‘AFTERGLOW’ is the third release from New North, a concert series for exploratory music based in Narrm/Melbourne. It documents two captivating performance from New North's concert at Brunswick Mechanics Institute on February 24th, 2022.

About the Music:

JAMES MCLEAN:

Compositions and Improvisations for Drumset

James has developed an inimitable solo voice on the drumset that is documented on his albums Counter Clockwork, Oscillator and Interstitial.

James performance at New North was the first showing in a new phase of James's solo practice - a collection of new works tentatively titled 'Photo Book'. The music draws inspiration from the intensive, long-term practices of street photographers such as Trent Parke and Alec Soth, and the way that they return to places, ideas, and themes over the span of many years, producing tens of thousands of photos (and editing judiciously).

​JOE O'CONNOR

(in collaboration with Tim Green & Helen Svoboda): Five Moods, Five Poses

​It has been on my mind for some time to create a work that uses the durations of life drawing poses as its starting point. A few years back, I went through a period when I was attending life drawing sessions on a weekly basis. I enjoyed the satisfaction of developing a new craft, but the sessions themselves also became a kind of mindfulness  activity. The brevity of the early poses and the great difficulty of capturing  the human from meant that I had to approach the task with a great deal of concentration. Much like performing music, the drawings seemed to come out best when I reached a kind of flow state where the mark making was intuitive and unburdened by the clutter of the analytical mind. 

​This collection of five pieces marks the duration of five different poses by life model Felippe Canale. My intention was to create 1min, 2min, 5min and 15min poses, however the composition precess lead to a slight stretching or compressing of some of these durations. The movements combine live elements by me (trombone, piano, organ, samples, contact speakers and resonators) and Helen Svoboda (double bass) with tape tracks developed with Brisbane based percussionist and sound artist Tim Green. His contributions to 2'00" and 14'20" transformed these tacks, creating an immersive spacial quality, and his electronics were the initial impetus for the two 1'20" tracks. The tape track for 5'00" is by me alone. All bass parts are developed by Helen in response to the tape tracks. 

​Movements and Pose Durations:


1'20" A  

1'20" B

2'00"

5'00"

​14'00"