Jason Sweeney, under the musical guise of Panoptique Electrical, is launching a new album with a live concert of electronic compositions and instrumental works drawn from soundtracks made over the last decade for South Australian and interstate theatre/dance companies, short films and art installations.

The concert performance takes place at EMU Space: Electronic Music Unit, Adelaide University on FRIDAY 29 AUGUST, 8pm with support by Adelaide sound artist, Tristan Louth-Robins.

Jason Sweeney is best known for his work as a performance and sound artist, director of Unreasonable Adults and as part of electronic music duo Pretty Boy Crossover. The album titled ‘Let the darkness at you’ collects instrumental pieces recorded by Sweeney for film, animated film, and theatre performances, in various towns and cities including Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Albury, and Wagga Wagga in Australia, Banff (Canada), Los Angeles (USA), Glasgow (Scotland), and Brussels (Belgium), between 1998 and 2008. In early 2008, Jason set to re-working and re-contextualizing these pieces to create ‘Let the darkness at you’ for Melbourne record label, Sensory Projects. There is a real sense of space throughout ‘Let the darkness at you’, arguably because of the ambient nature of the pieces, and because they were written in the main for use in film and theatre. The music is also charged with something raw, visceral, and emotive; Sweeney capturing a shimmering introspection through the manipulation of guitars, pianos, and computers. Despite the fact that ‘Let the darkness at you’ is at first a collection of pieces recorded over a number of years for many unrelated projects, there is a real feeling of consistency of sound and feeling throughout. Jason has suggested that Panoptique Electrical is the music project closest to his heart, inferring that its evocative darkness is his clearest, maybe even his most well-intentioned artistic statement to date.

The formulation of this album is also a collaboration of sorts, between Jason and Sensory Projects’ Steve Phillips. After sitting with the pieces for a short time, Phillips set to work creating artwork specifically informed by the music, as well as titles for a number of the tracks, and also contributed the title of the album. Jason explains: “ ‘Let the Darkness at You’ is a wonderful title. It actually sums up the feeling - or at least my intention of the feeling - for the record; this kind of enveloping darkness, to lose yourself in, to swim. In an uncertain place full of strange and often sinister corners, some moments of finding a clearing, a space to rest, and then be drawn back into the dark World.” Somehow what Jason says sounds much like daily life, and the need to remove ourselves from it and escape into a different space, even just for a time, just to re-focus our sense of self. And this is ‘Let the darkness at you’.

LAUNCH: FRIDAY 29 AUGUST
EMU SPACE: ELECTRONIC MUSIC UNIT
5th Floor Schulz Building Adelaide University
(Enter through lifts at Scott Theatre foyer)

Starts 8:00pm sharp.
Entry $10

Websites

http://www.soundslikesweeney.com