Lawrence English
Lawrence English is composer, media artist and curator based in Australia. Working across an eclectic array of aesthetic investigations, English’s work prompts questions of field, perception and memory. He investigates the politics of perception via live performance and installation to create works that ponder subtle transformations of space and ask audiences to become aware of that which exists at the edge of perception.
Lawrence English is composer, media artist and curator based in Australia. Working across an eclectic array of aesthetic investigations, English’s work prompts questions of field, perception and memory. He investigates the politics of perception via live performance and installation to create works that ponder subtle transformations of space and ask audiences to become aware of that which exists at the edge of perception.
Suikinkutsu no katawara ni
Letterpress sleeve + insert, 2 color. Designed and printed by Ben Owen. Cover image from a photograph by Lawrence English. Recorded in Japan and Australia 2003-2011.
Studies for stradbroke
Letterpress sleeve, 2 color. Designed and printed by Ben Owen. Cover image from a photograph by Lawrence English. Hydrophonic recordings made january and august 2007, Stradbroke Island, Queensland.
Split LP
When does modern composition become drone?  When the original elements are sunk into a sea of strings, brass and electronics, as they are on this evocative split release.  Each of the artists composes, but in a modern fashion, either by manipulating source elements or by rearranging them to make a different sort of sense.  Both pieces are based on recordings of the Antonio Lomatto choir, conducted by Davide Mainetti.  The phantoms of these recordings remain, spectral yet in…
Lonely women's club
Beautiful new work from Lawrence English. Pressed in an edition of 500 copies. Somewhere after dark, before dawn, in a place where natural light is shunned and organ is singing. It's voice is that of an arcing clouds of tone, emerging and falling with an uneasy sense of pace and direction. The voice warbles, a vibrato of shifting pulse and subtle variation. The room around it is filled with a dusty ash; smoke in haze like proportions. Eyes are blood shot, sunken below the rim of a glass. …
Boombana echoes
'I had the pleasure to meet and record with Akio Suzuki late in 2005. Having discovered his work a good few years before that, I had always been impressed with his clear passion for the expressive nature of sound - not merely as a vibrational art form, but also for its mystic, perhaps even spiritual qualities. His many experiments with sound, space and environment were a great inspiration for me and still to this day fill me with a great sense of wonder (no doubt a result of Suzuki's magician li…
Dead silence
In 2012, Room40's open frame festival probes this idea of dead silence. asking what role does silence play today across music and art spectra. We bring together a range of artists whose work can be seen to reflect on this idea of absence and presence. Moreover these artists raise questions around the positioning (in political, social, geographic, environmental and other realms) of silence and also what use we might have for it looking into the future - both methodologically and in actuality. The…
For/Not For John Cage
Line is pleased to announce the upcoming release of a elegant new sound work by Australian artist Lawrence English, inspired by John Cage.In 2011, anticipating John Cage’s centenary, I began thinking about how to approach a work that might act as a homage to the aspects of his life and work that have inspired me over the past two decades (ironically, those in which he has been physical absent, but philosophically more present than ever). John Cage, with that beaming smile and trademarked c…
The Peregrine
LP version. Room40 presents a reissue of Australian sound artist Lawrence English's acclaimed 2011 album The Peregrine, inspired by John Alec Baker's 1967 nature writing classic of the same name. "I first discovered The Peregrine when I was visiting my friend David Toop in London. He had the book on his desk and I picked it up and randomly turned to a page. It was an exquisite description of an Owl silently hunting. I was struck by the detail and evocative sense of listening in the writing. It w…
Kiri No Oto
Lawrence English's epic masterpiece - finally available on vinyl for the first time. Strictly limited edition - Initial copies come on white vinyl* One of the most memorable and absorbing albums released by the wonderful Touch label in recent years, "Kiri No Oto" was first released by them on CD in 2008 and has spent much of the intervening time lodged in our minds as one of the finer drone/field recording albums to have been made this century. Kiri No Oto (a Japanese phrase meaning 'sound…
Incongruous Harmonies
These pieces were composed for Circa's Regarding the Joy of Others. Recorded and produced at 158, Brisbane, 09/09-01/10. Lawrence English is media artist, composer and curator based in Australia. Working across an eclectic array of aesthetic investigations, English's work prompts questions of field, perception and memory. He utilises a variety of mediums including live performance, audio/visual environments, found sound/vision to create his work that typifies his interests in creating exp…
It\'s up to us to live
Lawrence English is media artist, composer and critic based in Brisbane, Australia. It's Up To Us To Live has seen a prolonged birth. It's commencement in 2004 began around the same moments as the final touches were being put to the album Happiness Will Befall (issued originally by Cronica). In some ways these two records pair one another - they form a spiraling coil of echo location and feedback. Whereas 'Happiness...' might be considered a lush and evocatively melodic affair, It's Up To Us To …
U
Tujiko Noriko joins with collaborators Lawrence English and John Chantler for ‘U’, a record of orbiting themes, esoteric lyrical wordplays and warm analog-infused song-forms. Following on from the acclaimed ‘Blurred In My Mirror (ROOM40), ‘U’ is a record of phases and exchanges between Paris and Brisbane over a three year period. A record of extended technique and unconventional process, U is most of all a swelling passage through the rare and exotic reality Tujiko Noriko evokes through her curi…
One plus one
The turntable has enjoyed a varied history in the realm of performance and experimental music. From the early phonographic works of John Cage to the spliced cut-ups of Christian Marclay in the 1980s, the device has proven to be a versatile tool for the creation and transformation of sound. Following a joint billing at Brisbane’s Metro Arts Space in 2002, Melbourne based composer Philip Samartzis and sound artist Lawrence English shared a 30-minute performance that was to become the beginning of …