Never having been invited to play this event before I happily agreed to jump in. Greg’s concept was for me to play solo and selectively process the Didjeridu live through a series of harmonized delay settings he had specifically written, in the Maxx software program, with me in mind. At the root of his program idea are mathematical calculations based on sacred geometry and astronomy.  

The day before I went over to Greg’s house and became familiar with the technology that would require me to process my live didjeridu playing through one or other of the 15 programmed settings – a Controller, a couple of foot pedals to trigger the FX/Volume, and a laptop. I spent an hour finding out that, though generally pretty much an organic kind of musician dealing normally in hollow logs, sticks and appendage rattles by choice, I actually could put my pedal to the metal synchronous with blowing the didj and make sense of the outcome - sort of.
 
So on the Solstice I met Greg at the Chapel of the Chimes, found our location in the Cloister of the Cherubs, got wired and immediately pushed my fledgling multi-media boat off into a 4 hour exploration of the idea, experienced by a moving procession of the Solstice throngs that wander the Garden of Memory, and the spirits of the multitudes that reside there permanently. There was little sense of it as a “Performance”. More as a seamless musical JOURNEY into hitherto uncharted waters.

This was as organic an experience in creating music as I have ever experienced in 25 years of working with the Didjeridu. I was lost in the moment and lost in the voyage of discovery that this moment took me into. Beyond the first piece I played, which began in altogether familiar territory, I stepped into the unknown, the familiar refuge of most Didjeridu players, and never looked back.

The discovery, some months after the event, that the first part of my performance had been actually recorded, was a surprise to me. At the time of playing I had zero sense that any recording was being made. After hearing the results much later I only regret that the rest of the 4 hours was not also immortalized on disc (only about 100 minutes was recorded onto the Hard Drive).

The CD, Living Labyrinths, is pretty much a true reflection of what I played that day in the order in which I played it and with very few edits or changes – there are no overdubs and, in the pieces that make it onto the CD, no edits. Apart from the re-placement of 1 piece alone, the music on Living Labyrinths is exactly in the sequence that I played it live. Warts and all! So, yes, you do hear all the fluffed notes and dysfunctional moments that occur in the discovery of a blind alley here and there in this, the most openly honest and organic collaboration with technology that I have ever embarked on with solo Didjeridu.

In post-production Greg and I tweaked only with EQ here and there and had minimal control of the relative levels of the Didj and the 2 computer tracks, all of which bled profusely into each other. Our major work was in the hours and hours of sequencing and re-sequencing that it took us before we finally realized that we couldn’t improve on the way I had played it in the first place.

My heartfelt thanks go out to Greg for the time and inspiration that he has so generously given to Living Labyrinths. I believe it stands as a true gem of unparalleled originality in the contemporary catalogue of didjeridu music. And I had absolutely no idea what I was channeling as I did it. An empty vessel……………