Joey and I are thrilled to announce that our debut release as Tabua-Harrison is out on July 13, 2018. The album is entirely improvised and recorded within the space of a day. Scout is available through Psychopyjama on CD and vinyl (transparent orange, no less!), and as a digital download:
Psychopyjama is very proud to announce the first release of a unique musical force. Tabua-Harrison makes music that is both completely improvised and absolutely accessible, with the visceral energy of rock, metal and funk and the intricacy and surprise of contemporary art music. Resident Psychopyjama artwork maestro Ryszard Dabek says of their debut album, Scout, “at times the duo’s work recalls other high-wire improv pairings such as John Coltrane and Rashied Ali on Interstellar Space as much as the restless creativity of Battles and the post-rock guitar stylings of Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker.”
Drummer Holly Harrison is one of Australia’s foremost young composers. As we write this, she is furiously composing for a commission for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Her work has been commissioned and performed by ensembles across Australia, Europe, the US and Asia. The rhythmic complexity and polyphonic independence of her art music is really an outgrowth of her phenomenal drumming, which really has to be seen to be believed. Partner in crime Joseph Tabua refers to her as “endorphin machine” on the album’s liner notes.
Guitarist Joseph (Joey) Tabua brings a background in hard rock and funk styles to the project – his 2000s band Junto toured with the likes of COG and The Mark of Cain – but also his own compositional sense. Outside of Tabua-Harrison he pursues fusions of his rock history and Fijian heritage with minimalism and aleatoric music as heard on his recent solo album Half Ocean Half Sky. In Tabua-Harrison, the electric guitar and pedal board fuse as a palette of oceanic and volcanic possibilities.
Tabua-Harrison encapsulates a contemporary tendency to obliterate genre which we also glimpse in the work of Laurence Pike and Nicole Lizée. While Scout asks to be met on its own terms, its wide array of timbres, tones, temporalities and dynamics creates a compelling journey over 40 minutes.
Launch dates -with labelmates Espadrille, launching Tinderbox:
Thurs 9 Aug Johnston Street Jazz
Sat 11 Aug Junction 142, Katoomba
Sat 18 Aug Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music, Hobart
All tracks were entirely improvised and recorded
within the space of a day (16 January, 2017).
Recorded by Adrian Barr
Mixed and Mastered by Mitchell Hart
Produced by Tabua-Harrison and John Encarnacao
Landscape photography by Katrina Milton-White
Band photography by Peter Jovanov
Design by Ryszard Dabek