GOOLUGATUP SOUNDS 16 feat. SCRATCHING, MARCUS WHALE (eora / nsw), LAURA ALTMAN (eora / nsw) Friday 3 November 2023 / Free entry from 6pm
GS16 finds us in the height of Kambarang season, welcoming three acts who illuminate different threads connecting familiar genre tropes with freeform sound exploration. SCRATCHING is the ever-evolving collaboration of Grace Sanders and Ezekiel Padmanabham, augmented live by some of Boorloo’s finest players and sound-shapers. With Grace’s introspective-yet-sprawling songwriting and Ezekiel’s omnivorous production approach, Scratching can veer from futuristic dance-pop to lo-fi folk; ambient balladry to chiming electronica; even to noise and accelerationist pop-punk without once breaking the spell of their distinctive soundworld. Never the type to rest on their laurels, Scratching have hinted at an extra-special set for Goolugatup Sounds 16; whatever it is is likely to be bold and bright, emanating life-affirming creative energy.
Travelling West from Sydney/Gadigal country is MARCUS WHALE, one of the most unmistakeable presences in the Australian DIY music scene. When he’s not making avant-pop with long running duo Collarbones or gothy punk with Perfect Actress, Marcus’ solo practice excavates the “blurry intersection between desire and religion” and “the poetics of memory and ghostliness.” His crystalline voice is typically front and centre - with dramatic electronics, heady percussion and warped club rhythms forming a an ornate, at times grotesque architecture for it to inhabit and diffuse. Effortlessly folding in the aesthetics of opera, horror cinema and hyperreal erotica, Marcus crafts singular moods and an entirely unforgettable live show.
LAURA ALTMAN, also based on Gadigal Country, is a cherished fixture in Sydney’s experimental sound community - known for her roles in projects like Splinter Orchestra, Prophets, Great Waitress, Couch (with Low Flung) and many more. As a composer and solo performer, Laura explores everything from painterly drones and “extended techniques” to song-forms, social practice and the zoomed-in details of timbre and resonance. Tone List (who alongside Goolugatup are presenting Laura’s artist residency at Yagan Mia / Wireless Hill) remark that “Laura has an extraordinary and unique practice of improvising with clarinet, cassette tapes, resonators and acoustic feedback from small speakers, in a manner where it's hard to distinguish what thing is making what sound.” Whatever their puzzling origins, Laura’s sounds are bound to captivate, thrill and intrigue.
