Ainslie Salon: On Location will take you on an intimate journey through sound

Posted on 21 September, 2022

Ainslie Salon: On Location is a two-day festival bringing together accomplished local and interstate artists working within musical exploration, experimental compositions, and improvised performance.

As the ethereal and futuristic soundwaves of Ainslie Salon: On Location echo throughout one of Canberra’s oldest heritage buildings, you may feel the urge to pause, reflect a little deeper and lose yourself within an electronic oasis. Such is the power of this two-day festival, coming to life this Friday 23 and Saturday 24 at the Ainslie Arts Centre, and boasting a local and interstate line-up defying easy categorisation.

For Curator and Producer Sia Ahmed, it was important that this festival created a space where local and interstate sounds could intersect, creating a wildly diverse listening experience for audiences. With no headline act, each artist holds their own—showcasing the depth of talent flowing through the electronic music scene.

“It is artists working with electronic synths and samples, but then there are people who like playing guitar and flute as well (but they are manipulating them with guitar pedals and laptops.)  And the whole thing is just about the listening experience.

“Being able to create a focused space to hear electronic music with a lot of intricate layers, a lot of kinds of sound sources, and ideas was really important,” says Sia.

Lisa Lerkenfeldt is an electronic artist from Melbourne, debuting her album ‘A Liquor of Daisies’ as part of the festival. Through a slow and technically masterful soundscape, piano remixes take the listener on an endless loop of nostalgia, saudades and cyclic dreaming. Like a poem you read on the way to the bank, her postmodern soundscape finds beauty in expected places—taking the audience deep into her creative world.

And as Lisa reflects on the meaning behind this wildly moving body of work, she hesitates to dispel any mystique—encouraging audiences to find their own interpretations.

“It’s a highly minimal work for piano and tape, which leans into trance states and alters perceptions through repetition and gentle variation. So, it’s slow forming, and through that, I think the experience of stillness really comes through, which can have its own effects on the audience.

” I want to create a space for people to find their own meaning, and sometimes the simplest things have the most profound effects.”

Every detail of Ainslie Salon: On Location has been tenderly crafted, that only seeks to take us deeper, reel us in and guide us gently forward.  It’s a festival bursting with creativity, and as ears feel the transcended like powers of sounds, so too will our eyes.

“The Ainslie Arts Centre is a hub for creativity at large. Part of what we want to do with On Location is to create an experience that when they walk into the venue, they will be hit with this feeling that they are walking to a special space.”

“So, we’ve got hands-on tactile sound sculptures from an artist called Brian McNamara in the reception hall. So that greets you as you come in, the ambient sound will come from that material to interact with the objects. And then you’ll walk through towards the bar—there’s another space where we’ll have one of the Gorman Studio artists, Nicci Haynes, doing live responsive projections to the sound,” explains Sia.

At the hands of these eight talented artists, Sia says audiences can expect two slightly different experiences between Friday and Saturday night. Where one seeks to intensify in pulse quickly rhythms, the other finds refrain, sewing the soft melodies that rise and fall in beautiful harmony. Listeners are encouraged to adventure down their own path and surrender to visceral messaging that is sure to find them along the way.

“I’ve thought about it as like a dynamic journey. Things might start a bit more intense, but then they slowly mellow out across the two hours. I think there’ll be some good surprises for people in each set.

“And for us, offering an experience that is a bit of a wildcard has been so important. And if you let yourself trust us, anyone who comes will be really rewarded by the experience,” reflects Sia.