Our week of Antipodean icons culminates with a hugely exciting and very rare Australian show by one of the great trailblazing experimental artists of the last 40 years, who will be joining us at the Red House for his first solo show in Sydney in more than 10 years...
Bruce Russell is a practitioner in sound from Aotearoa/NZ, who has been ruthlessly putting rock music to the question since he joined the Dead C. in 1987. He also has a long-running collaboration with Alastair Galbraith as A Handful of Dust. This show will be his fiirst in Sydney since 2014.
His solo guitar mixes rock, electro-acoustics, noise and improvisation in equal measures; reconfiguring the blues as a form of improvisational auto-destructive protest. Described by international experts as ‘the Jimi Hendrix of no technique’, Bruce has shared stages with some heavy hitters but is most at home in small gigs with a relaxed vibe. His approach to the guitar is exploratory and not based around any concept of musical structure - he wants to find out what the thing can do.
It is brutal, but guarantees results: ‘Eric Clapton sleeps with the fishes’.
He is also a public academic who has written a collection of essays on sound, Left-handed Blows (2010). He also edited Erewhon Calling: Experimental Sound in New Zealand, (2012) and A Record Could be Your Whole World (2024). He has a doctorate in sound art from RMIT and coordinates creative research and post-graduate teaching in creative practice at Ara Institute of Canterbury.
His next book is on the complete electro-acoustic works of Douglas Lilburn.
Bruce Russell - Person | AudioCulture
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