austraLYSIS and SOMA ARTS
Creating, performing and publishing new sound and intermedia arts internationally.

INFORMATION austraLYSIS and SOMA Activities since about 2011 and a few Press Comments

 

Additional information on earlier work : 2011-2003      2009-2004       2003-1999      RationalArtsFunding      SoundMediaforMuseums      DrMetagroove      LowHz       

Some press comments:

On recent commercial releases: the latest austraLYSIS Electroband CD, History goes Everywhere, Tall Poppies TP234 was released in late September 2015 (John Clare: 'History Goes Everywhere and space travels freely too ... I love it'); Multi-Piano, Tall Poppies TP225 (double CD, and download: Roger Dean solo and computer-interactive piano), reviewed by John Shand of the Sydney Morning Herald (2013): ‘trail-blazing’,'willing grooves', 'earthy approach', ‘surprising and disquieting’, ‘exquisite’, ‘crystalline or tumultuous’, ‘brilliant musicianship’, ‘exploding with vivacity'

Peter McCallum (Sydney Morning Herald online, 201411): 'created surprising meanings and juxtapositions against a complex sonic background ... Serial Meantimes by Andrew Milne and Roger Dean created a fascinating complex interaction of regular and irregular sonic patterns of textural virtuosity' ... [in summary:] It is a brave new world that hath such music in it.'

Michael Tucker (201305, in the European Jazz Journal), giving Dean's MultiPiano (2012) double-album 5 stars: 'a strikingly intelligent but also soulful pianist .... beautifully programmed ... [fashions] a densely-packed, yet once again lucid electroacoustic poetics of multilayered time ... retains deep albeit transmuted links with tradition... one of the most refreshing avant-garde releases – consistently as enjoyable as it is thought provoking – that I've heard in a long time'.

Activities:

We continue collaborating with Will Luers (video, USA: work image), and Keith Armstrong (installation and video, Australia) to create new works. An earlier work with Luers, motions, is included in the newly released 3rd international collection of the Electronic Literature Organisation (2016): our contribution along with others has attracted attention in the Huffington Review. Our first work with Will, Film of Sound, was shown in the Melbourne seenSound screenings on November 9, 2016 (at the Loop Bar).

Roger Dean presented his solo MultiPiano show (piano, electronics, algorithmic piano, computer sound, real-time graphics) at Silence, in Guelph Canada on Saturday 7th May 2016.

Hazel Smith's new volume of poems for the page, Word Migrants (Giramondo Publishing) was launched on 7 April 2016 at GleeBooks; she performed to an appreciative audience and Joy Wallace perceptively introduced the volume.

Dean directed The Kinetic Jazz Orchestra at the Foundry, Sydney, in the premiere of his FiFu 2 (20160227): FiFu refers to the learning, memory, fission and fusion of live-created musical ideas. austraLYSIS featured at Riverside Theatre, Parramatta, in Sound Meets Text 20151208. We celebrated the 100th birthday of the eminent Australian sculptor Inge King on 26 November 2015: the documentary film A Thousand Different Angles (for which we provided some of the music) was on display at the National Gallery of Australia as part of a celebratory of her work (until February 2016). Torbjorn Hultmark premiered Dean's new composition Vocal Shafts for soprano trombone and electronics in the Being Human Festival (London, 20151116). (and a different version of one piece on it, Blue Bus is also published in Gangway). The first FiFu appears on the album.

austraLYSIS co-presented new acousmatic and live electroacoustic music in MicroWorlds, a concert in Sydney, under the continuing umbrella of the New Music Network on Sunday November 8 2015 at 17.00 at the East Recital Hall, Sydney Conervatorium; special guest was the wonderful shakuhachi player, Riley Lee. A recent piece for him by our director Roger Dean was included, and the concert also celebrated our new Tall Poppies CD History Goes Everywhere (released September 2015). More event details are here.

Other Recent performances: at Østre performance gallery in Bergen, Norway (201508: video tweet), featuring Hazel Smith; and at the Angst Gallery,Vancouver, Washington, USA (201508 : video tweet), featuring Roger Dean.

LYSIS Reissue series compiles Cycles (1977), Dualyses (1978) and Superimpositions (1980), plus new material (Double CD, SOMA 788) ... Dean's Loosely (1981) for improvisers' orchestra, on Kinetic Jazz 2011, Available online through Bamboozle. .... Recent(ly discovered!): LYSIS' 1987 performance of our commission, Omarama, by John Rimmer (Waiteata collection of New Zealand music, 2008: here)

2015: the austraLYSIS Electroband appeared in the 40th year celebrations of Kinetic Energy Theatre Company (20150927) at St Lukes, Enmore. The new cd History Goes Everywhere had just been released on Tall Poppies and some of its pieces were included in the performance. There was also a new piece by Roger Dean, Inquisitions (using digitally overlayed and transformed live performed material) and a new multi-performer version of Greg White's Replicant series pieces.

Roger Dean's new piece February's Pitches, for Riley Lee (shakuhachi), electronics and members of the Kinetic Jazz Orchestra was premiered at the Foundry (20150213), together with his Bikinetic, and music by Don Reid, Riley Lee, Mike Kenny and others.

austraLYSIS presented for the NMN at Sydney Conservatorium: 20141109(program notes ... crit): Metaphorics, by Hazel Smith included live-coding by Roger Dean using Charlie Roberts's brilliant Gibber platform. Charlie has posted the audio.

Sneak preview of the 2015 austraLYSIS Electroband CD, History goes Everywhere: the Blue Bus is now published in Gangway).

Hazel Smith and Roger Dean created Bird Migrants, a piece for radio commissioned by the ABC, first broadcast 20141109, and now available as a podcast.

Video Collaboration with Will Luers (US): Motions, premiere Sydney 2013, aided by an Australia Council Digital and New Media Writing grant to Hazel Smith. Online/ebook release under development. Film of Sound (recent showings: ISEA, USA, 2012/09; Sydney 2013/03; Portland Experimental Film Festival, USA (20130520-26); also online in Cordite journal 2013. Translations:Hypnagogia (premiered 20130509 Sydney). Luers became an overseas member of austraLYSIS (201303). ...

Dean participates in an Australia Council/NBN grant (2012-13) with Keith Armstrong and team creating Long Time, No See (premiere at ISEA 20130615, Sydney), now online for participation...currently at the Cube, QUT, Brisbane (2014-). ...

Matt McMahon and Dean formed Quadrilateral, two pianists at one or two pianos (premiere at Kinetic Jazz, 201301:listen to piece6 or to piece7).

November 2014: austraLYSIS presented Travels, Places a performance for the New Music Network (NMN) at the Sydney Conservatorium, 11/ 9, 17.00...Program notes are here, and Peter McCallum's positive review in the Sydney Morning Herald (online) is here.

Our Multi-Piano CD receives Five-stars in a review in Jazz Journal (2013) by Michael Tucker...

June 11 2014 Smith and Dean were in London UK for the Amid the Ruins series, at Daniel Blau Galler, Hoxton Sq ...June 20 they presented Motions in Milwaukee, USA; July 2 2014, they performed in Manchester UK for The Other Room (+ info)...

March 2014: Dean composed two 'calls' (listen bustard ... coucal) for an installation piece by Alison Clouston and Boyd, calling for the conservation of Bimblebox and its 153 bird species, touring Australia until 2016....

February 2014:Graham Collier's Last Suites for his Jazz Ensemble (recorded UK 2013) released (GCM2014, comprising Luminosity and The Blue Suite; Dean plays piano and electronics). ...

April 26 2014, Dean performed with Evans, Slater and Barker (SEDition B) at Kinetic Jazz, Sydney and directed a new composition for the Kinetic Jazz Orchestra...

austraLYSIS presented for the NMN at Sydney Conservatorium: 20131130 Netting the Nodes(program notes ... crit)

Dean performed and presented a Keynote talk on Interactive Sound (alongside Diemo Schwarz of IRCAM) in Singapore 13 Sound Symposium at Nanyang Technical University, Singapore (201311).

Finitude (Interactive sound for an installation by Keith Armstrong and colleagues): v03 Beijing (National Museum of Science and Technology, Nov1-30 2012); Screenspace Gallery Melbourne 3-27 October 2013.

In London, during the UK summer 2013, Dean (piano) joined alumni of the late Graham Collier (201307), including John Marshall (drums), and Geoff Warren(saxes, flute, now directing) to record Graham's last two compositions; and 20130815 played at Cafe Oto with Alex McLean, Leafcutter John and Paul Hession. ...

June 20 2013, Waterman's Arts Centre, London, Hazel Smith and Roger Dean presented creative work at ePoetry...

June 2013 Long Time, No See (LTNS) was launched at Electric Nights, Parramatta within ISEA (15th) and is installed at ICE in Parramatta. The LTNS app is available, and allows participants to undertake and document walks, focused on ecological sustainability issues. The web work is now online and growing through community interaction, at www.long-time-no-see.org.

June 2013 Roger Dean (joining McClary, Stevens and Walser) at the University of Western Sydney conference on the future of music. ...June 15/16 2013 Roger Dean's algorithmic music was in the Metamusic Weekend, Sydney. He premiered Serial Solutions 2 (using a rigorous computational serial pitch improviser, and improvising at the piano with it); and performed in Ollie Bown's Zamyatin...

May 19 2013: An extensive interview by Cathy Peters of Sandy Evans, our saxophonist was on Radio National's Into The Musicl (ABC). It was available on line for some time thereafter. From the transcript, here is Sandy on the impact of austraLYSIS on her musical life:

... bringing in an Influence from another very significant  area of my life, which is my work with Roger Dean and austraLYSIS. So in that group I have had a chance to learn a tremendous amount about both free improvisation and guided improvisation, and also computer-interactive improvisation and tuning systems and thoughts about rhythm and texture and timbre that have arisen out of electronic and computer music. So Greg White is another musician that we work with in austraLYSIS, so I invited him to be part of [my group] Gest8 .... .

May 9 2013: austraLYSIS at the Playhouse, University of Western Sydney, Kingswood campus (13.00), including sound, text, av work and a premiere of Translations:Hypnagogia, audio-visual work by Will Luers, Roger Dean and austraLYSIS.

Listen again online in March 2013: 176 Sound Engines and Sonic Finitude (ABC New Music Up Late program 20130302). ...Previous New Music Network performance 2012/9/29: program notes; Arts Hub review.  

Kinetic Jazz January 2013: 24th Roger Dean and Matt McMahon premiered their new duo formation Quadrilateral, for one or two pianos, 24th January.... sounds from the Stuart Piano that it has never heard before! Roger also directed convolutions and compositions with the Kjazz younger players and with the Kinetic Jazz Orchestra (KJO), and Matt featured with Remco Keijzer during the festival. Wednesday February 13 2013, at the 505 Club: Roger again collaborated with the KJO.

In 2012, we also collaborated again with Halcyon, the adventurous vocal ensemble (2012/11/24: program) and the ABC broadcast and podcast from this is yet to appear.... Roger Dean appeared in the London Jazz Festival (Graham Collier Memorial Band, BBC), and gave a keynote talk and performances at the interactive piano symposium, Goldsmiths, London (both 2012/11). ...

Finitude. Roger Dean also made sound for a major new installation by Keith Armstrong and his team, Finitude, presented first at the Mildura Palimpsest, September 9-11, 2011. The installation was shown in a group occupying a series of rooms the Kar-Rama Motel in the town. Keith Armstrong's Embodied Media web site provides detailed and extensive material on Finitude: documentation, images, video extracts as well as interviews with both Keith himself, and Roger Dean. Recent showing: Artisan Gallery, Brisbane, April5 - June9, 2012; Beijing National Museum of Arts and Sciences, November-December 2012. 2013 September: Melbourne.

Video Collaboration with Will Luers. This collaboration developed the work Film of Sound, for its premiere at the New Music Network Event, Sydney, on December 10, 2011. It has since been presented at Short takes on Long poems. a Trans -Tasman Symposium. Auckland University, March 29-30th, 2012. Further screenings due shortly: Electrifying Literature: Affordances and Constraints: Electronic Literature Organisation Conference, Morgantown,USA, West Virginia University, Gallery show, June 20-23, 2012; Literature and Music Conference, Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Roumania 10-12th May 2012; Mix: Merging into Media Conference. Bath Spa University,UK 16th-18th July 2012; ISEA Electronic Arts Conference, USA 2012; Sydney Conservatorium (29 September 2012). Hazel Smith has been awarded a Digital and New Media Writing grant from the Australia Council for the Arts to develop further work (2012-2013) in new media writing with Luers and Dean (announced October 2012).

Roger Dean's solo double CD of interactive piano, MULTI-PIANO, spanning 1978-2012 was released 2012/9/29, and has already received broadcasts (e.g. ABC Jazz Track, 20121021, available online for some time).

Hazel Smith performed her text works in Leeds, UK (2012/8/19) for Manchester-run experimental poetry series, The Other Room (flyer).

2012: austraLYSIS member Sandy Evans released her album Cosmic Waves a cross-cultural collaboration with Guru Mani and Sruthi Laya of India, on the Indian Label Underscore Records (12EX001ACD). Roger Dean contributed transformed drones for several pieces on the album, duly appreciated in at least one review, as 'whale' sounds. The sleeve information is not clear/ correct about the drones: they appear on tracks 5, 8 and 10.

Recent austraLYSIS work towards the development of generative computational software for real-time use of time series analysis models of music, developed in the basic research work of Roger Dean, was premiered by him at Serial Space, Sydney (2012/04/21) at the Algorithmic Improvisor Performance Night. This followed a software hack organised by Ollie Bown, focused on generative code. Roger presented Tones to Tunes, a prototype of a real-time algorithm for modelling rhythmic information into melodic.

The austraLYSIS Electroband appeared for SIMA, at the Sound Lounge 2012/8/31... with a premiere of Inside the Magnetic Spaces, a collaboration with Andrew McPherson and his magnetic resonator piano.

Roger Dean played piano with the acoustic formation SEDition (Slater, Evans, Dean) at Kinetic Jazz, 2012/4/15, Enmore.. as Sandy Evans had broken her nose in India, she was replaced by Simon Barker (drums) for an outing which Graham Jones,co-organiser of Kinetic Jazz described positively in his ensuing comments as 'frightening'. Roger played examples from the Kinetic Jazz festival, including some of his own MultiPiano work, and a virtual duet with Phil Slater, during an extended interview with Matt McMahon and Dan Barnett on their program "Blow", on Radio 2RES, 2012/04/12.

austraLYSIS' recorded music is used in Kinetic Energy Theatre Co's new performance piece, Five Days Lost, words by Tom Shapcott (October 4-7 2012 at Kinetic Jazz: for these events Roger also provided music based on Thelonius Monk's 1962 solo performance of Body and Soul, for a video by Saha-Mayousha Jones, based creatively on Graham Jones dancing Eccentrics, from c. 1989). Previous showings of Five Days Lost: Jan 26/28 2012) and other coming presentations... Dean has previously provided music for five major works of KETC, well described on their website.

See a short video interview (December 2011) with Roger Dean and Hazel Smith about austraLYSIS, from the Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax web site..

Roger Dean is writing a work for Halcyon, for two voices (Alison Morgan and Jenny Duck-Chong) and electroacoustics (for Nov 24 2012 presentation), and a purely electroacoustic work for presentation in an event curated by Daniel Blinkhorn, also in the New Music Network series.

Roger directed two convolutions at Kinetic Jazz Jan 26, 2012, one in collaboration with video-artist Saha Jones (Academy of Emergency Art).

JazzGroove Festival 2012: Roger Dean discussed improv in Australia, January 13 2012 at the Old 505.

New Music Network  December 10, 2011. During 2011 austraLYSIS worked on Playing Film, a program not simply of music for film, but of music and spoken text that drives some filmic pieces, including a new collaboration with American video-artist Will Luers. The program was in the New Music Network series on December 10, 2011 at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. An extract of the piece is here, and there is an early version of the piece too: program notes.    

Kinetic Jazz October 7, 2011. The austraLYSIS Electroband appeared at the Kinetic Jazz Festival, October 7 2011, in Enmore, Sydney. Roger Dean also presened some of his music for an orchestra of improvisers, with the Kinetic Jazz Orchestra, on October 6.  

Commercial and open access releases of austraLYSIS' work:
austraLYSIS commercial work online: we are now available on Amazon, CDBaby, iTunes, and Spotify, and all our Tall Poppies recordings are available for download at the Australian Music Centre (AMC).
Some SOMA releases are now available at the AMC site, including the 2012 reissue of Cyles, Dualyses, and Superimpositions (SOMA 788).


austraLYSIS Recent Open-Access Releases : Instabilities 2 and Speak Far and Wide appeared in 2011 in the longstanding US journal Drunken Boat, volume 12. Also recently published were our pieces Clay Conversations and two works in the journal Ekleksographia. See our listen/view page for a broader selection of our work.

See also soundsRite, a journal of online creative work in sound, text and image, founded (2009) and edited by Hazel Smith and Roger Dean.

Other Activities and Earlier Work:
Go to our Recent Work page for more information on some of our other activities.


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austraLYSIS is based in Sydney and London. Contact: PO Box 225, Milperra, NSW 2214, Sydney, Australia. Tel + 61 481 309612;
email : dr.metagroove@mindless.com