Via Australis by John Christian

*** This album is also available on CD at: ***
jchristianongroove.bandcamp.com

South Street Arts is a lovely little arts hub in my home town of Reading. As well as continuous strands of comedy and theatre, it regularly hosts a wide variety of musical acts, and being just-right-sides this includes plenty of interesting and eclectic music. It's always been an ambition to play there and I sort of checked it off the bucket list when I worked with the excellent RBL theatre group in their Off the Block series - a set of plays produced, rehearsed and performed, not to mention composed for, in a single day.

But it still wasn't a proper gig, so I was delighted when I was asked, at fairly short notice, to provide support to the closing night of Leafcutter John's tour with Bex Burch. I had a few weeks to prepare so set up a structure that would let me more or less improvise in a well defined flow

And it all went swimmingly, and I liked it enough to rapidly release it.

The album contains two expressions of the set, the concert itself and the last practice playthrough. They're similar in places - and always in shape - but the details are quite different. You can play one or the other according to your whim, or play the whole thing and enjoy the scenery on two journeys to the same destination.

This edition also includes a third shorter version - think of it as a bonus track (but it can't be in bandcamp terms, as it's also here for Groove customers to take a copy).

Dedicated to the people of Ukraine who's suffering was always in the background to this performance..

John Christian is a UK based electronic musician. Since 1995 he has been a member of airsculpture who play improvised electronica broadly in the "Berlin School" style.

As a solo artist, John's music presents more composed, structured soundscapes, often featuring his signature of carefully crafted, shifting sequencer layers.