Vegetable Bass - Helen Svoboda

It was 8.30pm, just after curfew on a Tuesday night and I was taking our beautiful foster greyhound Jeanie for a quick toilet stop in the park a few doors down from home. Where I live is right around the corner from the Melbourne Recital Centre, the Malthouse Theatre, the NGV, the Melbourne Theatre Company and the VCA. On any given night it is normally bustling with; theatre goers walking arm in arm to a show, proud parents fighting for a carpark to see their child’s VCA recital, stage tech’s having a smoke break and friends catching up for a drink before a play. But on this night, it was completely deserted, silent except for the sound of the empty ghost trams rattling along St Kilda Road and the clinking of Jeanie’s collar as she sniffed around the park.

And so, it felt eerily prophetic listening to the lyrics of A Tree Tells, the first track off of Helen Svoboda’s new album Vegetable Bass, in my headphones as we strolled through the empty park. In Melbourne right now, the world certainly is not what it once was. This was one of those beautiful moments where you listen to something that perfectly accompanies a particular scene or experience. The stark sound of Helen’s bowed harmonic’s paired with the simple, folky vocal melody compounded the feeling of loneliness but at the same time felt comforting and hopeful. The world may not be what it once was, but I take immense solace from the fact that music like this is being made!

Not knowing Helen personally, from this music I get the overwhelming impression that this is a musician who loves her instrument. Some musicians see the limitations of their instrument as something that they must tackle, practising to overcome the instrument’s short falls and natural inclinations. As a guitarist, I am in a seriously complicated love-hate relationship. But on Vegetable Bass there is this joyous feeling of curiosity and exploration into the sonic possibilities of what is possible on the bass. Helen dives deep into extended techniques, finding new sounds that she then artfully organises into a series of quirky compositions and improvisations that explore the full potential of her instrument.

Put “solo bass” “extended techniques” and “art music” in the same paragraph and you might have a lot of people running for the hills. Personally, I’m sometimes trepidatious about listening to solo improvised music – I find that it can start to sound really same-y after a while, floating about out of time, often for far too long to hold my attention. But fear not! What’s so successful about Vegetable Bass is how Helen varies the characters of each composition/vegetable – at times inviting the listener in with catchy, folky goodness (Growing Out Of Nothing) at other times challenging their expectations with the rub of dissonant harmonies between bass and voice (Holy Basil).

I particularly love how Helen uses the extended techniques in such a rhythmic, and at times down-right funky way! This is particularly evident on Beetroot (In Blossom) that opens with these gentle, floating harmonics, colliding with the wispy sound of Helens voice. It slowly builds into this seriously groovy feel that uses the bow to bounce off the strings while the left hand adds percussive hits to the texture. Listening to this music recorded, I can only imagine the physicality that goes into producing a lot of the sounds and, combined with really intricate vocal parts, there is some serious athleticism going on here! Words really fail to describe this music and it is very much encouraged to just listen for yourself.

When listening to Vegetable Bass for the first time, mid-way through the album, a brightly spoken “Hello!” took me by surprise. In Soggy Ratatouille, Helen presents the character of a disgruntled, organic vegetable box delivery person through a quirky spoken word piece filled with middle-class angst. It is distinctly different in tone to the rest of the music but rather than detracting from the flow of the album, its narrative gives a moment of humour and playfulness. At the drop of a hat the mood shifts with Paprika’s layered, wordless vocals that float alongside each other, brushing up against one another all grounded by a repetitive bass figure. The breadth of this music defies categorisation and the music is determined to be ephemeral, not remaining in the same character for too long.

After writing most of this, I stumbled upon Helen’s blog which has a heap of really specific information about her process, the extended techniques used and reflections on her practise in general. As a self-described music nerd, I totally live for this stuff and find reading about how a musician arrives at a musical destination really enlightening and inspiring. For anyone who might be reluctant to dive into Vegetable Bass I would strongly encourage having a read of Helen’s blog on the theories and concepts used in these compositions whilst listening along. That being said, this album completely stands up on its own; as a listener you are invited into a world of sounds and textures that is deep, quirky, complex and fun all at the same time.

You can (and should) buy Vegetable Bass on Bandcamp here. You can also find out more about Helen’s music at her website here. You can find her blog here.