The House is Empty
Be pulled beneath the earth and then lifted into the ether by The House is Empty
“Lewis’ music is beyond category.”
- The Australian
Releasing on the acclaimed Amsterdam based label, Shimmering Moods, the debut solo album by award winning Australian trumpeter/composer/electronic artist Reuben Lewis is an immersive sonic experience that ushers us through a private prayer, where we are made to confront our raw, vulnerable emotions and contemplate how we permit ourselves to be heard and felt.
“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
The House is Empty delivers four meditative commissions, composed over a two year period, that gently guide the listener to develop a curiosity and comfortability with the unknown. Using a deceptive mix of trumpet, electronics, field recordings and synthesisers, Reuben plays on our expectations and unravels all semblance of familiar form. Piece by piece, story and symbol are shattered as we are led to create a new narrative, one that is just between us the listener and the sound world.
“This is a very promising debut by this young Australian for whom musical genres don’t exist – all is sound and movement. Unusual, but utterly rewarding.”
Liner notes - Didem Caia
Reuben Lewis’ debut solo album does the rare thing of taking a listener on a simultaneous journey within and without. Beginning with an extended meditative quest across a surprising path, ‘The House is Empty’ contradicts its title by delivering something fecund, watery and harsh. Though the slow ascension of ominous sensations is confronting, the layered composition never leaves the listener feeling purposefully detoured, but instead gently guides us to develop a curiosity and a comfortability with the unknown.
‘Together | Apart’ takes this state one step further and transports the body to a primal, almost atavistic state of being, readying us for movement. As the trumpet calls, depending on the mood of the listener, it’s either a siren song or a war cry. One might feel the urge to either tighten their fists, or soften their belly. That’s the beauty of this series, it is spherical, exploding the senses in many different directions. The music plays, drumming on our expectations, and just when we think we might have it figured out, we are transported again, and all semblance of familiar rhythms, story and symbol are shattered. We are evoked to create a new story, one that is just between us the listener and the sound world.
We are offered some respite when ‘He’s Like You’ begins, but even this is deceptive. As the sounds widen, breathing us in whole, we are met with a poignant charge that is cleverly and purposefully injected through a live conversation between two men. This conversation seems to bring our senses back to the immediate, anchoring our thinking and providing a moment of probing; who are these people? does it matter? . ‘He’s like a child’ is a line that aches with memory and nostalgia, and the intimate telling of a story about an older man with child-like proclivities makes the listener an avid fly on the wall desperate to know more about the bodies who house these voices, but also more about our own mortality and our deepest relationships. The distortion of the music folding into the conversation, feels like a secular hymn for the times. The musician is almost ushering us through a private prayer, where we are made to confront our raw, vulnerable and dewy emotions, whilst also contemplating the fragility and distance between our primordial selves and how we permit ourselves to be heard and felt.
It is easy to become engulfed into one’s own interior landscape with this track, however as we meet our final plot point on the journey, ‘Animal | God’ there is an infinite topography to explore. Whether trying to conjure our sense of body, mind, or dare I say – higher self or God, The musician plays straight into the infinite space between Animal and God and manages to deliver a life’s journey in a song. Ultimately, the feeling of at once being pulled beneath the earth and then lifted upward into the ether, this is the perfect ending to a series of work that must be experienced more than once to feel the levels of power and purity.
Credits
‘The House is Empty’ commissioned by Australian Art Orchestra & The Substation
‘Together | Apart’ commissioned by Australian Art Orchestra
‘He’s Like You’ supported by Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio, featuring Tony Yap & Brendan O’Conner
‘Animal | God’ supported by Abbotsford Convent
Reuben Lewis – trumpet, synthesisers, pedals, electronics, field recordings
All pieces composed, performed, recorded, mixed & produced by Reuben Lewis
Artwork by Dianne Fogwell
