Hour of wonder with cosmic sounds

By WILLIAM DART

Phil Dadson is as much explorer as musician, the man probably responsible for introducing the most "new" sounds into New Zealand music.

The genial, self-effacing Dadson is best known as the force behind From Scratch, the group which took Pacific sounds and anti-nuclear protest to the 1982 Paris Biennale and made us aware of the musical potential of the PVC pipe.

Projects have diversified over the years, ranging from 1998's spectacular Global Hockets, with the German electronica of Supreme Particles, to Vocal Acrobatics, a lively evening of improv at last year's AK03 festival.

Now Dadson has released what amounts to his first solo album, Sound Tracks, an hour of wonderment created on a collection of homemade or ingeniously appropriated instruments, such as the songstones.

"I found my first pair in the mid-70s, in the dry river beds of Hokitika," Dadson says. "I discovered that if I coupled them together I could make them sing."

And sing they do on the new album, with a song ranging from opaque considered chimes to a frenetic buzz like quarrelling cicadas when the tempo picks up to molto prestissimo.

Songstones are just one of the exotic sounds on Dadson's new album, which also features his famously sculptural drums. There's a Gloopdrum which sounds just like its name suggests and a Nundrum, a spider-like object which I'm assured "has nothing to do with esoteric orders".

Although he doesn't admit to favourites, the Zitherum must hold a special place in his heart, as Dadson enthuses about this instrument "like a large steel guitar with polystyrene resonators and three piano wires. It's got a lovely timbre that's a cross between sitar and banjo".

New computer technology that enables him, on one track, to throat-sing alongside himself all over the stereo spectrum, has been a revelation. "I like to play things in the moment but looping enables me to take them into new areas of exploration. Sometimes when you have your sound fragmented, stretched or granulated you can respond to it and set up a dialogue. Before long, you find yourself doing things you've never done before."

But playing is still paramount. "I love performing. Half of the joy is working with the instruments and if I get the opportunity to record stuff as well, that's a bonus."

Dadson has too many stories and projects to fit into the time we have. A few weeks ago he was in Germany taking part in the N8 Night Festival of Sound; as we talk he's packing to go down south where the Dunedin Public Art Gallery will mount his Polar Project, an environmental sound piece developed from a visit to the Antarctic last year.

Looking ahead, he admits he is "fascinated by VJ culture, using video the same way that DJs use sound. Not many people are doing it in a free way yet, but the potential is very exciting".

He is also drawn to the possibilities of internet radio ("such a fabulous medium and so accessible".) Nevertheless, we are lucky to be in New Zealand because if technology gets too much "you can always escape by going for a walk in the bush. You can bliss out in nature, be fed at that level as well as the technology level."

As it happens, Dadson is on a higher level than many of us. He has a star named after him. When American composer Lou Harrison visited New Zealand in the mid 1980s, he registered a remote star as "Maestro Philip Dadson" with the American Star Registry. The personalised star chart that Dadson was sent forms the basis of the cover for Sound Tracks, created with the assistance of Muka Studios.

"Lou wanted to name as many stars as he could after musicians and artists," says Dadson. "He wanted to get us up in the air."

* Phil Dadson, Sound Tracks (Atoll ACD 104)