STASH = Natasha Fearnside (bass clarinet) & Sam Anning (double bass)

WOLFA = Jenny Barnes (voice) & Mick Meagher (electric bass)

STASH – She gathers strength in her skin: suite for basses

Born out of lockdown in a little studio apartment in North Melbourne, this duo is a marriage of people, styles and methods of making music. The piece is part homage to the resilience of the people living through the pandemic in Naarm/Melbourne and a celebration of revitalisation.

Natasha’s clarinet playing is mainly found in classical/notated music settings such as Orchestra Victoria, Short Black Opera, and Rubiks Collective. In contrast, Sam’s bass is often comprising the rhythm section in jazz and folk

projects such as Archie Roach, Andrea Keller’s ‘Five Below’, Stephen Magnusson, and many others.

The lockdown was initially to be 1 week long, so Sam set to composing a piece a day to play with Natasha each evening. This culminated in a suite of 7 pieces titled ‘She Gathers Strength’ (named after Melbourne’s motto), dedicated to the resilient residents of Naarm/Melbourne (who at that time were the most locked down metropolitan city in the world). The suite was then augmented during a week long creative residency at the Peninsula Hot Springs (fresh out of lockdown), the pieces composed being meditations on the idea of skin being the organ through which we receive/translate the language of the thermal waters and their nourishing minerals (revitalisation/rejuvenation). The ‘skins’ were then layered on top and between the original suite.

’She gathers strength in her skin’ is a suite about resilience, healing, developing thick skin, shedding old skin, revealing your true skin, community and being present.

WOLFA

Subverting the gendered voice and exploiting the performativity of body voice and sound, this visionary duo play with ecstatic, cathartic unintelligible language, low frequency resonances, glacial rhythmic patterns to compose

geological formations of sounds. They are homage to the imperative practice of play. Feelings of being bruised, unlocked, washed and cleansed are evoked by a performance from this formidable duo, featuring Jenny Barnes (voice) and Mick Meagher (electric bass)