Audible Edge 2021’s program has literally something for everyone – or at least, everyone with a penchant for the strange and wonderful. Between April 6 and 18, the festival invites you to monolithic performances within a surround sound speaker array, basement shows traversing experimental theatre, avant-garde metal and free jazz, oddball parties and folk shows, and that’s not even half of it. You will love some of it. You will find some of it confusing. So will we. This is good!
An Ocean of Ears opened the festival on Tuesday April 6 with sparkly effervescence, sound bubbling and fizzing through the Old Customs House in Walyalup/Fremantle out of sixteen speakers and a subwoofer, with works by artists based between the Philippines, Los Angeles and across Australia. The floodgates open for Playing and Re-Playing in the same venue tonight, Wednesday April 7, with an absurdist film by Soda Jerk and a challenging provocation by the Namibian/South African duo Listening at Pungwe heading up the program. Live performance enters the fray with Every Which Way on Thursday April 8, as a dance collaboration between Lauren Catellani & Alex Turner, the drum-circle-gone-very-wrong Ashes of Burnt Sage, and the intimate violin & erhu duo of Lily Tait & Jasmin Wing-Yin Leung interact with the impressive and immersive speaker system.
On Friday April 9, attend an opening of the intimate and expansive Listening to Dryandra Woodland, and head on down to Serf Punk at The Bird to hear musique concrete, dance and medieval music collide in a strange revelry. Saturday offers artist talks, with a chance to dig deep into the peculiar minds of a handful of festival artists, whilst Long Notes With Friends promises a slow Sunday in Hyde Park with two durational chamber ensemble pieces performed by an octet of festival musicians.
The Rechabite is the venue of choice for the festival’s second week. Upstairs in the Hall, at Of Cloven Hoof in Honey on Wednesday April 14, WAM-nominated songwriting wunderkind Nika Mo launches a new album on Tone List featuring a nine-piece band that smashes improvised music and avant-garde folk together in a sticky mess. A collaboration with the Perth Jazz Society follows in the Rechabite’s basement, as Djuna Lee and Ben Greene take the lead on new projects, bringing jazz’s rhythmic energy into unruly new territories at Make A Jazz Noise Here. On Friday April 16, ambient music, avant-garde metal, noise and experimental theatre co-exist at Come What May, where Joe Lui, members of Tangled Thoughts of Leaving, Furchick, Lia T and more share the stage as they always ought to have.
The festival closes with a cocoon-like experience in the intimacy of Backlot Cinemas, where Digital Penetration launches a new video album on Tone List, and Filth Goddess share a new video work and a ritualistic live performance.
Audiences can also take part in a variety of online experiences, including a collection of works on Liquid Architecture’s Disclaimer Journal, the NotNotMusic series of lockdown commissions and podcasts, and four new album releases on the Tone List label.
Audible Edge is finding joy in a huge range of genres, approaches and practices, adjoined by a curiosity for sound and the way sound makes us feel, think and move. Some of it is so over-the-top that you will find it hard to take seriously. Some of it is so strange you will have no choice but to be impressed. Some of it will fail – risk is part of the game when challenging norms. But all of it is made by people who deeply love and care about what they are doing despite virtually no commercial interest (and a lot of difficulty explaining what they do to family). Audible Edge is our place to share this love, to offer each other unlimited permission, and to see what’s made possible when we do.
All shows as part of the Audible Edge festival are pay-what-you-want. There is a suggested tiered pricing for each show (usually $10/$20/$30) but the festival also welcomes less, heaps more, or nothing. Audible Edge rely on your support to keep this festival going – but also want you to come to everything, and don’t want any barriers to that. So book your tickets, to everything, now!
Audible Edge 2021 runs from April 6th – 18th. Tickets can be purchased and the full program downloaded on the festival website ae.tonelist.com.au
Source: Media release, image: Sakidasumi
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