SoundOut’s about music and intervening silence

Festival director Richard Johnson opening on sax. Photo: Andrew Sikorski

Music / SoundOut Music Festival 2025. At ANU Drill Hall Gallery until February 2. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

Make no mistake about it, the SoundOut music festival is one that requires intense concentration from its listeners, for it is not just about sound but about the intervening silences, as I found when I attended the opening three segments of this exploratory music-art event.

With 26 artists from Australia, France, Germany, Canada and the US, the tone was immediately set by the striking artworks created by Sydney artist Locust Jones to line the side walls of the Drill Hall Gallery.

In the opening segment, Biomorph, festival director Richard Johnson and Canberra alto-sax whiz kid Rhys Butler took to the stage, while visual artist Nicci Haynes working behind a projector, threw up on background screen abstract images filtered through glass and film objects which she manipulated. The result was an ever-unfolding abstract expressionist landscape that added to the audience experience.

While for the larger part, Johnson created very deep and unexpected rhythmic effects on his sax, Butler whispered delicately into his, later unmuting his instrument for a lively exploration of its higher notes. This short work was quiet and intense.

Canadian cellist Peggy Lee. Photo: Andrew Sikorski

Next up was Canadian cellist Peggy Lee, who played the deeper registers of the instrument, sometimes using her cello as a percussion instrument while at other times exploring parts of it not normally in contact with the bow. Later, gently stroking the cello, she waved her bow in the air.

For the third set we had the keenly-awaited frontliners from France, the quintet Hubbub, with whom Johnson has been negotiating for years.

Hubbub proved to be an intriguing ensemble featuring two dramatic showcase musicians in Frédéric Blondy on piano and Edward Perraud on drums, with three subtly insinuating straight-men, Bertrand Denzler on saxophone, Jean-Sébastien Mariage on guitar and Jean-Luc Guionnet on alto sax.

Hubbub from France. Photo: Andrew Sikorski

Bookended by Blondy on the left and Perraud on the right, the other players stood deceptively impassive, in the middle, Mariage providing the subtle, amplified under beat.

While Blondy worked mostly inside the piano, sometimes using rhythm sticks and sometimes self-prepared implements to create the sounds, Perraud proved to be a dramatic show in himself, hyper-emotional, literally sawing at the cymbals and later throwing away his drumstick – not to worry, he had plenty more at the ready.

Their work gathered in drama as, with whispers of wind from Guionnet and penetrating high-pitched long notes from Denzler it went to fadeout.

SoundOut 2025 continues on Saturday with no fewer than 12 segments, finishing on Sunday with six separate performances

First published at Canberra City News, February 1, 2025