Radio Papesse

Empty Vessels was launched alongside a series of drawings and prints, at a solo exhibition in 2007, at The Premises Gallery in Johannesburg. It is a 23.35 minute audio work that consists of ten tracks produced between 2006 and 2007.

The ten compositions are made up of a collection of audio samples, recorded with a Dictaphone, and arranged and manipulated with audio software. The album case is a steel sculpture that collapses at the base, where a paper sleeve containing the CD slides out from inside the sculpture.

The sculpture has been electroplated to give the steel a matt black finish, and also has the album name lightly engraved on the back. The album and sculpture was produced in a limited edition of thirty signed and numbered copies.

When I made this work I wanted to arrange sounds in a way that would not only be interesting to listen to as an aesthetic and emotive tone setter to an installation of drawings and prints, but where it could also be considered as interesting compositions of music. Disjunctive, catatonic, apocalyptic, dramatic, violent, harsh, cold and brash - are some of the words I like using to describe the work. 
Empty Vessels is intentionally dark and uncompromising. I wanted it to simultaneously be lyrical and abstract, melodic and inharmonious. I was aiming for somewhere between classical music, a considered electronic album, and a car crash.