“Vessel” by Gail Priest is piece for live performance using no pre-recorded material. Quiet feedback is generated by placing a microphone in a number of glass vessels. Vocal improvisations augment the irregularly looped tones, the piece growing from sparse and ethereal to dense and aggressive. It is an attempt to “play” the emptiness, drawing sounds from the air and sculpting them into something solid. Priest is a Sydney-based artist with a multifaceted practice in which sound is the key material of communication and investigation. Her work comprises solo electro-acoustic performance and recordings, sound installations for gallery contexts, sound design for performance and video, and curation, critique and advocacy. Her compositions exist in a liminal zone between song and soundscape. Her main source material is the voice, sometimes multiply manipulated and unrecognisable, other times in the forefront, borrowing from ethereal pop-folk traditions. 

Priest’s travel has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body and by the NSW Government through Arts NSW. Thanks also to Speak Percussion.