Artefacts Vol. 2 Launch - photos and podcast

Here are some photos from Saturday night's launch.

ABC Classic FM's broadcast of the event, along with interviews with Ron Nagorcka and Shame File Music's Clinton Green, is streaming for the next few weeks here.

Launch broadcast

For those who can't make it to the launch, or want to relive the concert, it is being recorded by ABC Classic FM. Part of it will be broadcast later that evening on New Music Up Late from 10:30pm, and the rest at a later date. Tune in on the night or listen online via the website.

Jon Rose and the evolution of the violin

Jon Rose has been a mainstay of experimental and improvised music in Australia since the 1970s. Artefacts Volume 2 includes two tracks that feature Rose in different improvising ensembles featuring the likes of Rik Rue and Tony Hobbs.

Rose has been prolific in his work as an improvisor, composer and explorer or new instruments, whether they be bicycle powered orchestras or the use of Australian outback fences as string instruments that are often thousands of kilometres in length. One constant point of interest throughout Rose's career has been the exploration of the violin as a new kind of instrument.




Since 1987, Rose's Palimpolin Project has been steadily developing around the concept of an interactive violin bow that incorporates electronics into violin performance. Rose will perform with the latest incarnation of the interactive bow at the Artefacts Volume 2 launch concert.

Atom Bomb

Don Campau's excellent website The Living Archive of Underground Music recently published a historical overview of cassettes in Australian underground music, written by Artefacts compiler, Clinton Green. Amongst other things, the article discusses Ron Nagorcka's tape recorder opera "Atom Bomb" as a key event in the development of tape music (where tape recorders are the primary generators of aural and/or compositional materials) not only in Australia but internationally as well. "Atom Bomb" is essentially a dialogue between performers and several domestic tape recorders, where sonic materials (vocals and keyboards) are generated during the performance, sampled, played back and resampled by the tape recorders. In composing "Atom Bomb", Nagorcka recalled a statement from Jean Charles Francois earlier in the decade to the effect that ‘all electronic music is a distortion of music’s reality’; "Atom Bomb" is essentially an exploration of this concept with cassette tapes.

First performed at the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre in 1977 by Nagorcka and Warren Burt, "Atom Bomb" will be performed for the first time in thirty years by contemporary New Music trio, Golden Fur, at the launch for Artefacts volume 2, on 27 November 2010 at the Iwaki Auditorium in Melbourne. Don't miss this one-off re-imagining of a key work from the Australian experimental music canon.

Artefacts Volume II - launch concert

The release of the Artefacts of Australian experimental music: volume II 1974-1983 double CD will be celebrated with a special one-off concert in Melbourne on Saturday 27 November. Music and artists from the CD will be featured including:

- Ron Nagorcka's seminal tape recorder opera "Atom Bomb" (1977) performed by Golden Fur

- Jon Rose's staggering interactive violin bow.

- The Godfather of Australian industrial/dark wave, Browning Mummery

- Visionary composer/performer/instrument maker, Sarah Hopkins.

Saturday 27 November, 7:30pm

Iwaki Auditorium, Southbank Boulevard, Melbourne

Tickets $20 (available on the door).

This event has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory board.