Good morning Zedheads! We’ve got a spesh lil show for you all this morn around the new @_cyberbanshee x @obscureorchestra track, cracks everywhere 💓💓💓 feat cover at by our own @__aye.see__ !!
Tune in to @4zzzradio 102.1FM right now, 9–10am, to catch the show (or catch up later on-demand).
✨ a new song exists in the world today ✨
Cracks Everywhere - Han Reardon-Smith x Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra
‘Cracks Everywhere’ is creatively/conceptually led by Han, and a co-compositional hug between Han and Matt, distilling their shared experiences as part of the Obscure Orchestra, local activism communities and miscellaneous civil disobedience on the unceded land of the Jagera, Yuggera Ugarapul and Turrbal Peoples. It explores shared experiences of kinmaking and musicking that is deeply connected to explicitly anti-racist, anti-colonial, queer/trans and disability justice, and a general ethic of community over traditional markers of “success” and mainstream recognition.
In creating Cracks Everywhere, Han drew from carla joy bergman @groundedfutures and Nick Montgomery’s #JoyfulMilitancy : Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times, re-staging book excerpts that explore creating thriving communities of resistance rooted in creativity, connection, and adaptability amid oppressive systems – without falling into the rigidity that emerges in many radical movements.
“As I started working with Matt on my ideas, I impulsively pulled my dogeared and scribbled in copy of Joyful Militancy from my bag and read from it as a spoken-word text for the track. It has really stuck.” - Han.
Supported by the wonderful @4000records 🫶
i am recovering from covid rn and v fatigue n brainfog but i’m so pleased that these lil bits of writing are out in the world thanks to the wonders of @liquid_architecture n guest editor for disclaimer @sternjoel ❤️🔥 some words of mine and a conversation w the extraordinary Dr Jamal Nabulsi on listening vulnerably in a time of genocide n a targeted prod at arts n musicking folks who wish to “wash their hands” of this one. #FreePalestine #FromTheRiverToTheSea 🇵🇸
visit .au/ to read! (link is in bio x)
late in the day, but like many of us in Magan-djin i’m deeply disgusted by the crisfulli government’s new laws, and ready to join the weekend of action led by @justiceforpalestine.magandjin . also check out @radioreversal ’s new podcast episode on the context of the new laws, what they mean for activists, and how we’ll go about challenging them.
Happiest of birthdays, Han! Looking forward to seeing you soon and properly celebrating you! Remember when you came perilously close to hurling yourself off a snow embankment into beautiful Crater Lake?
Here's to another year of all the perils, all the precipices, and definitely all the fun!
post-Invasion Day anticolonial solidarity book stack aka reading recommendations for the whole year ‘round (promised last week, sorry for slow!) — titles below, and some brief thoughts in the comments:
1. @little_miss_watego ’s Black Thoughts Matter
2. Ambelin Kwaymullina’s Living on Stolen Land
3. @amymcquire_ ’s Black Witness
4. @bronwyn_carlson + Terri Farrelly’s Monumental Disruptions
5. Darren Rix + Craig Cormick’s Warra Warra Wai
6. Clare Land’s Decolonizing Solidarity (new edition coming out this year)
7. When Cops Are Criminals, edited by @vgorrie
8. Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie
9. @little_miss_watego ’s Another Day in the Colony
10. EVN’s Personal Score
11. @balugahn ’s Close to the Subject
broken ankle + POTS heat intolerance keeping me from marching today, but standing forever in solidarity n support w the many incredible Jagera, Yuggera-Ugarapul, Turrbal, Quandamooka, Munanjali, Gubbi Gubbi, and all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples resisting and refusing the colony today and every single day. i painted some signs, which @baby.winehouse n @cr0c0dyke_dundee took to wave from the bridge, n have a bit of a book stack to share w you all later today.
signs read: “not a state to celebrate — abolish australia” n “land back”.
today is no holiday. it’s a day of mourning, struggle, and respect. it’s a day to do the work of anti-colonial resistance. after listening to the Invasion Day speeches broadcast live by @4zzzradio , i’ll be continuing the important work that i’ve been so privileged to be doing with @prof_sandy_osullivan , continuing our QUEER AS… podcast. today is also a great day to catch up on listening to the many incredible podcasts led by Brisbane Blacks — 3 to start with are @boeknows89 ’s @frontier_war_stories , @little_miss_watego ’s Read the Play, n @amymcquire_ ’s Curtain.
📣 Letter writing session tomorrow (Thurs) to the 6 incredibly strong, courageous and principled young people currently on hunger strike in UK prisons for the “crime” of opposing genocide.
2:30pm, 69 Thomas St, West End.
Doctors say that Heba Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed, pictured, who have been on hunger strike for 65 and 58 days, are both at immediate risk of death. 😭
Heba’s especially critical. omg. 😭
…and the UK government refuse meet with their families.
here in Australia, Albanese is currently preparing to host the Israeli President in early February, following his invitation to Herzog. 🤬
That Albanese has invited this monster here is not ok. Herzog and Netanyahu are responsible for the murder of 680,000+ Palestinians.
That these beautiful young people have chosen this extraordinary sacrifice of their lives in the hope of Palestinians being heard is not ok.
I’m going tomorrow because I don’t know how to hold this alone, and because doing something to stop this nightmare and brutality, even something small, feels utterly necessary right now.
I can’t reconcile this world & situation.
If you’re feeling rage, helplessness, distress about what’s happening, or not happening, you’re very much not alone. you are very welcome to join.
Receiving letters is what the young people on hunger strike want by way of solidarity. There’s more that needs to be done: head to
I’m really grateful to the organisers who’ve created a space for this. You don’t need to be an expert or have the right words. I’m trusting that just showing up, doing something that they’ve specified, matters.
For fucks sake, how bad does it have to get before Albanese and Wong act? We will remember this.
This is incomprehensible. 💔
I have links in my bio to five families in Gaza I support whenever I can and am regularly in contact with. I can vouch for them. this platform will only allow me to share five links: I try to help another 4-5 more dear families whose fundraisers I can happily give you.
These people have lost count of the times they’ve fled bombs, tanks, missiles and sniper fire. They thank me for my courage, taking this seriously and for standing by my principles.
They tell me that my support and kindness truly means everything to them, and they appreciate everything I’m doing ... which is the bare minimum... Please help protect these beautiful people in these unbearable times.
I’m really asking to give whatever you can. Your donations will ease suffering.
Our first show as the leaderless MHOO spin-off known as Obscure Orchestra Club 🛸✨
And debut of the new instrument “Ping Pong Marimba” 🏓
Also celebrating the first time Kellee, Han and I were in the same physical place together since the petition supporting her QMA win speech supporting Palestine!
Bonus goodness having @cloudebussy (on the oud earlier in the day) @krazy_daisyy (on the thrown ping-pong ball) and @cloudebussy (on hurdy-gurdy!?!)
Thank you @kelleegreenmusic@madenowmusic who organised this wonderful show with all proceeds going to families in Palestine. It was was such a small but worthwhile drop in the ocean of solidarity for people experiencing ongoing genocide. Thanks again Kellee @brodiemcallister and Tom!
Supporting Palestine and anti-genocide while listening to Magandjin’s experimental, jazz, fringe music 🫶👍🏽🙌🏼
This Saturday at @kepk_space from 2pm alongside @kelleegreenmusic@_cyberbanshee and a loose rabble of improvisers recently coined “Obscure Orchestra Club”!
Backstage snaps by @iamunco who will always be known as ‘OO baby’ in my heart 🛸 from our final show for some time as the 20-something piece alt-ensemble ‘Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra’.
When I’m in the thick of doing something, I don’t tend to overthink, I just do. Now that I’m taking parental leave away from the ‘industry’ of music (though never music in itself), it seems utterly unimaginable that so many magical people were brought together as MHOO. like when anime or children’s books try to depict some kind of strange otherworldly orchestra made up of odd folks and forest creatures, it’s always fictional and your imagination has to fill in the gaps of what that would be in real life. But I feel like… at least in my mind, we actually became that!
It strikes me that, we were such a packed group of (un-deliberately but also somehow inevitably) POC, non-binary, trans, neurodiverse, disabled, immigrant, and as Han mentioned once, “virtually entirely queer orchestra”.
So immensely confused/proud to have been a kernel in this 10 year, half solo experiment, half orchestral-punk ensemble that was and will continue to be (Matt Hsu’s) Obscure Orchestra/MHOO/OO
In fact, from the OO DNA, “Obscure Orchestra Club” have our next show of leaderless improvisations at Gig for Gaza Saturday 6 December organised by @kelleegreenmusic@madenowmusic at @kepk_space . I’ll be there will no plan, except a loop pedal, lot of objects/instruments, and beloved OO artist peers who feel like being part of it!
