Lawrence English: Capturing the Impossible Trio

Show Notes

Australian composer Lawrence English has spent over two decades treating sound as something that occupies your body, not just your ears. Putting The Tonearm's needle on Lawrence English means entering a sonic world where you're never quite sure what you're hearing or where it's coming from, and if you are a listener like our host, that will suit you just fine.

Lawrence’s recent album Trinity pairs him with Stephen Vitiello and guests like Brendan Canty from Fugazi and Chris Abrahams from The Necks. Each track builds what English calls "impossible trios," turning geographic and other constraints into creative fuel.

Lawrence is here to discuss collaboration, the art of curation, and what it means to make meaningful work in an age drowning in content.

(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Lawrence English & Stephen Vitiello's album Trinity)

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Dig Deeper

Artist and Album

• Visit Lawrence English at lawrenceenglish.com and follow him on Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, and Bandcamp
• Purchase Lawrence English & Stephen Vitiello's Trinity from American Dreams, Bandcamp, or Qobuz and listen on your streaming platform of choice
• Learn more about Room40, Lawrence English's label celebrating its 25th anniversary

Collaborators on 'Trinity'

• Chris Abrahams (The Necks) - pianist
• Stephen Vitiello - sound artist and composer
• Aki Onda - multidisciplinary artist
• Marina Rosenfeld - turntablist and composer
• Brendan Canty (Fugazi, The Messthetics) - drummer
• The late Steve Roden - artist and lowercase musician

Books and Theory

• Peter Szendy - 'Listen: A History of Our Ears'
• Neil Postman - 'Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business'
• Lauren Berlant - Cruel Optimism theory
• Mark Fisher - cultural theorist

Places and Concepts

• Gunkanjima (Battleship Island) - abandoned coal mining island off Nagasaki
• Hashima Island history - most densely populated place in history
• Japanese Metabolist architecture - architectural movement English researched
• Art Gallery of New South Wales - collected English's bell work

Musical Groups and Ensembles

• The Necks - Chris Abrahams' improvisational jazz trio
• Tenniscoats - Japanese duo Saya and Takashi Ueno

Academic and Philosophical Concepts

• Relational listening - English's PhD theory on reconciling psychological and technological audition
• Acid nostalgia - English's working concept on how contemporary nostalgia corrodes the past
• Natsukashii - Japanese concept of longing for a time/place you were never part of
• Tsundoku - Japanese word for collecting books you don't read
• Ma - Japanese concept of the space between elements

Related Works

• Lawrence English - 'Cruel Optimism' (Room40)
• Lawrence English - 'Wilderness of Mirrors' (Room40, 2014)
• Chris Abrahams - 'Thrown' (Room40)
• Chris Abrahams - 'Appearance' (Room40, 2020)

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