Here’s the rub: these days it seems like ya gotta think outside the box-of-thinking-outside-the-box just to get any solid thinking done at all. And with all the news of impending doom/significant creations to sort through — plus all those other decades/millenia of historical impending doom/significant creations to sort through — it can really be…a lot. Resourcefully, Australian multiartstrumentalist Ross Manning has a new album coming out on the avant-garde Room40 label to help teach us how to connect the dots between elements of perception and tactile ways to interpret the substratal forces existing in the “here” and “now.” Phew. Just in time!
Manning’s last album on the same label, Interlacing, was a real treat; progressing between spectral naval gazing and ominous tones as if the stars and our nightmares were equally accessible and mere inches apart. And his live performances are a confounding display of perceptibly, harnessing the power of found objects, “traditional” instruments, self-induced instruments, and visual elements that influence (and are influenced by) one other. Sometimes the installations are rigged like perpetual Rube Goldberg machines, and other times Manning acts as a sort of conductor and musician, responsively altering specific parts of the installation to intriguing results.
His latest audio document of this well-honed multidisciplinary approach is titled Reflex in Waves. It serves as a companion piece to his installation Dissonant Rhythms, which is currently on display at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane. IMA describes the visual element as “…a large-scale, self-playing instrument that resembles a wave form…” The album itself (sans any/all large-scale, self-playing instruments…unless you’re feeling especially ingenious?) will be available October 20 on vinyl and digital. In the mean time, (re)acquaint yourself with Manning’s dot-connecting, substratal forces-interpreting aesthetic via the clips below and pre-order
Reflex in Waves now on the label’s Bandcamp and website.
Reflex in Waves tracklisting:
01. Three Tuned Sets In Crystal
02. Where Points Meet
03. Reflex In Waves
04. Small Increments
05. Braking Formations
06. Cross A Strings