austraLYSIS
Schedule
Fri, 07 Nov, 2025 at 10:00 am
UTC+11:00Location
Cnr Crown & Kembla Sts, Wollongong, NSW, Australia, New South Wales 2500 | Wollongong, NS
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austraLYSIS was developed by Roger Dean (piano, computers) on moving to Australia (1989), from his UK group LYSIS. From the outset it featured Sandy Evans (saxophones), Greg White (computers) and more recently Phil Slater (trumpet). austraLYSIS now focuses entirely on improvisation and comprovisation, within and outside jazz, and also on multimedia collaborations. It has developed unusual techniques for control of rhythmic, timbral and harmonic interaction, and since 1995 has used computer interactive technology. “Incredible interaction” said the Wire (UK);“eclectic and consummate” said BBC Radio 3. It has played in 30 countries, and made more than thirty commercial recordings. Since 2010, austraLYSIS work has been presented in countries such as Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Romania, Singapore, UK, and the US.
The repertoire is based around free and process/interaction, mainly using compositions of Roger Dean, often written as live algorithms in the programming platform MAX/MSP. Novel computer interaction, real-time computational sound processing and generation is used to complement and extend the acoustic instruments (primarily piano, saxophones), and often form a complete continuum with them. A common feature is the use of dense polyrhythmic and polymetric structures. Real-time audio-visual performances (using Jitter for algorithmic image generation and manipulation) extend this further. Most recently we have extended the work by means of generative techniques from AI/machine learning, and developing a continuous pitch virtual piano.
austraLYSIS most recent release is Dualling (Earshift 085, 2024), featuring duos between people, people and machines and people and sonic or visual environments.
austraLYSIS has a long diverse series of releases on Tall Poppies (Australia), as well as SOMA (Australia and UK) and Future Music Records (UK). These include History Goes Everywhere (Tall Poppies CD TP234, 2015). John Clare: History Goes Everywhere and space travels freely too…I love it”. austraLYSIS won the international 2018 Robert Coover Award for novelling, a work of Electronic Literature (combining text, image, sound in real time for the online screen). To hear a wide selection of live and recorded performance examples go to www.austraLYSIS.com particularly the HearSeeRead section.
In this performance we will present work from Dualling including a Unbalancing, with spoken text by Hazel Smith; new developments from some of the pieces on the album; a work based on Carl Ruggles and one on Louis Couperin; and a new work commissioned for austraLYSIS, ‘Three Kinepoems’ by Scott Thurston, which involves a pre-recorded dance/text video and live music by the ensemble.
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Where is it happening?
Cnr Crown & Kembla Sts, Wollongong, NSW, Australia, New South Wales 2500Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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