Thrilled to present a very special recording from the great Australian cellist and composer, Judith Hamann, whose work encompasses performance, improvisation, electro-acoustic composition, site specific generative work, and micro-tonal systems in their creative practice.
For this set, recorded at OTO in December 2022, Judith draws from process-based materials to do with humming and shaking, and from the start there is an immediate symbiosis between voice and body, body and instrument, with the sense that the cello is not so much being played as acting as extension of the body itself.
In the opening section, Judith seemingly crafts a one-person duet between voice and cello; a simultaneous call-and-response where the relationship between the caller and responder is ever fluid and shifting. There's a generosity here in the unselfconscious intimacy of the playing, inviting the audience to witness what at first seems to be as much personal ritual as public performance. The wordless vocalisations and bowed tones circle and weave around each other, as open and ethereal as gossamer threads in sunlight.
These threads hold weight, however, and as the hummed notes fall away a greater density starts to build upon the strings; harmonics and overtones pulsing in unison as shifting long notes gradually curl and fret underneath, with clusters of notes emerging and submerging with a restless momentum. Judith dextrously combines a richly evocative, ever-evolving tonality with a lightness of touch that doesn't so much belie the impressive technique displayed across both hands, as render it moot; virtuosity is fully evident here but virtuosity is not the point.
As the intricately woven tones gradually fragment and pull apart in the final few moments of the set, there is a palpable sense that the space of the room has subtly shifted, through a sound as weightless as the air, and as full of life.
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Recorded by Billy SteigerMixed and mastered by Oli BarrettCover illustration by Judith Hamann
