Reuben Lewis

Feb 4

Written By Jack Alexander

Vivid, uncategorisable sonic adventures crafted using trumpet, synths, field recordings and sundry / mystical electronics.

Reuben plays on our expectations and unravels all semblance of familiar form to deliver a moving sonic experience that is “beyond category” (The Australian).

Image Credit - Mona Foma

“A mixture of various samplings and live trumpet, the work is a meditation on embodied memory and includes fragmentary voice recordings that hint at trauma. At one point we hear laughter, but it is the laughter of “pain and confusion”; there is a conversation about traumas of childhood and age and a poem about the shadows and pain of love, which is serenaded by a nearby kookaburra. With its subterranean fractures and slippages, Lewis’s work feels strangely appropriate to its setting.”
- Alison Croggon, The Saturday Paper

“Musician and producer Reuben Lewis begins his set with a deep, tonal synth that seems to resonate off the natural stone architectures beyond the trees. The performance is an hour-long sonic journey through layers of ethereal synth and field recordings, mixed with live trumpet and sampled spoken word. The voice is that of Tony Yap – dancer, philosopher, and Lewis’ long-term collaborator – directing us to listen, and to feel.”
- Hannah Foley, The Conversation

Live at New North

“a trumpet lost in the Black Lodge of Twin Peaks during a waking dream”
– ExitMusik

Earshift Digital Festival

“a vivid listening experience that gleams with sinister detail”
- The Wire

AAO Solo Series

“There is a vast, monolithic intensity to this slow-moving music, fabricated as a trance inducing wall-of-sound that oscillates, ebbs and flows.”
- Des Cowley, Rhythms Magazine

Together | Apart

“What is happening here? Lewis is active in what appears to be a new genre in Australian jazz and has taken this mode of expression to a new level of sophistication.”
- The Australian