The not so quiet me is on this really interesting and thought provoking release (Free Download) from a label I have heaps of respect for –

The premise of the release was explained by Claire Furchick Pannell and Cissi GuitarDemon of Dog Park Records –

displacement – belonging
by Various artists

Two things have circled my mind recently – firstly, ideas around displacement vs belonging and secondly, our relationships with each other and our natural environment.

This poem by Oodgeroo Noonuccal might be helpful as a starting point:

Municipal Gum

Gumtree in the city street,
Hard bitumen around your feet,
Rather you should be
In the cool world of leafy forest halls
And wild bird calls
Here you seems to me
Like that poor cart-horse
Castrated, broken, a thing wronged,
Strapped and buckled, its hell prolonged,
Whose hung head and listless mien express
Its hopelessness.
Municipal gum, it is dolorous
To see you thus
Set in your black grass of bitumen–
O fellow citizen,
What have they done to us?

 

My Response –

In 2015 I read a book about Aboriginal art, which depicted how the Earth and all things on it had a place, importance and inner soul. With this in mind I released an album which took as its starting point these beliefs about the Speaking Land / Earth and the concept of animism as a whole. The final track, which was never released, was an experiment combining all the music into a crying cacophony – the Earth in lament with what we have done to it.

Code Red is Too Late is based on that track, slowly deconstructing and disintegrating the sound, Seabirds mournfully cry and the Earth sends out an S.O.S which we fail, or choose not to listen to. The tone is sharp like a papercut, you know it’s there, often you can ignore it but then it reminds you that it hurts and you should take notice.

This is also how I feel personally, increasingly feeling displaced and alienated from the World I see around me and the destruction we so carelessly vent on the Earth.

Artwork by Museleon based on ‘A Seabird decomposing in Half Moon Bay, California’ by Intothewoods29 on Wikimedia

P.S There’s a lovely small review of my track from a site I have loads of fondness for here –Yeah I Know it Sucks