Voyager Missions 1 & 2 were launched in 1977 to take advantage of the favorable alignment of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. Meant to last only five years, Voyager 1 went into interstellar space in 2012, and both are now expected to last until 2025
Voyager 1 and 2 both carry a golden record that contains pictures and sounds of Earth, along with symbolic directions for playing the record and data detailing the location of Earth. The contents selected by such luminaries as Carl Sagan, they were intended as a time capsule and interstellar message to any civilization, alien or far-future human.
Not only an antenna for our own sounds, both space crafts have been recording and transmitting radio signals from the far reaches of the solar system. These cosmic field recordings contain a beautiful array of glitches and hums - eerie, disturbing and peaceful.
From A Small, Distant World fuses a multitude of these recordings with a string quartet comprising of Brian Kruger, Hayley-Jane Ayres, Aaron Wyatt & Tristen Parr (City of Shadows). Joining the quartet in 2015 will be Jozef Grech on guitar, and Rachael Dease once again takes to the microphone as vocalist for her new work.
FROM A SMALL, DISTANT WORLD
THE ART GALLERY OF WA
JANUARY 30 - 7.30pm & 9pm
JANUARY 31 - 7.30pm & 9pm
FEBRUARY 1 - 9pm
Review of "From A Small, Distant World"
"There is something ethereal about Rachael Dease. The West Australian composer and performance artist won the inaugural Martin Sims award for City of Shadows at the 2012 Fringe and her music has elevated productions like Weeping Spoon’s It’s Dark Outside and the Perth Theatre Company’s 8Gb of Hardcore Pornography.
Her mesmeric aura and powerful mezzo-soprano voice give her a potent stage presence and high musical intelligence and cultural literacy inform all her work.
Dease takes her otherworldliness to a cosmic level with From a Small, Distant World, a suite of eleven songs inspired by the Voyager project that sent two satellites to Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus in 1977. Beyond expectations, the space probes have continued on past the planets, Voyager 1 crossing over into interstellar space in late 2012.
The two devices will travel on into the void forever, although they will become inoperative a decade or so hence.
Dease was especially drawn to the Golden Record, a 12-inch disc with images and information about earth, along with symbolic instructions – like those from an intergalactic IKEA – on how to make a record player, for the benefit of a future civilisation, ours or otherwise, who retrieve the craft.
She has used recordings from the Golden Record, along with those made by the Voyagers themselves on their journey, as a sound bed upon which she overlays her music, accompanied by Brian Kruger (violin) Hayley-Jane Ayres (violin), Aaron Wyatt (viola), Tristan Parr (cello) and Jozef Grech (electric guitar)
It is elusive music, and the danger of losing track of it is constant and real. But, Dease has the skill and nous to introduce elements to keep our attention: Grech’s slow guitar riffs, like Dave Gilmour’s, the quartet rising into harmonic fields of secular canticles and her own compelling voice.
From a Small, Distant World remains an impressive addition to the repertoire of one of our most valuable musicians."
David Zampatti
The West Australian - Feb 2, 2015