4, sometimes 5/4. Under a container of CDs, burned but cooked, new tech that has already met with entropy.
skirted Records 