Raver, musician, writer, organiser - a podcast interview with Bridget Chappell aka Hextape
Raver, musician, writer, organiser - a podcast interview with Bridget Chappell aka Hextape
Plus a new series of Playlist 'Companions' on Spotify
Greetings from locked-down NSW. We’re using our strapped-indoors time productively with the release of a new podcast episode and new Spotify playlists as well as kicking off the pre-production for our new radio-not-radio show.
First up, a new pod-isode is out today, talking with artist Bridget Chappell - raver, musician, writer and organiser - who makes frenetic and febrile electronic music as Hextape, and has been organising parties in drains, observatories, and other odd locations for many years.
At the tail end of last year, Bridget released Undertow, their debut album under their own name, through Heavy Machinery. The work blends sonified data from the City of Melbourne’s Open Data Platform with Melbourne's public sound sculpture, the Federation Bells; layered with cello and electronics. The result is an ‘aural painting’ which pulls focus on colonial responsibility, the climate crisis, policing and surveillance, with a generous dose of rave nostalgia and vapourwave added to the mix.
Listen to our chat with Bridget and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
While we’re in podcast-land, let’s chat about THE FUTURE. We’ve been itching to get back onto the radio show tip for quite some time, and so we’re flipping the script on the current podcast format; eschewing long-form interviews for music programming. We are constantly scavenging for new weird Australian music, and our compilations simply can’t contain the volume of artists we discover. Daily messages in our mailbox only add must-listens to the long list. And, fuck yes, we have a responsibility to spread the word. So our new-not-new radio-not-radio show is imminent, delivered through the regular podcast channel, on a frequency that has yet to be determined. As much as we can make, basically, as often as we can make it. If you’re making music, send us some links to your work and you might hear it on the pod-show-radio-cast.
We also share music through Spotify. Not everyone’s flavour, and no one’s best friend, sure, but it exists and it’s a good gateway drug. If you like what you hear on our playlists, seek out the artist - buy their music on Bandcamp or wherever, go to their shows, wear their merch, do the do.
We have three Spotify playlists rn -
New Weird Australia - Mutant Music From The Upside Down is the alpha, featuring an ongoing selection of new and recent releases. New music now up from Corin, Shrapnel, e444e, Low Flung, Troth, Michelle Nguyen, Jorja Chalmers, Picnic, YL Hooi and plenty more.
Liminal Works - A ‘Space Between Space’ Companion features further listening of artists featured on the Space Between Space compilation. Our compilations are not on Spotify (for many reasons), but this playlist gathers together new music from some (but not all) of the featured artists - such as Penelope Trappes, Friendships, Greta Now, Noom, Night Dives and more.
Ritual Displacement - A ‘Solitary Wave’ Companion - as above, for our 2020 Solitary Wave compilation featuring Marcus Whale, Jannah Quill, Wytchings, Fia Fiell, Kcin plus plus plus.
And that is a lot of things to have read and to have added to your brain, so we’ll draw a line here. Enjoy wherever this takes you.
Stu @ New Weird Australia x