The mission objective of the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) is to extend the NASA exploration of the solar system beyond the neighbourhood of the outer planets to the outer limits of the Sun’s sphere of influence, and possibly beyond. This extended mission is continuing to characterize the outer solar system environment and search for the heliopause boundary, the outer limits of the Sun’s magnetic field and outward flow of the solar wind. Penetration of the heliopause boundary between the solar wind and the interstellar medium will allow measurements to be made of the interstellar fields, particles and waves unaffected by the solar wind. Welcome aboard Southern Outpost Voyager 1, we have completed our planned close flybys of the Jupiter and Saturn planetary systems, with planet High Jinks at a distance of approximately 3 Astronomical Units away.
Astronaut Drexciyan is on the case and talks to member Phil Chan to find out more on the most recent Southern Outpost mission. Most electro/techno aficionados already know the history and background of Southern Outpost, but here is a little run down discovered in previous Drexciyan explorations.
Southern Outpost was started a few years back, with the intent of getting an independent label up and running as an avenue to release quality music (primarily electro) and keep it real and true to it’s cause. This was not music for the masses, it was not music that was easily accessible, but there were a group of people who were like-minded in their music aesthetic and values – Southern Outpost was designed to enable them to release a much loved sound and reach other like-minded souls around the country and abroad.
Southern Outpost has nine releases orbiting the globe, with their most recent two releases, SO-09 The Electric Shock EP featuring tracks by the Sentinel, K.loc, Miss Memory (formerly ShapeShiftR) and Sol-37 which showcases some electro/hip hop mixtures and SO-10 The V.I.M EP, which is inspired by the Voyager Interstellar Mission and takes on a minimal tech tone. There seems to be a true and fascinating interest between Southern Outpost and the Deep Space phenomena. What inspires them about this and how does it translate into the S.O music and aesthetic? “We definitely approach music as exploration, every time we get into the studio we want to do something different, be it musically or on the engineering side of production. Space is inspiring because, of the unknown nature of it. We know it’s big, but not too much more. That leaves a lot of room for our imaginations to run free in the music.”
Fact: The mission objective of the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) is to extend the NASA exploration of the solar system beyond the neighbourhood of the outer planets to the outer limits of the Sun’s sphere of influence, and possibly beyond.
Some would say this fact could be directly applied to the Southern Outpost ethos – inviting listeners to explore beyond what is commercial and readily available. “A lot of people talk about this. They say we’re hard to listen to or we write music that’s not popular. We’re just writing music that we like and that we want to listen to. We don’t get in the studio and say “let’s write something even harder to listen to this time”; we get in the studio and write music that expresses how we feel. The inspiration might come from space or computers or walking to the shops to get a carton of milk but the point is we write what we want to write. We don’t write music to sell 10,000 records and we don’t write music to make any one happy but ourselves. We’re lucky that there are people out there that like what we write but we’d still be doing it if there weren’t.”
In light of the exploration of new sounds and looking towards the outer limits of this somewhat convenient musical solar system. What advice would Phil Chan give to readers who are not familiar with the S.O sound and want to delve a little deeper into some ‘less popular’ music? “Clone (www.clone.nl) and Submerge (www.submerge.com) are great places to learn about smaller labels and artists. Follow all the links on those pages, put the artist names into google and jump on mailing lists. We all have different influences; I’m a huge fan of Underground Resistance, Dopplereffekt, Drexciya, Mr Velcro Fastener, I-F, Alden Tyrell and Dynarec. Too much of anything is a bad thing, so if you want to hear something that doesn’t have a Roland drum machine, or freak out your techno friends, have a listen to Radiohead, Nick Drake, Sigur Ros, Stereolab, Jill Scott, Antonio Jobim or Brian Wilson.”
If you have been witness to a Southern Outpost live performances, you would already be aware it is one of true aural and visual experience. Music coincides with imagery, colours and patterns and notes dance through your mind creating a personal and introspective moment and vision for all involved. Thought processes whirl around in sensory delight and bodies move to the beat. “Visual performances are a powerful way to communicate messages and we use them in our sets to augment the messages and themes in the music. At High Jinks there will be specific visuals accompanying each performer, helping express the ideas and themes of that performer. The imagery that we try to create in our music can also be seen in books like “Cities in Flight” by James Blish, “Altered Carbon” by Richard Morgan, “Vurt” by Jeff Noon “Dancers at the End of Time” by Michael Moorcock, “The C Programming Language” by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie or anything by Greg Egan.”
This weekend at the High Jinks launch it has been said that there may be a departure from the ‘normal’ S.O. gigs. In the past Miss Memory (formerly ShapeShiftR) and K.loc would play on keyboards, The Sentinel on vocals and working the MPC and BASIC doing the visuals. “For the High Jinks gig we wanted to do something a bit different, so we’re having separate sets, with a mixture of live tracks and DJing to explore the different styles that each of us are into. BASIC and Miss Memory will be doing visuals for each DJ. The night runs from 7pm and we’ll be starting with more textural soundscapes to set the mood for the night before slamming it to the dance floor ;) We’ve got a lot of time so we’re going to take it and see how far out of the solar system this interstellar mission makes it.”
High Jinks Southern Outpost record launch is on this Saturday 6th November at the Sly Fox in Enmore. Check ITM whatson for more details.
