“We've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. We’ve watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in a ten thousand year orbit.”
Two orbital bodies, face to face in gravitational rotation: Rising star, sound artist, and drummer Nat Grant teams up with the 10th planet James Hullick on abstract vocals and guitar in this new and mighty duo. And as you – dear interstellar voyager - join this elliptic procession, share in the wonder of previously unimaginable physics defying auditory alien realms: at once intimate, raw, and visceral flung out like heavenly lights against the great void of galactic unknowing.
For we have seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
TEN.THOUSAND.YEAR.ORBIT is:
Nat Grant: Drums, Electronics
James Hullick: Voice, Guitar
Structured. Improvised. In between.
Nat Grant is a multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, composer and teacher. She works predominantly as a freelance artist and has been employed as a composer and performer in the fields of puppetry, theatre, film, animation, and dance. Nat’s work explores intersections between improvisation, chance and intention in the development of sound as a sculptural medium. Through the integration of electronic processing and sampling with acoustic instruments and sound recordings, she creates cumulative sound works that link consciousness and memory, allowing interaction between human and natural environments, and between audience and performer.
Nat holds a PhD in music composition from the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne). The subject of this degree was Momentum, a cumulative recording and composition project incorporating a blog and online sound diary. Momentum utilised field recordings made over 400 days in 2012-13, sculpted into short, connected compositions and posted online each day to delve deeper into compositional processes and the capturing of time and place through sound in a very public way. Momentum was created collaboratively, with more than 60 artists from around the world contributing sounds to the project. Momentum has been exhibited as an installation at galleries around Australia as well as in the US and New Zealand.
As a composer Nat has created original chamber music, durational sound art works, and composed and created sound design for theatre, dance, film, and live art, including for ITCH Productions, Jonathan Homsey Productions and The Stain.
Previous compositions for other artists include the work 'Cocoon', commissioned by the 3 Shades Black ensemble in 2012, for chamber ensemble with digital integration, a solo vibraphone work with digital accompaniment, 'With the Inside Where the Outside Should Be', for Erica Rasmussen, composed and premiered in 2014, and ‘Eclipse’, a chamber work commissioned for a series of interactive painting performances in Melbourne in 2014. The solo vibraphone work was subsequently performed at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival in 2015.
As a teaching artist Nat has been involved in projects with a number of community groups including the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Footscray Community Arts Centre, and Barking Spider Visual Theatre.
Nat performs regularly at venues around Melbourne and has also performed internationally, at the Percussive Arts Society’s Annual Convention in Indianapolis in 2011, and the Y2K International Live Looping Festival in Santa Cruz, California, in 2009 and 2011. She has released several solo recordings as well as with a number of local and international bands and artists including bassist Steve Uccello from California, Welsh guitarist David Cooper Orton, lapsteel artist Chris Rainier, and Melbourne afrobeat band Papa Chango. Collaboration is key to much of Nat’s work, including previous and current partnerships with Jolt Arts and the Amplified Elephants, experimental filmmaker Dirk DeBruyn, and Adam Simmons’ Creative Music Ensemble.
James Hullick is a composer, sound artist, pianist, vocalist, guitarist and artistic director who exists at the forefront of international sonic arts creation and presentation. James’ sonic practice is wide-ranging and is characterised by an unusual ability to use sound to engage in social issues. His projects have been presented internationally for a variety of ensembles and electronic formats. Innovative sonic terrains that James continues to work through include: recursive compositional techniques, perceptual music making, real time scores, sound making machines and community arts projects. James founded JOLT (2008) and has artistically directed many projects since that time. JOLT projects and festivals have taken place internationally in the US, Japan, China, Europe and the UK.
James is one half of the barnstorming visual-audio outfit The Duckworth Hullick Duo, and is currently Ensemble Manager for The Amplified Elephants at the Footscray Community Arts Centre. James plays guitar and vocals for the band Ten Thousand Year Orbit with drummer and sound artist Nat Grant. James was a three-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Melbourne (2012-15). He was awarded a Creative Australia Fellowship through the Australia Council for the Arts (2015) and received the Michael Kieran Harvey Piano Scholarship (2015-16). James is a Visiting Fellow at RMIT University and Director of JOLT Arts.
Recently James and Hamish Upton formed the new sound art and percussion ensemble Rotor Assembly.
Two orbital bodies, face to face in gravitational rotation: Rising star, sound artist, and drummer Nat Grant teams up with the 10th planet James Hullick on abstract vocals and guitar in this new and mighty duo. And as you – dear interstellar voyager - join this elliptic procession, share in the wonder of previously unimaginable physics defying auditory alien realms: at once intimate, raw, and visceral flung out like heavenly lights against the great void of galactic unknowing.
For we have seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
TEN.THOUSAND.YEAR.ORBIT is:
Nat Grant: Drums, Electronics
James Hullick: Voice, Guitar
Structured. Improvised. In between.
Nat Grant is a multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, composer and teacher. She works predominantly as a freelance artist and has been employed as a composer and performer in the fields of puppetry, theatre, film, animation, and dance. Nat’s work explores intersections between improvisation, chance and intention in the development of sound as a sculptural medium. Through the integration of electronic processing and sampling with acoustic instruments and sound recordings, she creates cumulative sound works that link consciousness and memory, allowing interaction between human and natural environments, and between audience and performer.
Nat holds a PhD in music composition from the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne). The subject of this degree was Momentum, a cumulative recording and composition project incorporating a blog and online sound diary. Momentum utilised field recordings made over 400 days in 2012-13, sculpted into short, connected compositions and posted online each day to delve deeper into compositional processes and the capturing of time and place through sound in a very public way. Momentum was created collaboratively, with more than 60 artists from around the world contributing sounds to the project. Momentum has been exhibited as an installation at galleries around Australia as well as in the US and New Zealand.
As a composer Nat has created original chamber music, durational sound art works, and composed and created sound design for theatre, dance, film, and live art, including for ITCH Productions, Jonathan Homsey Productions and The Stain.
Previous compositions for other artists include the work 'Cocoon', commissioned by the 3 Shades Black ensemble in 2012, for chamber ensemble with digital integration, a solo vibraphone work with digital accompaniment, 'With the Inside Where the Outside Should Be', for Erica Rasmussen, composed and premiered in 2014, and ‘Eclipse’, a chamber work commissioned for a series of interactive painting performances in Melbourne in 2014. The solo vibraphone work was subsequently performed at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival in 2015.
As a teaching artist Nat has been involved in projects with a number of community groups including the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Footscray Community Arts Centre, and Barking Spider Visual Theatre.
Nat performs regularly at venues around Melbourne and has also performed internationally, at the Percussive Arts Society’s Annual Convention in Indianapolis in 2011, and the Y2K International Live Looping Festival in Santa Cruz, California, in 2009 and 2011. She has released several solo recordings as well as with a number of local and international bands and artists including bassist Steve Uccello from California, Welsh guitarist David Cooper Orton, lapsteel artist Chris Rainier, and Melbourne afrobeat band Papa Chango. Collaboration is key to much of Nat’s work, including previous and current partnerships with Jolt Arts and the Amplified Elephants, experimental filmmaker Dirk DeBruyn, and Adam Simmons’ Creative Music Ensemble.
James Hullick is a composer, sound artist, pianist, vocalist, guitarist and artistic director who exists at the forefront of international sonic arts creation and presentation. James’ sonic practice is wide-ranging and is characterised by an unusual ability to use sound to engage in social issues. His projects have been presented internationally for a variety of ensembles and electronic formats. Innovative sonic terrains that James continues to work through include: recursive compositional techniques, perceptual music making, real time scores, sound making machines and community arts projects. James founded JOLT (2008) and has artistically directed many projects since that time. JOLT projects and festivals have taken place internationally in the US, Japan, China, Europe and the UK.
James is one half of the barnstorming visual-audio outfit The Duckworth Hullick Duo, and is currently Ensemble Manager for The Amplified Elephants at the Footscray Community Arts Centre. James plays guitar and vocals for the band Ten Thousand Year Orbit with drummer and sound artist Nat Grant. James was a three-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Melbourne (2012-15). He was awarded a Creative Australia Fellowship through the Australia Council for the Arts (2015) and received the Michael Kieran Harvey Piano Scholarship (2015-16). James is a Visiting Fellow at RMIT University and Director of JOLT Arts.
Recently James and Hamish Upton formed the new sound art and percussion ensemble Rotor Assembly.