So we are in the middle for rehearsals for The Howling Sound with the Amplified Elephants. We’ve been rehearsing at the Footscray Community Arts Centre and getting ourselves ready for the big show at Federation Square’s Atrium. Alister Karl has been building us a fabulous white stage and Richie Allen and I have built some small sound machines that the Amplified Elephants will be a part of the show. There are some motor machines similar to that the Amplified Elephants worked with in their 2009 show THE NIS, as well as some spinning bowls and another surprise or two.
The Amplified Elephants have been spending time with the show fully set up developing the sound for the show. It’s group developed with the Elephants and myself testing out different combinations of sound and settling on the ones that suit the dark ambience of the show. We’ll have drumkit artists extraordinaire Sean Baxter joining us in the rehearsal process and his kit action will be a feature of the show. He’ll be contributing to the content of the show as well - just like the rest of us. We also have Timothy Phillips from the Arcko Symphonic Project coming in to join the group as a conductor. So that is exciting too for us all. The Elephants have worked with Timothy before and they really love spending time with him.
The show is built around rock instruments and gadgets - guitars, bass, drumkit, guitar pedals and so on and the group has been really enjoying the idea of treating this world as place for sonic exploration and adventure. There are no songs or rhythms in the show, as such – it’s more about the sonic colours of the instruments and using those to make art.
Words by James Hullick, Director of The Click Clack Project Inc.
The Howling Sound | Fed Square | 4-6 May 2012
