From Scratch @ 50: 625 MOONS
From Scratch is 50 years old. In September, the half-century of this iconic New Zealand percussion-based ensemble will be marked with a month-long residency at the Audio Foundation in Auckland - an exhibition, films and performances in a celebratory festival called 625 MOONS.
From Scratch has been described as part-ritual, part-sculpture, part-music and part-performance. It was initially a Pacific response to the work of British composer Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra, of which New Zealand composer and intermedia artist Phil Dadson had been a member.
Composer and intermedia artist Phil Dadson
“…the anchor-stone of From Scratch for five decades.”
At a Sonic Circus event in 1974 From Scratch made its first public appearance with Passage, performed by Bruce Barber, Barry Barquie, Geoff Chapple, Gray Nicol and Dadson. From the first, From Scratch used an array of percussion instruments to create a distinctively rich-textured and rhythmic music, using found objects as well as custom-made instruments. The musical zeitgeist in the 70’s, particularly the global experimental music scene, included many of the features of the brilliant and innovative From Scratch ensemble – the developing interest in minimalism, the use of found materials and invented instruments, and the exploration of sonic effects.
Over several decades From Scratch attracted a dedicated following in Aotearoa and an international reputation through performances at festivals offshore. A quartet of Dadson, Don McGlashan, Chapple and Wayne Laird thrilled audiences with their racks of tuned PVC pipes, sculptural percussion stations and intensity of performance.
From Scratch’s political and ethical beliefs, expressed through their compositions and performances, were also appealing to their audiences, which included the university campus circuit. Designed for the 1982 Paris Biennal in protest at French nuclear testing, their composition Pacific 3,2,1 Zero used names of contaminated Pacific islands, sung first in lament then shouted and drummed in rage. Another much performed work, Gung Ho 1,2,3 D, celebrated solidarity; 'gung ho' means ‘work together’ and the instruments were arranged as a triangle within a circle, an ancient symbol of strength and unity.
From Scratch: Gung Ho 1,2,3 D
…celebrating solidarity
There have been personnel changes over the years but Dadson has been a consistent presence in From Scratch over those five decades. The ensemble’s egalitarian working practice means, however, that though he's often the From Scratch spokesperson, he's never seen himself as leader. The modest and gentle Dadson described himself a few years ago as the group’s "anchor-stone".
It’s a role he’s still playing, though there have been times in its fifty year history when From Scratch seemed to have hung up its beaters. By the end of the 20th century there was a new core group of percussionists, Adrian Croucher, Shane Currey and Darryn Harkness with Dadson, and he tells me that group has always kept in touch. “It never really dissolved, the guys were keen to keep things cooking and we’ve done various events, festivals and tours. And I’ve kept a solo practice going with new instruments.”
From Scratch’s most recent high-profile event was presented in 2018 by Te Uru Waitakere Gallery and the Auckland Arts Festival. Six live performances, HEART’HEART, took place at the Gallery within an exhibition called 546 MOONS, displaying instruments, images, videos, graphic designs and other From Scratch memorabilia.
Poster image for the Te Uru Waitakere Gallery From Scratch event in 2018
Photo credit: Adrian Croucher
Dadson, who turns 78 this year, thought at the time that the 2018 Festival event would be his “swansong,” suggesting then that the new core group “would probably keep From Scratch going without me – which is good.” It proved not to be the time, though, for him to leave, though some of the other musicians have taken on more of the organisational and musical tasks.
Is the From Scratch incarnation for the anniversary performances very different from that iconic first ensemble in 1974? “Yes, very different,” Dadson says. “We’re not using the pipe stations and the drums of our beginnings, though there’s reference to that.” The core group of musicians is now Croucher, Currey, Harkness, Chris O’Connor and Dadson himself
625 MOONS opens with an exhibition and a Gala concert, ELEMENTAL. Passage, from that first outing in 1974 (and a subsequent Radio NZ debut recording), will be reprised in the concert, with clarinettist Peter Scholes, who played in the 1974 version, and guests Anita Clark and Steve Cournain, joining the ensemble.
ELEMENTAL’s programme also features Californian-born New Zealand-based percussionist Justin DeHart, who will perform several contemporary percussion works, including one from his new album “Towards Midnight”, a composition by Dadson called Kōrero Kōhatu - a conversation with stones.
Perhaps the biggest change From Scratch has made over the five decades is to its working approach. In 1998 they made their first forays into collaboration with computer artist and composer Michael Saup and his group Supreme Particles. The work Global Hockets, which applied the 'hocketing' concept [in medieval hocketing, the melody is broken up between several voices] was applied equally to the computer imagery and the music/sound. The work was premiered at the 1998 International Festival of the Arts in Wellington and performed in Europe.
Now, collaboration with guest artists seems embedded in From Scratch’s practice. “We’ve invited a lot of collaborators, local colleagues, through the period of the Audio Foundation residency,” says Dadson. “The concept is one of improvising guest performers with the From Scratch group as accompaniment, soloists coming in and out. ”
A Sunday night event called HOTWIRED#1 has, he tells me, “a rolling schedule of surprise guest soloists, perhaps a dozen over two hours”. HOTWIRED #2 is a “film night”, live musical improvisation to moving image works by invited film-makers. “As part of that, we’re collaborating with Michael Saup again; he’s presented us with a new film.”
Poster image for the From Scratch celebratory event 625 MOONS at the Audio Foundation in Auckland during September 2024
Has From Scratch maintained the political underpinnings of its work? “Yes, definitely,” says Dadson. “The egalitarian approach, working as a collective, is still there. One of the pieces we’re doing in September with Karl Sölve Steven, a chant and percussion piece, uses a quote from Marx about the value of working together. And Saup’s new film, which we’ll improvise to, is about atomic war. The themes are still there.”
After the upcoming residency Dadson and From Scratch are looking to the future. There are performing plans for 2025 and a book about From Scratch is in the works, a chronological survey of the development of the group, written by Geoff Chapple and Andrew Clifford with an introduction by Dadson. Massey University Press plans to publish it and meanwhile funding is being sought.
Dadson, one of Aotearoa’s most original and innovative artists, also has on-going plans as a solo performer and visual artist, including the completion of a twelve year “visual music” project, “texture, melody, rhythm, harmonies, polyrhythms conjured from the contours, shapes and colours of things observed.” He set the project in motion, one month per year, in 2014 and his current exhibition at Trish Clark Gallery in Auckland, It's Never All Black and White, has included live performance as he reflects on the scale and ambition of the project after ten years.
Dadson has also recently established the Breath of Weather Collective in association with the global World Weather Network. Using what he calls Kōea o Tāwhirimātea: Weather Choir, he’s using Aeolian harps as monitors of weather, with eight harps, four on Pacific Islands and four on the North Island of New Zealand. He’s now hoping his film of the year-long monitoring project, winter solstice to winter solstice, will be shown in film festivals.
Talking about the range of his work, the apparently indefatigable Dadson smiles wryly. “We cook on, we cook on!” he says.
625 MOONS – FROM SCRATCH A month of celebrations at the Audio Foundation in Auckland, September 5 – 28, 2024. More information here, tickets here
PHIL DADSON | It’s Never All Black and White Trish Clark Gallery, Auckland, till September 7, 2024. More information here