video
music
words
words by maria zajkowski
be a tree
be a tree
stand
aim
move in your direction
take in birds
open your arms
be sure
hold the sun
it’s going down
you
you are an aspiration
in kind
if
if behind your face
is my face
if my eye is your eye
if the one way out
is the way in
the divine
is upside down
and becoming seen
then the divine
is upside down
and becoming seen
this is your life
if this is your life
make space for stars
make space for stars
a flame at sea
don’t hide your self
in glass
pass the night’s window
conjunctions rise
in the corner
you imagined
you are
actually cornered
don’t give directions
you are confusing
confusing yes
with no
to the wave
out here it’s there
listen louder
can you hear me listening
can you
listen
here
astounding
dumb
found
fool
can you hear me listening
can you
listen louder
one sound
one sound
one eve
one empty square
one push
one glove
one wing
one half
one hole
in the north
in your mouth
one sound
on repeat
one park
one walk
one loss after after
one two
a last lone
touch
personnel
credits
smythesdale
‘space for stars’
music by wally gunn
words by maria zajkowski
produced by wally gunn
2020.03.27 – 2020.05.31
recorded by wally gunn at bambi manor, castlemaine, djaara country, victoria, australia
2023.07.12
mixed and mastered by charles mueller at tiny panther studio, mount vernon, ny, use
artwork by martin john lee
the artists acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which this work was made. the words were written on the land of the wurundjeri willam people (rosanna, victoria, australia). the music was written on the land of the lenape people (queens, new york, usa). the recording and the still images were made on the land of the dja dja wurrung people (castlemaine, victoria, australia). the recording was mixed and mastered on the lands of the lenape people (mount vernon, new york, usa). the artists pay their respects to the elders of these peoples, past, present and emerging, and extend this respect to all first nations people.
‘250 billion stars in the milky way’ by martin john lee
many thanks
luke keppich-arnold, patricia gunn, eric shuster, tim shuster
about
About Smythesdale
Before I became a composer of contemporary concert music, I was for many years a singer-songwriter based in Melbourne, Australia. During that period I played in a bunch of rock bands with lots of dear friends, having the time of my life. I have always loved songwriting: it’s the challenge of making music and words come together in a pithy, powerful, and interesting way over the course of a tight three or four minutes. So it’s a practice I have maintained. However, this is the first time in a long time that I’ve recorded and released a set of songs. To separate this project out from the contemporary concert music I make, I invented a ‘band.’ Smythesdale is the band, named after the town closest to my childhood home in rural Victoria, Australia. Though strictly speaking I am the only musician in this band, I have roped in dear friends from other disciplines to collaborate and keep me company: filmmaker Terrence Hunt; artist Martin John Lee; and poet and lyricist Maria Zajkowski.
Wally Gunn, July 2020
About the ‘Space For Stars’ EP
Back in 2015, I had asked Maria Zajkowski if she would like to collaborate on a set of pieces, which I hoped would become a contemporary concert music composition for a percussion duo. She sent me a set of five short pieces of text.
Of this material, Maria says: “When I wrote these lyrics I was living in Rosanna, Victoria, on the lands of the Warundjuri willam. It wasn’t Gdansk but it was a place where I sometimes felt far away from some things and closer to others. Even though Rosanna is a suburban area, there is still an abundance of wildlife and trees, some of the biggest spiders I have ever seen, and on occasion, a particularly special view of the stars.”
I was quickly beguiled by Maria’s lyrics, but decided I would sit with them quietly for a few months while I continued with other projects. When in March 2016 I eventually got to work setting the lyrics to music, it all came quite quickly: at the end of a five-day working week, I had completed all five. The finished pieces, however, certainly weren’t contemporary concert-music compositions. And no matter how I poked and prodded them, the pieces stubbornly refused to change shape and become a percussion duo (many thanks to Eric Shuster and Tim Shuster of Steady State for doing their best to facilitate these attempts). Beats, riffs, chords, melodies… They were quite simply pop songs. We named the collection ‘Space For Stars’ and left them shelved in my archive, waiting for a time that seemed right for them to come to light.
In the northern hemisphere Spring of 2020, I was lucky to be visiting Composer-in-Residence and Lecturer in Composition at Binghamton University, in upstate New York. I had an incredible time there working with the Binghamton composition students. They have wide-ranging musical interests and broad tastes, and their work is of a high standard, and it was a real thrill for me to work with them on their music. For the most part, the students were in the process of creating new works for live concerts that were to be held on campus later in the semester but in mid-March the campus had to close to comply with recommendations for the prevention of the spread of COVID-19, and so the concerts had to be canceled. I proposed that for the rest of the semester, the composition students could focus on creating recorded works, which we could then share with friends and family online, in lieu of concerts. (If you are interested in hearing the recorded works the students produced during this time, you can listen to the end-of-semester compilation by going to YouTube and searching for ‘Binghamton Composers 2020 Mixtape’.) In my role as teacher, I encouraged the student composers to use only those instruments and tools they had to hand at the moment they went into lockdown, calling on them to be led by their imagination, creativity, and resourcefulness.
It soon occurred to me that it was all very well to ask this of my students, but in fairness, I should test my own imagination, creativity, and resourcefulness by undertaking my own home recording project. The material I decided to use was the long-shelved set of songs called ‘Space For Stars.’
A few days prior to the March 2020 lockdown in New York, I traveled back to Australia, and went into lockdown in Castlemaine, at the home of my best friend Martin John Lee and his partner Luke Keppich-Arnold. Castlemaine is a rural town in Victoria’s North Central district, also known as The Goldfields district, which was founded by European colonists in the gold-rush era of the mid-19th century, on the lands of the indigenous Dja Dja Wurrung People. It’s a beautiful town, surrounded by stunning eucalypt bushland. At Martin and Luke’s place—fondly known as ‘Bambi Manor’ due to the delightfully kitsch deers etched into the glass panels of their front door—I spent the nights teaching the Binghamton University composition students, and spent the days running, bushwalking, and trying my hand at home recordings of the ‘Space For Stars’ songs. I worked on the recordings sporadically in March, April, and May of 2020, and Martin finished the final artwork in June.
Of the artwork, Martin says: “I know the heathy dry forests around the town of Smythesdale well, the roads carve through them as you head into town. The forests have a tough beauty, but they’ve been fragmented by farms and ‘lifestyle’ properties. I’m saddened by the thought of insects attempting to navigate their way at night through this environment, seeking guidance from the moon and stars which are fading from the sky as we switch on more lights.”
– Wally Gunn, September 2023
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