MUSIC
Hexfarm
Then She Reaches For The Gun
Duet For Bass Guitar For And A Huge Pile A Crap
Sonic Portraiture
Experimental
Contemporary Classical
Improvisation
Collaboration
Hexfarm
Many moons ago I teamed up with Dane Renshaw ( Drums) and Phil Bywater ( Saxophones/Flute) to create a noisy, often improvised collection of tunes. We gigged for a few years, ended up in diffrent parts of the globe and that was that… Until 2022 when we finally found ourselves at The Rat Palace and re-visited the vibe. Since then we get togther when possible and havinf started doing some remote recordings. A pleasure to play with these amazing original Musicians!
Then She Reaches For The Gun
Then She Reaches For The Gun is an international sound art collective I founded in 2021. It features artists, musicians, poets and noise makers from all over the world that contribute files for me to arrange and craft into experimental and down right weird pieces of music. Currently there are more than 50 active members from 20 countries involved.The project’s inspiration is two fold: Firstly its a homage to some of the stuff i grew up listening to like Mr. Bungle and other noisy bastards where anything goes, and often in quick fire succession and secondly it creates a chance to work with an never ending stream of talented musicians that i have known for years either in real life Australia or via the Internet.
Debut Album
The Vociferous Mapping Of Your Unlikely Future
Released Oct 2022
Then She Reaches for the Gun was formed in 2021 by Mat Ward as a vehicle to bring together and expand upon some of his disparate musical collaborative projects. At its essence is sound collage, experimentation and the desire to merge and defy genres. Ward invites musicians, sound artists, poets and the general community to send him files to be used, abused and showcased ‘as suggested by the work’. They are not always ‘musical’ but found sounds, field recordings, spoken word, drunken rants and quite often the family dog! The raw material is arranged without prior concept, one phrase asks for the next in an alchemical and intuitive process that will most often feature dozens of tracks weaving in and out of each other, colliding, harmonising, arguing and laughing along the way.
Both the aesthetic and the compositional methods extensively use what Frank Zappa called Xenocrony - the mixing together of separately recorded and rhythmically opposing musical phrases to create polyrhythmic and polytempi compositions. Complex harmony and texture is also created in this way with seemingly at odd timbres and tones nestled together to create original sound beds and chord sequences. Then She Reaches for the Gun features fragmented story telling with the human voice (in many languages) appearing unannounced throughout the tracks offering up snippets of thoughts, conversations, jokes and existential angst. The absurdity of humanities desperate claim to have any real understanding of its place in the universe is revealed through the recorded follies and genuine emotions of the participants in these works. The project is a celebration of experimentation, chance, diversity and community. It pays homage to all musical tastes and genres whilst maintaining a sense of humour and irreverence that is needed to stay sane in the climate of early 21st Century contemporary culture.
Duet For Bass Guitar And A Huge Pile of Crap
A duo project with Dylan Banks….conceived when the two of us were standing in a beautiful performance space and wondered what we would do in it if someone was kind enough to allow us the opportunity. It was quickly decided we should assemble an enormous pile of old car bodies, plant equipment, whatever which Dylan would play whilst I attempted to improvise some sort of bass work over the top
Sonic Portraiture
Field recordings, Instruments, Spoken Word and Samples used to create
aural portraits of places, people and events
Experimental
Anything, anytime, anywhere for no reason at all….. Frank Zappa
Post - Classical
Midi and sample based pieces for orchestral instruments, duets through to full orchestras
Improvisation
Rehearsals, gigs, public places and the studio
Collaboration
Had the pleasure of collaborating with a lot of people all over the world.
Many projects have been going for years. A great way to extend your musical vocabulary