BLAK MASS ALBUM ANNOUNCEMENT

BLAK MASS

Album Release Announcement

We are very excited to announce our LP release - BLAK MASS by Naretha Williams. This is the LP release of Williams' award-winning show which shook the foundations of the Melbourne Town Hall in 2019. The album is a groundbreaking combination of Grand Organ and brutal electronics. BLAK MASS reflects on the city’s jarring civic history and the impact of colonisation on its First Peoples and Land, through an experimental, site specific musical performance developed for the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ. Check out the blistering first single 'Chaos Country' and preorder your limited edition blood galaxy vinyl now!

Album Pre-order

The Music Network

"The Music Victoria Awards scored a number of firsts at the Melbourne Recital Centre last night (November 20).

In its 15th year, a record number of talented women won in the genre categories.

Wiradjuri woman Naretha Williams became the first-ever First Nations and First Nations female artist to win Best Experimental or Avant-Garde Act."

Photo: Miles Brown & Naretha Williams

Click for full article https://themusicnetwork.com/music-victoria-awards-winners-2019/

Bio

NARETHA WILLIAMS

Composer, Sonic Dramaturg & Experimental Artist

Naretha Williams is a composer, sonic dramaturg and experimental artist.  A First Nations Wiradjuri woman of mixed lineage, born and based in Melbourne on the Sovereign Land of the Kulin Nation, Victoria AUS.  Naretha's process­ based work intersects installation and contemporary music, exploring themes around identity, place and the unseen. Ritual and esoteric practice features throughout her signature works as well as methodology utilising DNA sequencing.  Naretha's diverse musical interests span narrative score through to contemporary electronic music and she is engaged across the sector as a sound designer and composer, often working in contemporary dance and theatre.  She is the 2019 winner of the Music Victoria Award for Best Experimental or Avant-garde Act and released her first LP Record BLAK MASS on Heavy Machinery Records in 2020. 

“Late-night concert Blak Mass, continued to re-conceptualise the city, building on the site-specific performances that disrupted the colonial grid during the day.  Created by Wiradjuri interdisciplinary artist Naretha Williams, Blak Mass was an immersive ritual of electronic sound that cleverly interrogated notions of the church and imposed religion. 
In the auditorium of Melbourne Town Hall, bodies politely took to their seats as if patiently waiting for a church sermon. 
Under the control of Williams, the Town Hall's Grand Organ became something else, electric and unruly as the deep melodic sounds of the old instrument intersected with her vivid set. Her music was an act of cleansing, taming the instruments that attempted to obliterate blak culture. Her presence and dynamic sound demonstrated survival in an era of renewed blak confidence.”  ABC Arts - Timmah Ball