The last two shows of the tour are to happen around the most geographically isolated city on the planet. Check-out is at 10. I leave The Metro behind me, and spend the next few hours making my way across country from Adelaide to Perth.

Claire collects me at the airport. I first met her in the nineties when, for a period of time, she lived in the agricultural-university town of Palmerston North. And in my recollection, Palmy, as we all know it, was the centre of some of the best oddball music being made in this country. Alas, this is not a widely held view, but I’ll defend it. There were bands of many forms, an independent venue, a swag of musical releases, much of it on handmade lathe-cut records [the music was cut onto the surface which was shrink-wrapped around a solid aluminium disc] from a cutting machine somewhere around Foxton (that was at least the bones of the legend). It was a specific sound, an alternative voice that could only have come from the Manawatu, and infinitely more interesting than the “Dunedin Sound”, or other such genres that are more myth than magic. Claire was at the centre of it. She was a maker, an organiser, a promoter, and a beacon of a committed and uncompromising way of being. These days, her performance moniker is Furchick, and she runs the experimental label Dog Park Records.

Mandurah is home now, and we spend our time together catching up, mooching around the flooded waterways looking for missing birds, getting my head around the linguistics of Australian grammar, and gazing into the murky storm-stirred waters at ancient thrombolites.

The first event was on Difficult Listening, a two-hour radio show, showcasing the outputs of both Dog Park and skirted Records, on the independent station RTR FM. FOLLOW THIS LINK TO LISTEN BACK.

Next day, I’m on my own. Claire returns to Mandurah after delivering me to the YHA accommodation The Prison, a historic building for incarceration that has reimagined itself as both a tourist destination and a quirky place to stay. My bunk is in the old women’s wing of the facility. Hefty concrete walls, bars, and partitions of caged mesh leave little to the imagination about the actual brutal history. There are signs of historical moments, often about people’s creative attempts to escape, but always got caught – prisons would never advertise their failures.

The show is at The Fremantle Buffalo Club, or the Freo Buff as it’s locally known. The building was established in the 1800s by the Royal Antediluvian Order of the Buffalo, but these days it’s a volunteer-driven, not-for-profit community and music venue. Monday’s comedy night was in the downstairs bar; our show occupied the charming hall on the first floor. SeNsOrY fReNzY open the proceedings. It was the band’s first show, and they were aiming as high as possible with a full set of original material. Loud, maximal rock with catchy hooks and dynamics. Lotus were next, also a four-piece, and a rock band of a different flavour. The impression left was of a Tool that never made the big leap into metaphysical rock but became something far more edgy from a label like Touch and Go. Two mighty acts delivering hefty chunks of drums and slabs of riff, and exceptional delivery from both singers.

I was delivering neither riffs nor lyrics. But I could promise tumbling patterns and peculiar vocal-like sounds triggered by the plants. And I had a new contact mic, gifted from Claire, as substitute for my recently destroyed one. I have been using a contact mic for a while now; it was the main way to capture live water and gargling sounds. It also produces a wonderful distorted colour when I lay it across the ride, and then very carefully hit the cymbal, it adds the equivalent of gravel to the sound bed. During one show, though, I removed it from the cymbal and placed it on the floor tom as a placeholder. It took me a few moments to realise that the low pitch of that drum was resonating, via the contact mic, and producing feedback. A most unexpected discovery in real time, and with a bit of extra playing, I now feel like I’m developing some skill in manipulating these swelling bass notes that resonate from the drum. It was more unpredictable at the Buff. Somewhere in my system something started to run out of control, and the swelling of bass tones seemed to exude from every channel, everywhere, all at once. Imagine the roar of a wave before it dumps its full weight upon the off balance surfer. I cut everything to silence and ended the show there.

Sometimes the end just arrives, and if you’re listening in a responsive way, you can catch it. It’s a very satisfying feeling to latch on and ride it to completion. It can be easy to miss it, but an exit ramp still needs to be heard or found. I have a small clock on stage with my set up. Over the years I have learned the importance of not overstaying my welcome; equally, underdelivering is also a thing I want to avoid. I lose my sense of time when playing, my perception is elsewhere, and so a little timepiece is a useful tool to help me aim and shape a set.

I walk back to The Prison, past rough sleepers in the doorways, without bedding, and in the rain. It’s a harsh alcove of reality. I get to my cell and fall into bed. An hour later the fire alarms go off, in a loud and clear voice instructing all to evacuate. I grab all the wrong things and leave. We wait in the dark, cold, and hint-of-returning-rain night. Fire appliances arrive and then swiftly leave. Turns out someone felt locked in the after-hours office. They must have panicked when they convinced themselves that the’d become trapped. The door would not open to their pushing – they needed to pull it. They hit the button to the right, thinking perhaps it was a door release. Turns out that button opens every door in the building. Exits can be complicated.

The last show arrives. Five and a half weeks of touring, and months of organising, all led to The Bird, the venue for Noisemaschin!!, on this final Tuesday night. I can feel myself already bending towards leaving, but manage to keep those feelings in check till the final act is done. It’s a good lesson: don’t check out before check-out time!

It’s a full lineup. Six acts, delivered in two blocks with an intermission for the major changeover of performers. Elias Farhen opens the proceedings. Perhaps the youngest performer this evening, Farhen delivers a solid and considerate piece of electronic manipulation and saxophone. I enjoy watching musicians of analog instruments playing and utilising the tech, but not getting lost in the tools at the expense of the thing that is their primary instrument. Farhen does this well. The Pianos follow, also with saxophone, and an unknown string instrument that was longer than I am tall. Spiderlight was the third in this block, a trio comprising of cello, gong, and throat singing and other vocal techniques. This set opened up space into the room, a responsive dynamic between the three musicians that were quite clearly listening intently to each other. Intermission arrives and the stage is rearranged. I follow fourth. Sets were recommended at 20 minutes. Across the tour, set lengths have varied, but on average mine had settled at around 40-45 minutes. Tonight, I enjoy the condensing of time, the limitation demands focus. I aim for maximum output, a last final push, expending the last I have to offer in the space I had allocated. And I’m done. I leave the stage and CCCXXXIII take over. A duo of double bass and electronics. I am standing at the far end of the bar, trying to sell the last of my CDs when they start. Everything starts to vibrate with the massive sound waves breaking upon the nearby surfaces; the windows and fittings around me rattle. I feel like it’s the best spot in the room. And finally, Furchick takes the stage to round off the evening. It’s a wonderful set that employs magnets, frying pans, spatulas, a log of wood, and a saw. All elements appear multiple times across the set. Modest electronic manipulation and looping build a bed upon which the physicality of the performance commands. This is Claire making the most of the minimal, drawing on decades of actual practice, in the execution of an idea. It lands like an exclamation point. It is such a treat to watch performers commit to pulling ideas into the world, where the physical labour is essential to the process of imagining and realising.

And then it’s over. Done. Dusted. One more overnight transit delivers me back to the shore of home, and a satisfied collapse.

But the end is not the end. I don’t know what’s next, it’s too early. But something will appear after rest and reflection. There a massive list of thanks for the huge amount of work to make 21 events possible, to all those who put their hands up to take that upfront responsibility of booking and such, the additional assistance for advertising and posters etc, to all the trusting drummers who lent gear, the other bands and performers who shared the bill, for the help with transport/accommodation/food, for those that hung around and connected, sharing stories, and for everyone who turned up and become part of an event. Thanks! Thanks! Thanks! Let all do it again sometime.