Item Details

Mutiny Music: A Sonic Passage Between Islands

Issue: Vol 16 No. 1-2 (2015)

Abstract:

Mutiny Music is a twelve-part jazz suite composed by Rick Robertson in 2006 and performed by his band Baecastuff, a Sydney-based contemporary jazz ensemble. The work retells the mythic story at the foundations of two Pacific island communities, Pitcairn and Norfolk. This article will locate Mutiny Music within the shared discourses of the island and the archipelago. The discussion will open a number of lines historical and conceptual inquiry into the narrative operation of the work and its use of various musical forms. Of particular concern is the use of speech sampling and how such a practice inscribes the complex spatiotemporality of the island and archipelago while mapping the relation between Pitcairn and Norfolk in sound.

Author: Joseph Cummins

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