To the future

photo by Glendyn Ivin 17 July 2023

My old uni pal, Inga Liljestrom and I released our “fly by wire” pandemic project in 2021. It took about a year to do it, all via email, dropbox and so forth. We didn’t exchange a single spoken word to each other during that time. It was a fantastic exercise. Each of us got to ruminate on the others contributions at length. It’s all up on the various streamers and we both get a smattering of income for that - we could buy each other a coffee to two by now - but better still, take a look on Bandcamp - https://leighivin.bandcamp.com/album/of-stars-and-stones - where you can also get an old fashoined compact disc with a 20 page booklet. Many of the photos that inspired us are within. But I digress.

Inga and I met up in Melbourne yesterday to discuss our next project. So far, we think we’ll take the opposite approach to our first outing and cut it predominantly live in various inspiring locations. To kick things off, we may have begun the artwork, as we sat in my brother’s Brunswick-noir kitchen/lounge/cinema, he shot scores of photographs using some very cluey techniques - as is his want. Is there anything wrong with starting a new project in a somewhat backward fashion? I’d say absolutely not.

It was great, also, to spend some time in Melbourne and the Bellarine Peninsula with some of my very favourite people. Whether tracking for a new album or just wandering about hearing live music beaming out of many different venues, big and small, I just knew I was witnessing at least some parts of this country awakening from the pandemic induced slumber.