philip samartzis & eugne ughetti: polar force

Polar Force is a new collaborative work from Australian field recordist Philip Samartzis and percussionist Eugene Ughetti. The work, which draws on Samartzis's time at Casey Station (one of Australia's primary research outposts on the Antarctic continent), is a powerful merging of environmental acoustics and extended approaches to percussion. Much of the sound heard on this edition is created through custom made percussion devices utilizing ice, water, and wind. When matched against the field recordings they create a blurry line between the natural and the synthetic, Samartzis and Ughetti prompting you to listen deeply into their emergent sound world. From Eugene Ughetti: "As Philip was preparing to leave for his second Australian Antarctic Division residency, he invited me to lunch to discuss the possibility of collaborating on a new work. He recounted his first experience on the ice, where the surrounding landscapes seemed to articulate avant-garde percussion works of an epic scale. On this visit, he wanted his field work to explicitly shape the formation of a new performance work with a particular focus on katabatic winds in and around Casey Base station. Intrigued, I accepted the challenge provided I could create a live performance utilizing the same recorded materials of ice, air, and water. We undertook an ambitious collaboration with sound, instrument, lighting and industrial designers, a dramaturg and percussionist. For Polar Force we built an environment, a white inflatable structure reminiscent of a remote re-search station on the ice. Emanating from outside the space come the complex and foreboding sounds of the natural environment, inside, a live event akin to scientific research in sound occurs. This hour-long performance installation work gives rise to a hyper-realistic sensing of Antarctica, bursting with natural beauty, power and the audible evidence of human impact."