Lawrence English (born 1976) is an Australian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

, and

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

from

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

. His work is broadly concerned with the politics of

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...

, specifically he is interested in the nature of listening, and sounds' capability to occupy the body. He is the director of the imprint Room40, started in 2000. He and Jamie Stewart from Xiu Xiu have an ongoing collaboration named Hexa.

Sound works

English's music is recognised as exploring "environmental and musical sources and is highly regarded for its intelligent invocation of perception, memory and space". On his 2014 album '' Wilderness of Mirrors'', he outlines his approach to composition "For me it's about a kind of struggle between almost nothing and almost everything. Sometimes one sound can be too much and other times 50 layers seems lacking in the depth you want to convey. I think at the heart of this question is dynamics, and I feel that's very much what this album is about. It's a slow reveal, I want it to be a seduction." He cites childhood experiences

birdwatching Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device such as binoculars or a telescop ...

for reed warbler with his father as the starting point for his interest in sound in space. He has stated, "If you just looked in the reeds you'd see nothing. If you listened you got an idea of space and a sense of where it might be, then you understood it. That's probably my first experience with these ideas of space and sound, which are basically the fundamental building blocks of what I've been interested in since then." These experiences have led to a long engagement with field recordings, and more recently the development of theoretical approaches to the practice including his Relational Listening theory.

Discography

Studio albums

Awards

Queensland Music Awards

The Queensland Music Awards (previously known as Q Song Awards) are annual awards celebrating Queensland, Australia's brightest emerging artists and established legends. They commenced in 2006. (wins only) , - ,

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

, "Watching It Unfold" , Electronic song of the Year , , -

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:English, Lawrence 1976 births 20th-century Australian engineers 20th-century Australian male artists 21st-century Australian engineers 21st-century Australian male artists Australian audio engineers Australian curators Australian male artists Australian male composers Australian sound artists Birdwatchers Indie musicians Living people Mass media theorists Music theorists Musicians from Brisbane Queensland University of Technology alumni Sound recordists Wildlife sound recordists