A Necessary Softness, by Alexandra Spence

A Necessary Softness

by Alexandra Spence

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Nick Immersing myself in this tonight - takes me straight back to Alexandra's performances in Hong Kong! Thank you!

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Cassette + Digital Album
Deluxe matte laminate and embossed sleeve, triple panel insert card, pro-dubbed cassette, polycarb case.

Includes unlimited streaming of A Necessary Softness via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$9 USD or more

1.	Tidewater 17:28	buy track
2.	Waves 03:47	buy track
3.	Bell, Fern 15:06	buy track
4.	Rain 03:47	buy track

about

A Note From Alexandra

I have a near-spiritual obsession with the animation of material and object through sound. A necessary softness is my attempt to hold onto and translate through sound this fascination with material, object and place.

I like to imagine sound as a transient thread - unravelling and connecting our isolated homes, our objects, our bodies – degrading, changing form and leaving traces along the way. A necessary softness presents the shifting soundscapes of real and imagined places; tactile objects amplified to merge with sounds made by resonant bodies and digital processing, slowly unravelling into ambient landscape.

tidewater and bell, fern both began and were inspired by places in which I resided for a long (Vancouver) or a short time (Hong Kong). And both developed through performances presented over the past few years, beginning with a solo set at Destroy Vancouver in April 2016, intertwining in a performance at 20α in Hong Kong, June 2019, and solidifying with the launch of an album at the Petersham Bowlo in Sydney, August 2019.

A necessary softness is built of materials repeating and retelling, two performances-come compositions with a shared synergy. In a way, bell, fern was birthed from tidewater, exploring it’s own narrative whilst sharing in tidewater’s structure. They exist in a kind of parallel/binary form and my intention is that the cassette may be played in either direction. While, the digital fragmentation of the tracks allows for a more modular approach - chapters of a story to be entered into at any point.

A necessary softness, over and over, in homage to material and place.

credits

released April 16, 2021

Recorded, performed, composed, and mixed by Alexandra Spence, between Vancouver, Hong Kong and Sydney, 2014-2020  
waves field recording made with Matthew Ariaratnam, 2016 
Mastered by Lawrence English
text on tidewater from A Sierra Club Naturalist’s Guide: The Pacific Northwest, by Stephen Whitney, 1989

I acknowledge and pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the land on which I live, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and to the Coast Salish peoples – the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations, on whose land I resided in Vancouver. These lands were never ceded, they always were and always will be Aboriginal land.

Thank you to my friends in Canada and Hong Kong for making these times so magic. Thank you to the Hong Kong Arts Centre, Asialink Arts and Create NSW for supporting my time in Hong Kong. Thank you to the Australia Council and UNSW Creative Practice Lab for supporting my time in studio at UNSW. Thank you to Room40, my friends, and my family.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

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about

Alexandra Spence

living on unceded Wangal Land ⌇ making sounds

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