Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

An APRA award winning composition, depth disintegration was originally performed Homophonic in 2021.

You Are Here are absolutely thrilled and honored to present the Canberra premiere of depth disintegration as part of Cahoots Lab 2023. Sia is long-time YAH affiliate, a Cahoots alumni, and we believe she is one of Canberra’s greatest artistic assets. The work continues to extend Sia’s very personal canon of exploring personal being/identity and working closely with fellow queer musician Benjamin Anderson during the conception of this piece, she found a new comrade in the midst of discussing the real story of public perception.

depth disintegration represents one half of human nature, an experience of strength at its most fraught. Years of building facades and public impressions crumbling at the pressure of truths and realities. It is a visceral work that allows space for vulnerability as it does a kick in the guts.

This work, for a single bass instrument, explores human flaw within real time chance performance against a precise arrangement of electronic loops, some in a high register but mainly an exploration of dense bass frequencies that uses the acoustic bass presence to buffer and cut through the slow sub-bass tones and pulses. The work is performed live by Benjamin Anderson on double-belled bass trombone with electronic playback. He will perform the work in the round and in near darkness, with the audience surrounding him at ground level.

Unlike many other works in Cahoots Lab, depth disintegration is a finished artwork, not a work-in-progress showing. Sia explains how it fits in the program:

“This is a chance for me to celebrate the shared creative journey with YAH at a peak time in my practice. YAH has supported me since involving me in the first festival in 2011 and I have participated in one way or another every year since then. It makes perfect sense for me to premiere this national award-winning work in my hometown as part of YAH activities and for YAH to be acknowledged for their role in developing a local artist to hit their stride as a global artist.”

The work is performed in near darkness, contains close amplification of acoustic sound and electronic sound across a number of hearing/physical spectrums. We encourage all who attend to be in the space for the whole duration of the work but anyone can leave as they need.

This work was first commissioned for Homophonic 2021 as the winner of the Homophonic! Pride Prize and received an APRA AMCOS Art Music Award in 2022 for Work Of The Year: Electroacoustic/Sound Art.

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website

Featured artists

• Music of Sia Ahmad