Scribbly Gums

NUNC.045

"Beardmore has a connection to the Scribbly gum, which is a type of Eucalyptus tree that has a distinctive scribbly pattern on the bark due to scribbly gum moths, which I feel reflects the sounds, almost like Beardmore is the moth making the patterns of music."

"The title track is filled with great depth, as musical movements are being made in time, a weaving of layers, sometimes overlapping and also merging. This extended work tells a story of the scribbly gum and Beardmore’s deep connection to it. It’s hypnotic in it’s rhythm and also meditative with the space that it allows in between the sounds reminiscent of Colin Stetson and Steve Reich."

Tempo Blog by Noah Symon, 13 December 2024

Meredith’s debut solo album, Scribbly Gums, released by NUNC. in December 2024

ABOUT

Memories are situated in time and place, though we tend to be more certain of place, particularly as the time aspect is constantly pulled around by remembering and recontextualising memories. So many of my pivotal memories are strongly tied to place, to many places, yet are strangely all connected. I have been musing over the idea of music expressing memories, of making these connections between distant places, an autobiographical aural map or memoryscape. Scribbly Gums is one such memoryscape.

I used specific recollections as a creative spark in my explorations of time and place and the associated tactile and sensory reactions and remembrances. Scribbly Gums encompasses various childhood memories in the outer suburbs of Meanjin/Brisbane and some more recent memories in Naarm/Melbourne and also Kingaroy/Wakka Wakka country. Sometimes a track came about through holding an image in my mind (Gerald Murnane's writing on images is something that fascinates me, something I’d love to apply to the world of sound).

I’ve also been musing on how music is the perfect medium to express the fuzziness of time. In Scribbly Gums I have used multiple modes of aural exploration, from improvisation, field recordings, collage, specific motivic ideas, and sound manipulation, to build an aural memory map that moves between sounds from real locations, sounds in memory, and electronic sounds. I’m interested in how these various approaches capture time: 

…how a performance occurs in a specific time and place, sometimes through prior examination or planning of musical material and sometimes through improvisation, the ultimate spontaneous expression.

…how sound collage messes up any idea of sequential order, yet clarifies structure.​

…how recordings may feel like a real and accurate representation of memory, but they too are illusions of place and memory since a listener and creator approaches with a particular filter or focus.​

…and how all of these processes can express my ways and layers of remembering. In short, sound is uniquely positioned to capture the fluid, temporal, and ephemeral nature of memory.

The name of the album, Scribbly gum, is after a type of Eucalyptus tree that has a distinctive scribbly pattern on the bark due to scribbly gum moths. These trees are unique to the east coast of Australia and I grew up a couple of kilometres away from a Scribbly Gum Conservation Area.

WATCH

LISTEN

Listen & purchase the full album on NUNC bandcamp

Hear the track 'Winter' on the Moderns Podcast, ep. 344

Title track 'Scribbly Gums' on PBS106.7fm Dizzy Atmosphere (Jazz & improvisation) with Gerry Koster, Program #1025, and the track 'Winter' on #1036

TRACK INFO

  • On walks near my current home, in the northern suburbs of Melbourne/Wurundjeri country, I would often see a murmuration hovering somewhere near Heather Avenue. It became a semi-regular sight, though never quite at the same time of day. I like to think it’s the same flock, with their regular meeting in their own special aerial location.

  • I grew up a couple of kilometres away from a Scribbly Gum Conservation Area on Quandamooka country. The distinctive scribbly pattern on the bark, created by moths, always intrigued me. I held this image in my mind as I created this track. I rarely see this pattern in person now as the Scribbly gum trees only occur on the east coast of Australia. Though am I always on the lookout in case one turns up in Melbourne.

  • As a Queenslander, I grew up with very mild winters with incredible blue clear skies. When I moved to Melbourne I experienced the weeks of bleak, grey skies. The first time you experience a shift like that is quite bewildering. This track is about that physical experience but also about the idea of personal wintering or hibernation, where things feel quiet and static yet all sorts of deep, unknown processes are taking shape.

  • The Merri Creek has been an important waterway in my life in Melbourne. It is beloved by so many people who live by it, cross it, and care for it. This interlude documents a sunny day by the Merri with my daughter, who sang along to the various sounds of the creek.

  • Memories of sunny days in the childhood family garden. Perfect days, buzzing, laughter, running, sucking honey from the red firecracker plant, and a whole cosmos contained in the garden if you look and hear close enough.

  • Gresswell Forest is the northern suburbs of Melbourne, not too far from where I live. The beautiful Red River Gum woodland is an oasis for local humans and animals. The range of bird calls heard in the forest is much richer than in the surrounding suburbs. But noise of traffic, planes, mowers and other industrial sounds seep in.

  • The two places in Queensland that I consider home are characterised by their red dirt; the Redlands area of south-east Brisbane, and Kingaroy in Wakka Wakka country, a rural town about three hours north-west of Brisbane. This rich volcanic soil is evocative (and of course immensely fertile); it makes me think of home. The image I had in my mind while making this track was the look of the red dirt at night with the car headlights, with insects covering the windscreen; a uniquely Aussie experience which is unfortunately becoming less and less common.

  • The loudest cicadas I’ve ever heard were in a patch of bush near a dirt road in Kingaroy. The waves of white noise were incredible, I’m so glad I managed to capture it.

  • One of the things I miss about living in coastal Queensland is the breeze in the evenings. I have vivid memories of falling asleep with the window open with the curtains gently swaying, warm enough to only need a sheet but beautifully cool and calming. I don’t get to sleep with my window open in Melbourne!

  • I recorded this late at night and looked up and saw the new moon before hopping in the sound booth. A blank slate, a new beginning.