Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Award winning Naarm based musician Reuben Lewis and legendary Meanjin based spoken word poet Huda Fadlelmawla combine forces in the world premiere of their live duo. Known as 'Huda the Goddess' on stage, Huda Fadlelmawla delivers powerful spoken word poetry about equality, her journey as a Sudanese refugee and women's rights. Through trumpet alongside live processing with pedals and laptop Reuben Lewis devises an ever expanding and "vivid listening experience that gleams with sinister detail" (The Wire). There is a vast, monolithic intensity to this collaboration. It plays on expectations, shattering all semblance of familiar form, story and symbol. We are instead evoked to create a new narrative, one that is just between us the listener, the poet and the sound world.

"Together Huda and Reuben meld words and sounds into new configurations, neither poem nor music, but something else. Fields of electronic pulse and trumpet loops serve to buttress a voice that speaks: all I know is who I am at this very moment and how I feel in this very second. A poetry that foregrounds instantaneity, that seeks truth in the roots of improvisation, holding faith in the ephemeral." -- From the liner notes by Des Cowley

"Story of Another Soul is an irresistible and unforgettable album for its irrefutable honesty. It is a profound offering into the poetics of presence and stillness. Inviting the audience to be and to feel moved by the world seen and unseen and to in the spirit of reciprocity move the world from a place of cup overflowing where one's wellbeing is prioritised first. The album is a decolonial dreaming of new futures and we get a sense that this exercise is far from futile that it is indeed a necessity for our very existence. It is the love letter, the love dedication to humanity we so needed in these times." -- Tariro Mavondo

Work Details

Year: 2024

Instrumentation: Spoken voice, trumpet, electronics.

Duration: 45 min.

Contents note: When People Ask You -- Break -- That Hollow Wind -- These Stories -- The Type of Love -- Dress Ups -- Story of Another Soul.