Mystery Plays Records presents a night of new Australian music. Inch-time previews songs from his new album ‘Myth and Impermanence’ with a very special performance featuring the musicians who played on the recordings – Alex Bonney (trumpet), Olie Brice (bass) and Karl Penney (drums). Plus support from Joe McKee (ex-Snowman frontman who has just released his debut solo album ‘Burning Boy’) and Tristan Coleman (Melbourne based electronic polymath).

INCH-TIME

Since releasing his earliest records back in 2003, Stefan Panczak, aka Inch-time, has quietly forged an irrepressible niche which has taken on a life of its own. His subtle melding of gleaming electronica and a whole host of other ingredients – from dub to folk textures, and languid jazz stylings to post-rock atmospheres – has evolved to take in new elements while sticking to the unique approach which Panczak has made his signature since his debut album, 2005’s Any Colour You Like.

Myth and Impermanence, the fourth Inch-time album, finds Panczak discovering new musical Worlds. Leaving behind his purely electronic studio, he set up a studio in East London to focus on using mainly real-world instruments. After developing the initial song foundations he worked closely with three jazz musicians – Alex Bonney (trumpet), Olie Brice (bass) and Karl Penney (drums). Panczak explains, “I had the musicians play over the existing tracks, writing some melodies and motifs for them to play. I also had them freely improvise. I took all these recordings and used them as samples, either placing them as intended in the original recordings or re-appropriating them into other songs to create new and unexpected re-contextualisations. The music itself was strongly influenced by 70’s esoteric jazz, artists such as Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, Jack DeJohnette and Joe Henderson.”

Myth and Impermanence is a concept album of sorts – an exploration of modern day myths and the idea of impermanence. It’s an album to get lost in, to be played after-hours, on long drives or in darkened rooms.



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. Victory laps beckoned. Stumps were upped and the gang of four headed to London, basing themselves out of a small flat above a cafe in Walthamstow. They pieced together Absence – a magnificent pulsing, wash of a record that would become their parting salvo. Two of them moved to Iceland child in tow, another firmly folded into the arms of Cambridge. Joe, always spinning in his own orbit, landed back in Perth with a collection of songs inspired by this process, by home, by London and by the catharsis involved in returning to a place you’ve tried so long to forget.

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.

"a near masterpiece" **** - Rolling Stone

"Ladies and gentlemen, you are now listening to one of the albums of the year" 9.5/10 - Tone Deaf

"This is a frightening and beautiful record" - mess+noise

"Quietly Brilliant" **** - The Weekend Australian



TRISTAN COLEMAN

Tristan Coleman is a composer and sound artist from Melbourne, Australia with an interest in the interface between science, art and culture. Having trained as a composer, he is something of a musical polymath, equally at home in the concert hall or the digital studio. Fluent in algorithmic and machine-based composition, he is also interested in contemporary composition for acoustic ensembles and has an ongoing interest in the music of South-East Asia, particularly Indonesia. Tristan has collaborated extensively with composers and performers from Yogyakarta including a recent residency and performance tour of Java involving the creation of new works for Western and Indonesian traditional instruments combined with electronics. 

At the same time Tristan also works in purer electronic forms from his studio in Melbourne. Intricate textures, eastern percussion and travel diary field recordings meet Juno synth stabs, subtle vocals and generative rhythms to create a unique sound world. Think Debussy meets Dangdut or Lutoslawski meets Luk Thung via Los Angeles, Tristan creates globalised, hybrid forms.