Experience the immersive sounds of Cave Song, spelunking into the mysterious realms of caves, myth and music.
In this evocative new musical work, Karen Berger, Kate Neal and Anthony Lyons explore the paradox that darkness can be a medium of vision and descent can be a movement towards revelation.
Cave Song compositions juxtapose live, recorded and manipulated voices, including interviews and original writing, with rarely heard instruments: the deep tones of the contraforte bassoon, the unique Buchla music easel synthesiser, and the extraordinary resonance of stalactites. Instrumental and recorded sounds are interwoven with live foley and live and recorded text in unusual ways, creating moments where it becomes unclear what is live and what is recorded—at times engendering a feeling that the earth herself is speaking.
Audiences experience a five-part journey: The Call, The Search, The Struggle, The Breakthrough and The Return – into the earth, and into deep time, inviting reflection on the question: Are we being good ancestors?
Linking the local to the global, prerecorded interviews include comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell; imminent Indigenous scholar Professor Lynette Russell; Gunditjmara man Tom Molyneux; Djaara Elders; historian Barry Golding; geologist Clive Willman; ecologist Gidja Walker, and other community members.
Cave Song began as a creative development in the David Li Sound Gallery in early 2025, when Berger, Neal and Lyons were awarded an MPAC Progress Links commission, forging connections between artists and Monash University researchers to develop new art.
Photo credit: Brendan McCarthy
