Alastair Galbraith

Alastair Galbraith is an experimental musician based in Dunedin and recipient of the 2006 Arts Foundation Laureate. He employs amongst his instruments, violin, bagpipes, softly spoken lyrics, organ, and backwards-guitar to create what has been described as “otherworldly” and an “unerringly emotional” sound. Alastair Galbraith’s long, consistent career began in the early 1980s, as leader of The Rip, who recorded two EPs for Flying Nun. He later joined other prominent South Island musicians Peter Jefferies, David Mitchell and Robbie Muir to form Plagal Grind, whose self-titled EP is regarded as a masterpiece of extra-academic experimental music.

Alastair’s solo work has gained a growing international reputation and is known as a benchmark of excellence for the independent, idiosyncratic mode it operates in. His works have been heralded in critical journals and documented by recordings on prestigious American labels. In his recent work, alongside solo recordings, Alastair collaborates with Bruce Russell in the improvisational group, A Handful of Dust, and with Matt De Gennaro, with whom he creates distinctive ‘wire music’, using piano wires in a site-specific installation. This will be demonstrated in a workshop before the event.

In 2006 the prestigious North American label, Table of the Elements, archivers of such twentieth century musical geniuses as Charlie Patton and Tony Conrad, gave Alastair’s solo work the status of contemporary classics by reissuing his albums Morse/Gaudylight and Talisman. Alastair’s album of song-based material, the 20-track Orb, was released on his own label Nextbestway, via Global Routes, early in 2008 and received a glowing full-page review in the February edition of icon UK magazine The Wire.

Peter Wright

Over the course of a decade, Wright has etched his name in glass in the annals of drone-world superstardom. Alongside Phil Nilblock, Robert Horton, and Tom Carter, Peter Wright is on top of the drone music world, both in the sheer amount of astounding music he creates, but also the effortlessly way he makes sounds that are completely indecipherable but strangely familiar.

Wright first started playing music semi-seriously in Christchurch during 1990, recording un-tutored noise-pop on a four track.Following several song-based solo projects Wright’s music started to take a more abstract hue around 1996, finally culminating in a more refined guitar-based drone sound that he has worked with almost continuously since the late 90s. After several self released CDrs on his Apoplexy label, Wright moved to the UK and had his first ‘proper’ CD release in 2003 on US label Last Visible Dog, followed by a string of CDs issued on various US and European imprints.

10 October 2008 – Auckland – Whammy Bar
with: alastair galbraith, Peter Wright.

START: FRI 10 OCTOBER 2008, 12:00 PM
VENUE/CITY: WHAMMY BAR, AUCKLAND.