MACHINE FOR MAKING SENSE

Australian avant-garde cooperative Machine For Making Sense was founded in the late '80s to blend speech and improvisation and has since performed in Europe and North America, as well as Australia. The group consisted of hurdy-gurdy player and violinist Stevie Wishart, poets/vocalists Amanda Stewart and Chris Mann, Jim Denley on winds (ex-Tansey's Fancy, Mara!), and Rik Rue on samples and tape, all of whom are involved in a variety of other projects. They have been described as similar in spirit to AMM and Jon Rose and have recorded for O.O. Discs. The music (mostly vocal) inflections associated with "making sense" takes in all its forms and explores these in a musical manner that is at turns humorous, mysterious, lyrical, rambunctious, the music of an unsuspected culture, the birth noises of a new species. They released five albums between 1994 to 2006.

Members

Jim Denley (flutes, sax, and voice), Chris Mann (voice and text), Rik Rue (digital and analogue samples and tape manipulation), Amanda Stewart (voice and text), Stevie Wishart (violin, live electronics, hurdy-gurdy, and voice).

ALBUMS
'On Second Thoughts' 1994 Tall Poppies
'Talk Is Cheap' 1997 Splitrec
'Dissect The Body' 1998 Splitrec
'Consciousness' 1999 Splitrec
'The Act Of Observation Becomes The Object Itself' Rossbin

 

References

Joslyn Lane