FIRE records presents the experimental songcraft of Ned Collette & Wirewalker alongside Nathaniel Robin Mann and Joe McKee.

NED COLLETTE & WIREWALKER

Ned Collette moved to Berlin from his native Melbourne two years ago. A well known and respected singer-songwriter in his own country and in underground circles worldwide, he has toured Europe previously with the likes of Joanna Newsom, Akron/Family, Bill Callahan and Nina Nastasia. His early musical output was based mostly in experimental music, before he gravitated towards more traditional song structures.

His new album "2" (his fourth album but his first outside of Australia) will be released in August. It is essentially a duo collaboration with Wirewalker drummer Joe Talia, known to OTO audiences for his 2011 performance and subsequent Touch release, "Hit & Run", with Oren Ambarchi. "2" is a mix of experimental pop songwriting, dark folky soundscapes and Talia's work in musique concrete. Their duo shows are performed with voice, nylon string guitar, drums, samples and tape manipulation. While comparisons have been made to everything from Leonard Cohen to Ghostface Killah, Collette remains tricky to define but instantly identifiable.





NATHANIEL ROBIN MANN

Nathaniel Robin Mann (animateddog) is perhaps better know as one third of the UK’s finest performance outfit Dead Rat Orchestra. Described as ‘unconventional, traditional, highly liberal and subversive’ (Sam Lee Magpies Nest) his solo explorations chart diverse realms. Drawing from a collection of both folk tradition and original material, on stage Nathaniel uses a curious collection of instruments and objects to provide accompaniment and percussion: Phonofiddle, meat cleaver, 2x4, ukulele, guitar, stomps, bells and whistles and stark a cappella moments.

Nathaniel is the Embedded composer in Residence at the Pitt Rivers Museum of Anthropology in Oxford, and has written for the LCO and National Ukrainian Orchestra Kievskaya Kamerata. Within the Dead Rat Orchestra,Nathaniel has collaborated closely with Baby Dee, Marc Almond & Eric Chenuax, and in his solo guise has had the pleasure of sharing the stage with such diverse artists such as Ryan Driver, Doomed Bird of Providence and Emily Portman.

www.nathanielmann.co.uk



JOE MCKEE

The Darling Ranges lie about 35 km’s south of Perth. The drive is mostly highway, fairly droll until you start actually ascending the hills themselves, at which point great dips and troughs reveal themselves and the whole region takes on a strange arid quality. The area was on fire for about 4 days in early 2011. Joe Mckee grew up in these hills and, after 4 years under the spell of London, he returned to them. Burning Boy is his debut album.

Joe’s previous outfit, Snowman, were significant. They released 2 albums out of Perth - 2006’s self titled effort and 2009’s violent masterpiece The Horse, The Rat & The Swan. Praise, wide ranging and effusive, came from all corners of the globe. Burning Boy itself is a bold shift for McKee. Gone is the pulsing rhythm section so often omnipresent in his work, replaced by a breathy and somewhat unexpected baritone. Cuts like Open Mine, a loose mediation on Western Australia’s recent gold rush, and the brooding title track show a vulnerability and lyrical dexterity seen for the first time here.

Recorded with long-time collaborator Dave Parkin, these 10 tracks move together as an exhilarating whole, acting as a timely reminder of McKee’s reputation as one of Australia’s finest left field composers. Burning Boy adds a few new strings to the bow though. Once you become immersed in it’s gorgeous swells and poignant imagery it becomes immediately obvious that in all the coming, going, leaving and returning; that Joe Mckee has, at least for now, found a melodic home.