ANDREW BALL

Another post sharing a series of shiny new recordings to dust off older compositions that I loved writing and performing in recent years.

‘Samrukia’ for two baritone saxes was both one of the most challenging and rewarding chamber works I’ve written. Originally premiered by Fulcrum duo (myself and Samantha Mason) at a number of concerts way back in 2013-14, including the Australasian clarinet and saxophone conference. The title ‘Samrukia’ is the name of a large avian dinosaur, sadly too lumbering and heavy to ever be able to fly. Screeching multiphonics on the bari sax are perfectly suited to evoke the wild sounds of the cretaceous (I can only assume…)

See also: From the vault #1 … From the vault #2

Continuing my series of chamber works from the last few years that I’ve only recorded recently… This week a double feature of two short and quirky saxophone duets: “Stasis, foreboding”, and “Phantom Chorale”.

Both pieces are orchestrated very differently but work as short, quirky interludes. ‘Stasis Foreboding’, for any two similar woodwinds, was originally premiered by Emma Di Marco (saxophone) and Annie Larsen (clarinet) and is a brief exploration of a particular melodic and harmonic structure, and spatialised hocketing. Phantom chorale for any saxophones creates a slowly morphing texture of multiphonic sounds, again, very spatialised.

I’ve recently been looking back at music I’ve written in the past few years; compositions that have (in my opinion) stood the test of time, but for whatever reason were never properly recorded. For interest and posterity, I’m sharing some of them here!

This work was written for Barega Sax Quartet, shortly after our debut album “Three Serpents” (of which I think this work sounds very reminiscent!) Dreamgravityflux never actually got performed – perhaps due to the precision required in rhythmic subdivision, which sounds fun but was extremely taxing to actually play! The work explores a floating and kaleidoscopic texture, clustered and angular harmonic sequences, structured in additive and subtractive rhythmic cells. This was a fun one to write as I considered all instruments in equal melodic roles – constantly overlapping and bouncing the melody to a different player.

…more new recordings to follow in the next few weeks!

Pretty excited to debut a new(ish) project – Andrew Ball Quartet with Lachlan Bell, Aidan Arnold and Steve Fischer. We’ve dusted off a weird little EP project and are releasing it into the wild – have a listen!

This music comes from a place of spontaneity, reflecting a specific creative space and time. As a deliberate creative constraint, the album was written within about a week, then recorded in two sessions in January 2019 after very minimal rehearsal. We captured an intrinsically raw and vibey live recording, warts and all, as the foundation for the final layer of post-production weirdness.

I write a lot of precisely notated chamber music, and wanted to challenge myself to create music that’s more open, interpretative and collaborative while retaining internal structure and complexity. More literally, I used aspects of geometric transformation as a stimulus within the compositions – the music is driven by the spatial and temporal aspects orchestrated within.

I recently had the pleasure of doing a live performance of a mini- solo set at Ozwinds music shop. Not too much video exists of my Forbidden Languages project (yet), so here it is! This was a fun toot – I’ve included a slightly reimagined piece (Jengu) from the album, a more developed ‘structured improvisation’ (Ogun – now with moooore tubes), plus a brand new composition, Sparrowhawk, a teaser of more new material to come!

For a couple of years, I’ve been gradually chipping away at a collection of new compositions in the background, with a view to release these as an album. It’s always hard to describe your own music (style, genre and otherwise) but here we go… The best I can come up with for this project is that it’s “musique concrete”-esque electronic sound design where meticulously recorded and collected “found sounds” are sampled, sequenced, distorted and collaged together into a hyperactive and glitchy stew of colourful weirdness. I guess we’ll all wait and see, but time to share a new preview of a track – check it out below!

I’m looking forward to bringing my Forbidden Languages solo set to the inaugural Super Sounds festival in Brisbane. I’ve been loving the process of making each FL performance feel fresh and unique, developing and adding more and more material to the compositions and improvisational parameters from my album. Don’t miss the huge lineup on June 8th, headlined by the formidable Rafiq Bhatia (NYC)!

Super Sounds is a new music festival devoted to genre-bending music in the jazz sphere and creative young artists pushing jazz music in bold and exciting directions. Grab tickets here!

Excited to announce that I’ll be performing at the XVIII World Saxophone Congress in Zagreb, Croatia in July. I’m thrilled to be premiering a bunch of awesome new Australian compositions, including some of my own: ‘Artefacts’ (for prepared instruments) with Barega Sax Quartet, ‘Chimera’ with the Australian Saxophone Orchestra, as well as my own solo recital ‘Forbidden Languages’. Please come and say hi if you’re around the congress! You can find me at:

Forbidden Languages (solo) – July 10th, 2.30pm
Barega Sax Quartet – July 12th, 9.30am
Australian Saxophone Orchestra – July 13th, 4.00pm

Here’s a little taster of the solo program!

Thrilled to announce the launch of my new album Forbidden Languages through Made Now Music. I’ve been writing and recording this suite of solo saxophone pieces for the last couple of years and it’s great to see this labour of love become a finished product! On the album I explore ways of creating layered textures and generally making the sax sound rather alien – through extended techniques, preparations, and exploiting hyper-idiomatic quirks of the instrument. I’m planning to make the notated music available in the near future. You can stream and download Forbidden Languages here.

Excited to announce that I am now a represented artist with the Australian Music Centre! You can check out my Associate Artist page here.