Music For Small Audiences

Alex arrived at our school in year 11. We clocked the Nitzer Ebb T-shirt before we clocked anything else about him, which told us most of what we needed to know about his taste in music. We made a point of introductions, and became good friends quickly.

Some time later the two of us sat at a piano together, working out a little riff we had come up with. The whole thing turned on a single note, an alternation between major and minor over the same tonic, with the root and fifth holding steady. It sounded uncomfortable, with a bit of chromatic friction. He loved it immediately, and while it troubled me at first it grew on me. You could hear, in the space of one semitone, just how much emotion and energy can shift.

It is remarkable how little it takes to change the whole feeling of a thing. A short break, pause or shift (even if just a semitone) is often enough to recharge, reset, and re-release for the moment ahead. Yes, things are difficult at times, but nothing is forever. Enjoy it if you can, endure it if you must.

This is episode 127 of Music For Small Audiences. Recorded live on an Australian winter evening the weekend before a midweek getaway to tropical Queensland, it provides alternating slices of major and minor key energy as befits the mood of the day. Tracks include some of Argentina’s finest, along with a few quality works from local Melbourne legends.

The weather here in Melbourne ground to a halt this past week. As the news put it, a blocking high parked itself in the Tasman Sea, and according to the forecasters it intends to stay there for a few more days yet. Some inland towns have been looking at the same temperature for seven days running. The sky, for the moment, has decided it has nothing further to add.

It has been an interesting few months. A motorcycle ride around Tasmania with my good friend Jason retraced a trip we did more than twenty years ago, while a weekend in Adelaide with Andrew gave a chance to see Marsh play a very cool free laneway set. A very warm Easter in the tropics with family (and similarly stopped weather) rounded out early autumn, providing a great sense of connection. My mother spoke often about travel as a kind of slow-release lesson in personal growth, and about how the fun parts and the harder parts both had something important to teach.

This is episode 126 of Music For Small Audiences. It was recorded live the week before Easter, and I have been road testing it in the weeks since. Bit of a delay getting this one uploaded, in line with finding time between work and personal priorities, but I think it sits well. One of the gentler privileges of releasing infrequently is the freedom to release when the mix is ready, rather than when the calendar insists. Appreciate your patience, and hope you enjoy.

The Australian summer is here, and with it has come a series of getaways with friends and family – some just a weekend, some a few days longer. It can be hard to squeeze both fun and relaxation into the same trip, particularly when one seems to spend as much time planning and packing as on the trip itself. Thankfully, the more often we do it, the better we get.

Preparation is a funny thing. It’s easy to put off, particularly when there are more fun things to do – and whether it’s the night before heading off or the last night before heading home, the liminal energy of the moment doesn’t always lend itself to careful administrative attention. Yet taking those few extra minutes to really dial things in can make a world of difference. As the holiday period fades and the real work returns, the principle remains – preparation is easy to intend, but hard in the moment to consistently do.

We are a few days away from the first day of summer here in Australia as I write this, and while the real summer weather hasn’t arrived yet, there’s already a looseness in the air. As for me, I’m enjoying catching up with friends and family, getting a bit of fresh air, and settling back into something like normalcy after a few years of balancing study alongside everything else.

This is episode 124 of Music For Small Audiences, and as a whole it’s a fair reflection of what I’ve been playing over the past 20+ years. Recorded live on a recent Saturday night, the mix is laid back and groove-driven, and kicks off with a trio of twenty-year-old tunes. While largely instrumental, the lyrics that do appear speak to themes I return to often – impermanence, introspection, continuity, the complexity of separating thought from feeling, and the small salvation of the commitment-free weekend.

For the past eighteen months I’ve been balancing a fair bit of study alongside fulltime work and daily existence. It has been a wild, life-changing ride. With nine modules down and one to go, the finish line is now in sight. With a rush and a push I am now getting my head around the last three subjects of thirty – hoping to make the most of this last intensive session, without taking anything for granted until done is done.

As befits my current state of mind there’s plenty of energy in this extended mix. Recorded late at night just before my recent trip to Berkeley, California in support of said study, it features a number of high quality alternate remixes of time-tested tunes that some of you will surely recognise, along with plenty of great new stuff from Melbourne and beyond.