‘back, before’ (Splitrec CD30)
released September 16, 2022:
Splitrec is proud to announce a new release by this long-running
trio. Formed in 2009, the members live on two separate continents but have maintained their relationship through international touring, concerts and recordings. They now have four exquisite albums.
Their first release Lucid (Splitrec CD 22) was recorded and released in 2011. John Shand wrote: “If spiders have musical dreams while spinning webs, they might sound like the fragile wisps of sound created by Great Waitress.”
Reviewing their second album, Flock (Creative Sources 234 CD) from 2013, Shand wrote again about dreams; “…the resultant music evolves like the soundtrack for a dream that is both enticing and disquieting.”
Of their third release Hue (Another Dark Age LP A006) from 2016, Bob Baker Fish in Cyclic Defrost wrote; “…really quite remarkable. It squeaks, rattles reverberates, shimmers, converges into a truly
unique organism, one that feels not just far beyond the sum of its parts, but also, oddly enough quite untouched by human hands.”
This fourth release titled back, before was recorded before the pandemic and lockdowns in 2018, and has taken four years to get to production. A live set was beautifully recorded by Peter Farrar at the Annandale Creative Arts Centre in Sydney and mixed and mastered by Joe Talia.
In the elegant liner notes, Chris Abrahams writes of Great Waitress transcending “ …the individual contributions of Mayas, Altman and Brooks. It’s an identity made from a multi-dimensional
counterpoint – timbral, rhythmic, harmonic, melodic, emotional… – that results in an ever-evolving gestalt.” He finishes with: “External sound phenomena are subsumed by a music that welcomes any wayward noise, clothing it instantly in its mystery and beauty.”
Great Waitress unfold soundscapes, and beyond their horizons there is nothing to be heard but other soundscapes, and still other horizons. But if we take our listening the other way — forensically attending to the minutiae — there is nothing inside the sounds but other smaller sounds. They do this inward/outward listening within each of their four amazing releases and they also do it across these releases. This listening is achieved because we never arrive at cliché, genre, or the entirely known or predictable — Great Waitress keep you suspended on a cusp between knowability and novelty.
They have unfolded a body of work, of which back, before is the latest stunning example, that speaks of a brilliant, patient, humble collectivity — one of the most important improvising ensembles of the last decade. We invite you to discover Great Waitress’s world.
‘Hue’ press release Another Dark Age, 2016:
“Today will not bring those visions.”
Presenting the unsettling sound world of Great Waitress’ Hue.
Magda Mayas (piano, DE), Monika Brooks (accordion, AU) and Laura Altman (clarinet, AU) release an echt zeit musik LP from a 2014 ABC studio session in Sydney. This forbiddingly beautiful and jagged real-time orchestration brings together extended technique improvisations to conjure a vast sound imagery that shifts from wide, empty pastures to terrifying Schwarzwald isolation and claustrophobia.
First performing in 2009, the trio’s debut album, Lucid (2011), on SplitRec was a dazzling offering on Jim Denley’s institutional imprint. So to was their follow-up, Flock (2013), on Portuguese label, Creative Sources. Hue is a sophisticated distillation of these previous two CD albums and is presented on the vinyl format that Great Waitress has always deserved.
On Hue, free improvisations offer flourishing moments of intensity that give way to shy, tender passages. The deep, textural explorations of each instrument confirm the accomplished musicianship of Mayas, Brooks and Altman and at times the record is so minimal it sounds closer to field recordings. This sparse real-time arrangement shows the performative class and collective listening of this trio, honed over seven years of working together.
And Great Waitress is strengthened by a staggering number of collaborations and solo works by its members. Brooks and Altman are affiliated with the improv, avant-garde circus, The Splinter Orchestra, while Altman is also a member of the provocative saxophone ensemble, Prophets (think James Chance meets The Residents). Brooks’ sound art has seen her work across instruments (field recorders, glass, radio) and with figures such as Chris Abrahams (The Necks) and Joe Talia (Oren Ambarchi). Mayas’ prolific prepared piano work has appeared in both solo and collaborative records and she is also one half of the duo, Spill, with The Necks drummer, Tony Buck.
The wide-reaching influences and technique of each member converge on Hue in a way that makes close listening unavoidable.
A-side: ‘Ribboning’ B-side: ‘Pleats’
‘Lucid’ press release Splitrec, 2011:
From 2008 Laura Altman and Monika Brooks’ duo excited the Sydney experimental scene, (of which they were important contributors), with quiet, ambiguous, ephemeral music – they treated duration as if it were precious.
Spawned from the Splinter Orchestra (splitrec 17), and mutated by current viruses, Altman’s clarinet and Brook’s accordion fused, not with lines, but with pools of sound, coexisting in an ecology that had no clear beginning or end – a calmly focussed, infinite field. As such, it was a seminal Sydney impro project.
In January 2009 the Berlin-based pianist Magda Mayas collaborated with them on a memorable performance at Sydney’s Now now Festival. Mayas injected not only an array of startling sounds, but insistent motion to contrast the stasis.
Two years later they reconvened as a band for an intense period – a return appearance at the 2011 Now now Festival, gigs around Sydney, the SoundOut Festival Canberra and finally this studio session.
Great Waitress initially possessed a dual processor – the long durations and static patience of the duo and Mayas’s compulsion for change. This created a vital rub – there was an edge between these world views. But as they evolved over this period, this duality splintered into multiplicity.
Great Waitress 