WHAT IS MUSIC FESTIVAL

What is music indeed? Last I checked, it had something to do with sound, stereos, instruments thrumming with pent-up passion, hypercolour film clips, fashion trends, starlet scandals and egos the size of Saturn … okay, maybe I don’t have much of an idea after all. Certainly, it’s an art form that runs the gamut from high culture to the sudsiest of soap, and one that is constantly being questioned by its practitioners. Enter What is Music festival, an independent experimental music festival that has been running since the mid-90s. Lloyd Honeybrook, one of the festivals key conductors, says, “The festival was born out of the necessity to expose unusual contemporary musical forms that were otherwise unknown to the general public at that point in time. Simultaneously, it challenged the prevailing preconceptions as to what in fact constituted music, hence the name!” In 2009, the sound terrorists include American ‘laptop brutalist’ John Wiese, Polish wunderkinds Robert Piotrowicz and Anna Zaradny, from Japan a duo described as, “Essential viewing for both the modern intellectual neanderthal and primitive reactionist übermensch alike”, hercel, along with locals Clare Cooper, Chris Abrahams, Clayton Thomas and more. All prowl in the badlands of sonic experimentation and technological manipulation. When asked what exactly constitutes ‘experimental’, Honeybrook answers, “It’s not [a] safe, mundane or overcalculated sound, though a lot of the noisier artists involved are attempting to deal directly with the viscera of humanity; and what could be more theoretically mundane than humanity?  Thankfully, the sonic results are infinitely more evocative, exhilarating and intoxicating than the majority of what humanity considers ‘music’.” Time to rethink my definition of music.

Sat 12 Dec, from 5.30pm, Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St Eveleigh, $30, 1300 723 038 or ticketmaster.com.au