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Kris Keogh – Processed Harp Works Vol. 2

A review from my quarterly Guardian column 'Music You Missed', July 2017


Kris Keogh is based in Nhulunbuy and his toddler won’t sleep without this music. As for others in the tiny Arnhem Land community, Keogh says: “I think zero people here like it.” I saw him last in 2009 at Newcastle’s This Is Not Art festival, pounding out a techno set on a monome. Even then, harp glittered around the edges and now, harp is all there is.

Keogh processed the raw strings using self-made software (included as a bonus download). Bass flutters, never finding a rhythm, and digital tape hiss is ever-present. Still, it’s quite new age-y though if it were playing in a massage room I’d probably keep one eye open. Water metaphors are unavoidable – is water harp’s spirit element? I hear sun glinting on ripples; trickles snaking through soil; drips in mossy caves. Keogh’s compositions were inspired by birth (his daughter) and death (his father) and are offered to others as a reflective space. As poet Denise Levertov wrote: “Don’t say there is no water/to solace the dryness at our hearts.”

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My name is Kate Hennessy. I am a freelance arts and travel writer and music critic. I contribute to Guardian Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Wire (UK), NME and more.

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    September 6, 2022
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