BIOGRAPHY
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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. English utilises a variety of approaches including live performance, installation and found sound/vision to create works that generate subtle transformation of space and ask audiences to become aware of that which exists at the edge of perception.
For over a decade, English’s audio investigations have traversed a divergent path where musical and environmental sources are granted equal focus. His work calls into question the established relationships of sound and structure – field recordings and musical materials work in unison, acting as suggestive devices. Rather than prescriptive, English’s sound work calls for the listener to construct their own narratives and impressions based on their personal histories and experiences. Published widely on respected imprints including Touch, 12K and Winds Measure, English’s work is sculpted and overwhelmingly intricate. The Wire noted his ‘use of space and silence is remarkable’, and U.S. sound journal Signal To Noise described the Ghost Towns work as ‘extraordinarily gorgeous modern music concréte’.
As a producer English has completed numerous projects with artists including Tujiko Noriko (U, Blurred In My Mirror), Ben Frost (Theory Of Machines), Tenniscoats (Totemo Aimasho, Temporacha) and The Rational Academy (Swans). He has also completed commissioned compositions for acclaimed avant-circus troupe Circa, various theatre ensembles and has worked as a sound designer in collaboration with artists including Australian visualist Craig Walsh.
English’s installation and gallery practice is concerned predominately with challenging the understandings and expectations of site specificity, sound and media. His 2008 ‘Trio For Objects’ exhibition presented three discrete sound installations (kinetic, prepared and sculptural) which when experienced in unison created a ‘related sound field’. By contrast, the 3-screen video installation Ghost Towns, seeks to create an abstract ‘virtual map’ of remote Australian spaces. In 2006 English produced a series of sound art works specifically for the deaf and hearing impaired under the title ‘Silence Listening’. These works were amongst the first of their kind in the world, exploring and examining the notions of isolation and sonic interaction within these oft-marginalized communities.
Outside of his recording and art commissions, Lawrence English curates a number of ongoing sound and media programs including Mono at the Institute Of Modern Art and Syncretism at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts. He produces the annual Room40 festival Open Frame (in Australia and London) and co-produces a number of other festivals including Sound Polaroids, Liquid Architecture and Frankly!. He continues to curate numerous conceptually driven art projects including Melatonin – Meditations On Sound In Sleep (for Next Wave Festival), Airport Symphony (for the Queensland Music Festival), Small Scores (for Valley Fiesta) and Audible Geography (for University Of Tasmania). He has presented on radio as part of Triple J’s Soundlab program and he continues to produce an extensive range of radio documents and sound works for programs such as the BBC’s World Service. His critical writings can be found in journals such as The Wire, Signal To Noise, Paris Transatlantic, Cyclic Defrost, and numerous online outlets.
English’s imprint and multi-arts organisation ::ROOM40:: (www.room40.org) maintains a steady release schedule from an eclectic array of Australian and international artists.
Press
Selected Media On A Colour For Autumn 2009 ** Lawrence English is a genius at creating atmospheric music and A Colour For Autumn is just exceptional… - Lycanthropy
On It’s Up To Us To Live 2009 ** Unquestionably absorbing stuff. – Brainwashed
On Kiri No Oto 2008 ** It is a rare thing to hear an album that is so engaging and stimulating… – Brainwashed
**Intelligent drones from an established and now highly influential figure on the minimalist scene… essential. – White Lines
On Studies For Stradbroke 2008 **’the use of space and silence is remarkable…’ – The Wire
On For Varying Degrees Of Winter 2007 **This album is a discussion of the experience of winter seen from many angles and I think it engages the listener while communicating the atmosphere of the season very well. – Heathen Harvest
**Enveloping, swelling, quietly fizzing with transluscence, the air grainily alive around it, a fascinatingly varying English winter awaits those who would enter. – E/I Magazine
**’For Varying Degrees Of Winter’ is almost perfect. – Touching Extremes
On Happiness Will Befall 2006 **A picture may be worth 1000 words, but in the right hands ambient music can reach an even higher plane of communication. Mike Wolf, Time Out New York
**A polar journey between the harsh yet compelling sounds of dedicatedly minimalist computer music and the subtle organicism of post-classical instrumentalists. Ben Bollig, Noripcord.com
On Transit 2005 **English softens all the edges and extends particular timbres into oceanic swells that ebb and flow in conjunction with the haunted melodies that lumber in the distance, at times resembling the gaping spaces of Thomas Koner and at others the incidental music of Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Jim Haynes, The Wire
**A seductive, beautiful suite - Jonathan Marshall, Realtime
On Ghost Towns 2004 **Extraordinarily gorgeous modern musique concréte. Signal To Noise
**An amazing and evocative recording, with English creating his own impossible Ghost Town. Bob Baker Fish, Inpress Magazine
On Naturestrip’s Overland 2003 **[English’s A Summer Crush is] a veritable piece of cinema for the ear. Stylus Magazine
On Map51F9 2002 **Seventeen minutes of shimmering heat haze electronics and processed field recordings unfold gently, swallowing the surrounding environment. Christopher Murphy, Fallt Array
On Calm 2001 **The field recordings are layered deep into these textures, creating an evocative, dissociated, dreamlike quality. Mitchell Whitelaw, Realtime
More press can be found here http://www.touchmusic.org.uk/catalogue/tone_31_lawrence_english_kiri.html
