By Callum Ludwig
A broad range of perspectives and messages are coming when seven-time ARIA award winning artist David Bridie brings his new spoken word album ‘It’s Been A While Since Our Last Correspondence’ to The Memo on Saturday 8 July.
Mr Bridie reached out to 13 different spoken word artists to compile a vastly different and varied album that will be backed by music.
Mr Bridie said it was fascinating bringing together the range of stories from so many people.
“They’re all people I know and who I really like and find it easy to work with, so it was a bit of a labour of love,” he said.
“I’ve occasionally had spoken word pieces, but never a whole album of it, so it was refreshing because it was different, and because of the range of people to collaborate with.”
The album features the following: Edwina Preston, Farhad Bandesh, Catherine Deveny, Deborah Brown, Danny Dickson, Kutcha Edwards, Kerri Simpson, Kit Kavanagh Ryan, Kathleen Mary Fallon, Matt Quartermaine, Anthony Morgan, Damian Callinan and Arnold Zable.
Mr Bridie said curating it all was a wonderful experience.
“Some are quite mournful, some quite hilarious, some have a band, other things have a sparse piano piece, it runs the whole gamut,” he said.
“I was trying to get all these people who had a different take on Australia and it ended up with quite a wide range.”
The differing experience of being Australian is told through tales onhe tracks from expressing a longing for freedom or frustration with language, to being forced away from family or reminscing on younger years.
Mr Bridie has previously featured as part of musical groups Not Drowning Waving and My Friend the Chocolate Cake, while releasing six solo albums. Mr Bridie will perform on the piano and be joined by guitarist Rosie Excess for his Healesville show.
More information and tickets can be found at: www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/Experience/Events/David-Bridie.
