Barney McAll feat Monash Art Ensemble - Zephyrix

2018 Release

 

Eerie eyes, the bleating bell, cracked as a tal, wake him, a standing start.
Sunrise. Pink grapefruit bleeds through gauze.
Up with the starlings chinotto clowns spun from pashmak.
He breathes, the boy-man, colour, chroming, a sneaky cephalopod.
Steps are earthbound, says the rib-jutting Jain, better fly,
Eyrie ears....
- Paul Grabowsky

I was commissioned by the Monash Art Ensemble to compose this piece during my residency at the Peggy Glanville-Hicks composer house in 2015. Whilst there, I had flashes of an image... half man, half bird with one large wing on its right side, dressed in business attire.

Following the abstract advice of this image I decided to fuse the Greek God Zephyr with the mythical Phoenix to create a new beast; the Zephyrix. It’s a hybrid creature which, for me, symbolizes the bridging of tensions that occur between our mundane struggles and the evils of life, and the liberating creative expression of our true selves.

Zephyrix is the musical embodiment of that tension, encapsulating both the strain and release of this dichotomy. It seeks to...  more