Vox - A New Weird Australia Compilation (September 2011)

The voice has served all sorts of purposes in modern sound, (ab)used frequently in popular music as more of a means to superficially command attention and engage on a human level with an often widely inattentive audience. To ignore the voice as a tool is to detach your music from immediate reality, to create sound as more of an art form; but to use it as means to achieve further abstraction from the world around us is something which has seen increasing use with the introduction of digital recording techniques and the innovative new scenes which they have subsequently spawned. 

New Weird Australia’s 17 track Vox compilation is quick to extinguish any pretences that it might focus solely on the voice as a musical phenomena; it is open-minded in its inclusion of instrumental drone, mystic folk and field recordings alongside a plethora of vocal techniques spanning several years of Australian experimentalism. A human purity is evident in the rawness and clarity of Kucka’s vocal on ‘Chinatown’, despite its percussive and East Asian influenced ascent. Alice Hui-Sheng Chang’s multi-layering vocally-induced drones on ‘Vein’ almost work the opposite way, and The Deadly Nightshades’ repetitive “..and it rained on my house, all summer..” on song Dobro #1 is an exercise in vocal layering with some beautiful and emotive results. The whole compilation is free to download.

• The Deadly Nightshades - Dobro #1 (MP3)
• Kucka - Chinatown (MP3)
• Kusum Normoyle - Octopus (MP3)
• Alice Hui-Sheng Chang - Vein (MP3)

From ‘Vox’ free to download at the NWA bandcamp.

New Weird Australia is not-for-profit and promotes Australian experimental artists through contributions to local broadcast, live events and free compilations (such as this one). They are funded in association with Australian Government and Arts Council. Submissions are encouraged.