SHADOW PHASE OVERVIEW
Australian composer and director of the Australia Art Orchestra, Peter Knight, resolves his extensive work as an improvisor and band leader into his first solo recording in a decade, Shadow Phase. This is a recording which charts out a sense of perpetual opening, in a time of restrictive movement. It is a music of verticality, and cre- ates a gentle revolution, spiralling simultaneously up and down, effortlessly generating a depth and openness that is reflected both compositionally and texturally. Shadow Phase is also a music of light and dark, of ele- ments being revealed and concealed with unerring patience. Even at its most dynamic this is a music that carries itself with a quality of a reductive, yet effervescent landscape. It is a masterful exploration of sound, anchored by Knight’s evocative approach to trumpet.
FROM PETER KNIGHT
Most of this record was created in the shadow of COVID and deep in the maw of Melbourne’s 2020 long winter lockdown. It is a meditation on the nature of connection.
Restricted to a 5km zone, one of the only people I saw outside my family during this time was my old friend and teacher, Ania Walwicz. We met in the overlap between our zones on the waterfront near Docklands to walk and talk on bright, cool winter afternoons.
Those conversations became large in my thoughts when Ania suddenly passed away in September. Her voice was in my head as I worked on this music, trawling through threads of ideas, recordings made on my phone, and thoughts jotted down in notebooks.
Ania’s practice as a writer relied on ‘automatic’ processes. Her work was informed by everything she had read (a lot) but it was created in the manner of dreams. In a state where the subconscious might bubble up and the words arrange themselves into meaning bearing forms that resonate more than represent.
I thought a lot about that as I made this music. I recorded everyday using the trumpet, my old Revox reel-to- reel, a couple of synths, a harmonium I lent from a friend, and whatever else was around. I worked mostly on just diving a little deeper each time I sat down to it.
Through the simple process of exhalation, I explored my relationship with the trumpet, which has been through so many twists and turns. I let the tones produced by my breath unfurl on long tape loops and degrade be- yond recognition through pedal and plugin chains, until the only imprint of the initial gesture remained.
My process also involved long bike rides during which I’d listen to the work of previous days on ear buds, glid- ing through familiar streets made slightly strange by the absence of people and movement. Often my rides took me along Footscray Rd next to the port, and as I washed down towards Docklands past the old boat moorings I stopped pedalling to coast. The sounds from my darkened studio mingled with the low rush of air past my helmet, the click and whirr of my bike gears, a squalling bird, a whooshing car. And I remembered my last conversation with Ania. Sitting in the late afternoon sun, squinting against the light that raked across the water, she was telling me about all the different words for they have for blue in Polish and Russian, and how words don’t just change our perception of things, but also actually change the thing being perceived.
As I rode home that afternoon, I felt like anything was possible.
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Peter Knight - Shadow Phase
A 1. The Softened Shore. 2. Cloud Phase 3. A Wordless Song for Ania B 1. Eunoia 2.Shadow Phase
Dedicated to the memory of Ania Walwicz.
Peter Knight - trumpet, voice, synthesisers, laptop electronics, Revox B77 reel-to-reel Fia Fiell - synthesiser (Eunoia)
Jacques Emery - bass (The Softened Shore)