- 1. SCATTERED BLUE BITS.
- The Australian Bower Bird collects small objects that appeal to him (mostly blue) to decorate his bower. This piece is also a collection - a landscape decorated with fragments that I am attracted to.
- 2. BRIDGE OF SIGH'S.
- Where does 'Sacred Music' end and 'Folk Music' begin?
- 3. INTO THE ETHER
- The 'ether' is sometimes used as a technical term meaning the layer in our atmosphere from which all AM radio waves bounce back to Earth. Wouldn't it be lovely to just float around up there for a while?
- 4. CLUB D MARY'S
- American, Irish, Indian...no point trying to define this one. I just go where my fingers lead me.
- 5. SCORDATURA
- Scordatura means to tune the strings to an irregular pitch. In this piece the violin strings are tuned to FCFC, a traditional Indian tuning.
- 6. SWEET TOOTH
- Well...we all need a little sugar now and then.
- 7. GRACE NOTES
- Fragments of nuances that lead to hints of previous melodies and thoughts.
- 8. DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY
- An invitation to lose yourself, to escape your thoughts. To disappear.
- 9. APPALACHIAN SUPERMARKET MUSIC
- After hearing a busker play this tune outside my local supermarket one night, I knew his playing somehow suited this album. The carpark provided a surprisingly good acoustic for recording him.
- 10. GOATS IN THE MORNING
- He could sing as well!
- 11. WINTERING
- Taking the Indian 'Raag Jog' as a starting point, this unrehearsed piece was recorded in a drafty stairwell in Flinders Lane, Melbourne. The first time we managed to get through the whole piece without interruption is what you hear!
- 12. REFUGE
- The viola melody is adapted from the centuries old tradition of singing verses from The Koran, the Muslim holy book.
- Ali (who provides the voice over) is a refugee who escaped from Iran with his family. Below is a translation of Ali describing his experience of travelling to Australia and then being held at the Woomera Detention Centre in South Australia with his wife and two small children for eight months in 2001. They now live in Melbourne under a Temporary
Protection Visa.
- "We felt like the people [at Woomera] were watching us. The guards - we felt like there was something between us, it was like we killed their mother or father or part of their family. The way they looked at us and the way they treated us. We felt like these people were taking revenge on us. Eight Months. Very difficult, very bad. I will never forget for the rest of my life, even my children they will never forget. The experience and the feeling, it's a deep cut in my heart. We felt that it was a place for torturing people. I felt I had reached the border and now I am going to start my life. A very happy and safe life in Australia. My faith in God and religion [helped me through this time], because when we arrived on the boat the captain said (he was a Muslim), 'The journey, it will be very difficult and the only way you are going to reach the other side is by praying. So every one of you start to pray because this is the only way you are going to reach there. There is no other way'."
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