Overlay - Andrew Saragossi
The Relative Size Of Things - Theo Carbo & Rachael Archibald
In the world of jazz and improvised music, the video clip or music video never really seemed to take off. Like most of gen Y, I grew up watching a healthy dose of Rage and Video Hits on a Saturday morning and as a kid I think a part of me considered those video clips to be like a documentary into the life of a professional musician. It seemed as though they spent a lot of time lounging pool side, surrounded by bikini-clad women and when they weren’t doing that, they were playing at massive outdoor festivals to audiences of thousands and then going to really cool after parties. As a ten year old, I was sold! And although it may seem like I currently live a lifestyle of glitz and glamour as a small-time, local jazz guitarist in Melbourne, I can’t help but feel like I was misled…
But as I’ve gotten older and music videos migrated to the internet, my love affair with recorded music has blossomed while my music video consumption has dwindled. While I must confess that my knowledge of pop culture tends to align with the geriatric demographic, according to my sources (a.k.a my teenage guitar students), music videos are still very hot right now. In the attention economies of Instagram/Facebook/TikTok, music videos are everywhere, often seeming to blur the line between artwork and advertisement. And though I despise this hyper-commercial notion of using a video to sell music, I do think that there is vast unexplored potential for independent, creative music makers to engage with video and visual mediums in a meaningful and integrated way.
All of this serves as a lengthy introduction to my deep dive into what I think are two really unique, engaging and collaborative mixed media artworks; The Relative Size of Things by Theo Carbo and Rachael Archibald and Overlay by Andrew Saragossi + various film makers. It also occurred to me while writing this that these guys may be slightly offended by describing their releases as “music videos”. And though on paper they are technically music videos, for the readers at home, think a little less Avril Lavigne’s Sk8er Boi (is there a more quintessential noughties music video?) and a bit more audio-visual experience projected onto a dark wall in a contemporary art gallery.
What I love about both of these projects is how the visual medium offers another access point to music that might best be described as challenging for a general audience. This music sits firmly in the sphere of contemporary art music, Theo’s compositions made up of electronically processed sounds and samples while Andrew’s music is performed on solo saxophone. Without being condescending, both pieces invite the listener into their audio-visual worlds, the video creating another perspective from which the audience can enjoy the experience. In both works it is immediately captivating to observe how the music and video interact with each other.
In Andrew Saragossi’s Overlay, the filmmakers have received footage of Andrew performing his compositions in a stark, neutral studio space and are then given free rein to overlay layers of visual effects and alternate footage to reflect and respond to the musical narrative. In this instance, the music has been conceived of first and the filmmakers are given the chance to create and contribute around the music. Having listened to the recordings on their own a lot, I feel that music is completely self-sufficient with each piece using extended techniques and sounds to explore the sonic possibilities of the solo saxophone. However, when watching with the video, I find myself noticing new things in the recordings and enjoying how the visuals change and adapt to the compositions.
For instance, in the opening track Dull as Dishwater (with visuals by Rachel Choi) I love the way the ripples in the water look rhythmic, the pulses almost matching the accents of the circular breathing saxophone. Musically, this piece seems to play with contrast; long sustained sections build tension that break out into joyous altissimo melodies that are more harmonically minded. In this sense, the piece is far from dull, brimming with energy and excitement that perfectly matches the natural activity and movement within the shots of water running, trickling and sitting on different surfaces. This video is made up largely of other footage that is interspersed with sections of Andrew’s performance, whilst others take the idea of overlay more literally. In Andrew’s stunning rendition of Stardust (with visuals by Eden Meure), the footage from the studio is a more constant presence, the dark studio used as a night-sky backdrop upon which coloured, luminous shapes and lights flicker and shimmer across Andrew’s lone figure. There is so much humour and quirkiness in this deconstructed version of Stardust, jumping between different registers of the saxophone with long moments of silence delineating each musical thought. The visual lights and layers are really closely connected to the dynamics and shapes in the music, the faintest, dim blue light accompanying a waning long note that bursts into a bright white ball of light with the return of the melody. This track is such a beautiful way to close the EP and when combined with the music video, totally captures the ideas and themes found in Andrew’s solo saxophone concept and the EP as a whole.
Alternatively, in Theo Carbo and Rachel Archibald’s The Relative Size of Things, the development process seems to be largely collaborative, both the music and visuals created in tandem. Watching and listening to these pieces, I feel like I’m stepping into a world that it is completely other: made up of digitally rendered greyscale masses and shapes rotating and wobbling on screen accompanied by electronic sounds and layers of sampled, whispering voices speaking in an alien dialect. It is all very weird but in the most amazing way! It transports the audience to another place like all good art should, and I could while away hours watching these music videos.
Watching in order, the first video entitled crbn ncls, introduces and sets up the musical and visual landscape that we inhabit for the next 15 - 20 minutes. I love how they maintain a really consistent aesthetic across all four pieces, with enough subtle variation and changes in mood/texture to keep the audience entranced. In crbn ncls, you observe these two shapes interacting, one stick like object that rotates back and forth on a horizontal axis and a growing textured, black ball that eventually encompasses the whole screen. The music starts off feeling in time, until this jilted, percussive sound takes over with long drones shimmering in and out of the mix. Throughout the piece, the idea of texture seems really present. As the video zooms into the surface of the ball, we discover all of this detail and movement that by the end becomes its own world. The music follows suit, where at around 3.10 there is an elongation of all of the sounds, almost like the short, percussive sounds from before have been slowed down to expose all of their microscopic intricate detail. What makes The Relative Size of Things so successful for me, is how the music and video manages to balance a sense of the avant garde with moments of great beauty and magic. The final movement, magellanic clouds, sees the return of the perfect 4th motive from organelle (that I just can’t help but hear as I-V, or like a really slow sousaphone part…), this time sung slightly out of tune with a child-like voice. But intermittently, a beautiful lydian melody shimmers across the texture as the visuals float through this light cloud like landscape. Amidst the dark eeriness of some of the other movements, these moments of melody and harmony feel grounding, reminding me that I’m still here in the real world!