Ellen Kirkwood's Underwards - Delve

Trumpeter-composer Ellen Kirkwood’s group Underwards’ new release, Delve, is a sonic exploration of human’s experience in nature.

Sydney based trumpeter-composer Ellen Kirkwood’s Underwards new release, Delve, draws inspiration from the ways in which humans experience nature, combining beauty, mystery, colour and rhythm. The project features talented emerging artists guitarist Hilary Geddes, bassist Nick Henderson and drummer Alex Inman-Hislop.

"Deeply sensitive, intellectually inquisitive, modern and of today."  Canberra Jazz Blog

Ellen Kirkwood explains the project:

The full moon through trees and mist. Towering majestic cliffs above a quiet rural valley. A calm river winding through a rocky landscape. A swim in a tidal ocean pool. A muddy swamp, teeming with life. The effects that being in nature has upon our senses and our minds, and the stories, memories and mysteries that beautiful and wild places hold. This is what Underwards makes music about.

Led by award-winning trumpeter and composer Ellen Kirkwood, the music for this project, like nature, combines beauty, mystery, colour and rhythm, but also leans into the ways in which humans experience nature; sometimes with wonder and joy, sometimes with awe or bewilderment, sometimes with melancholy.

Across ten original compositions, Kirkwood and her band mates Hilary Geddes, Nick Henderson and Alex Inman-Hislop show off their abundance of musical versatility, wit and expressivity. Moods range between fiery drum and bass on the title track Delve, the ambient luminosity of Night Hymn and The Cliffs Beheld, curious and playful group improvisations on Swampy and Gather... and the hypnotic off-kilter groove of In Ganguddy.

Kirkwood’s compositions for Underwards draw on her love of the natural world, and a desire to strengthen listeners’ bonds with it through music, as a form of “soft” climate activism. Her composition methods often involve immersion in places in nature, letting inspiration arrive through the impact of the surroundings upon herself.

Tracks 5-10 were inspired by places in Dabee country near Kandos in NSW, and informed by conversations she had with Indigenous locals to whom this area is their ancestral home. These were penned as part of the 2021 APRA Art Music Fund commission.

Ellen Kirkwood is a composer, trumpeter, bandleader and educator from Sydney, Australia. She was awarded the Jann Rutherford Memorial Award in 2012, the NSW APRA Art Music Award for Jazz Excellence in 2019, and one of ten 2021 APRA Art Music Fund grants. She was a finalist in the 2017 Freedman Jazz Fellowships, and her groundbreaking [A]part suite for big band was a finalist for Jazz Work of the Year in the 2018 APRA Art Music Awards. She has received numerous composition commissions both in Australia and internationally, and has released four albums of her original works.

Personnel

Ellen Kirkwood - trumpet, vocals

Hilary Geddes - guitar

Nick Henderson - bass, synthesiser

Alex Inman-Hislop - drums

About the Music

1. Slow Wade
The underpinning feature of Slow Wade is the constant, angular but ambling melody on trumpet, voice and bass. Gradually improvised guitar and drums creep in, building to an erratic frenzy that hits a climax when a new trumpet melody enters, sailing over it all, and the piece gradually calms to a close. Slow Wade is about exactly what its title says, but also, in Ellen’s words, “it’s reminiscent of the kind of mental self-regulation that I seek, and mostly find, when I get out into nature.”

2. Delve
Delve, the album’s title track, features a catchy and driving drum’n bass groove with unexpected rhythmic twists and sparse trumpet and guitar melodies. Guitarist Hilary Geddes and drummer Alex Inman-Hislop both play exciting solos, and the whole piece is underpinned by Nick Henderson’s energetic electric bass. The track’s title, Delve, is a nod to the name of the band, and also to Ellen Kirkwood’s artistic process of getting deep into ideas that arrive of their own accord, and patiently letting those ideas develop into fully-fledged pieces.

3. Night Hymn
An ethereal, glowing chorale played by reverberant trumpet, guitar and bass evokes the mystical wonder and strangeness of the night. Featuring improvisations by drummer Alex Inman-Hislop, creating narrative and drama, this piece is an homage to the majestic beauty of night skies, and moonlight and starlight shining down on the land.

4. Swampy
With a deep and constant groove that’s satisfyingly relentless, Swampy lives up to its name with weird and imaginative solos by Nick Henderson’s electric bass with effects, and Ellen Kirkwood’s creature-like trumpet. The piece culminates in a collective swampy improvisation by the whole band.

5. The Cliffs Beheld
In a corner of the beautiful Capertee Valley is a place where a terrible massacre happened. Many members of the Dabee clan were killed by European settlers. Rather than an attempt to recount this atrocity, this piece is a bittersweet meditation on a beautiful part of the world where a terrible event occurred. It is sparse, expressive and contemplative, with melodies only played by trumpet and bass, plus percussive sounds and recorded samples of frogs from the nearby creek. Ellen thanks Dabee woman and descendant of survivors, Emma Syme, who told her about the Dabee massacre.

6. Caution
This is a piece about exercising caution and sensitivity when stepping into new territory, both literally and figuratively. With delicate melancholic melodies and unusual rhythmic twists, Caution features improvised solos on acoustic bass and trumpet.

7. Mountain Magic
Composer Ellen Kirkwood says about this track: “I love mountains, and I love synthesizers. The lines played by the synth bass, trumpet and guitar are all based on the shapes of one particular mountain in the Capertee Valley, seen from different angles. To help me see Dabee country, in which the Capertee Valley lies, in a little bit more depth, I talked to local Indigenous elder Peter Swain. One of the many things he talked about was the magic in the land. Despite so much tragedy suffered by the Dabee people, the spirit and joy in the landscape endures.”

8. Gather...
In this improvised introduction to track 9, Underwards imagines the rocky landscape, and the gathering of wind, water, clouds, animals and people, at beautiful and unique Ganguddy, in Dabee Country.

9. In Ganguddy
The remarkable Ganguddy, with stocky stone pagodas, angular horizons and the serene Cudgegong River flowing through, is the inspiration for this piece. Jaunty rhythms are juxtaposed against flowing guitar and trumpet, and an overarching sense of anticipation and curiosity characterise this piece. In Ganguddy also features solos on trumpet and drums.

10. Hands and Feet
Composer Ellen Kirkwood says: “Elsewhere in Dabee country is a remarkable place that holds old, old memories. I sat there imagining scenes of happiness and laughter, and came up with this melody.”

(Tracks 5-10 were commissioned by APRA for the 2021 Art Music Fund)

Album: Delve

Release: 21 July 2023

Catalogue Number: EAR074