Rik Rue

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Rik Rue
Birth nameRichard Banachowicz
Also known asRichard Banachowicz
Born1950 (age 73–74)
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation(s)Experimental musician
Instrument(s) sound collage, soprano saxophone

Rik Rue (born Richard Banachowicz) [1] is an Australian experimental musician, [2] and sound artist, known for his audio collages [3] in recordings and live performance.

Contents

Biography

Born in Sydney in 1950 [4] to Polish refugee parents, Rue began constructing sound collages on tape from the age of 15, [4] later encouraged by Australian painter and collage artist Carl Plate. [4] He studied part-time at the Slade School, Camden Art Centre and Royal College of Art in London. [4]

He first performed on saxophone with a number of prominent Sydney improvisers including Serge Ermoll, Jon Rose and Louis Burdett [5] [4] before switching to live mixing of sampled and pre-recorded sound on audio cassette recorders including the TASCAM Portastudio, describing the relationship between the two instruments, 'The tape is improvised in a sense, by equalisation, adding timbres, adding pitch controls, the various combinations of mixing. All those areas give you a sort of phrasing not unlike saxophonists altering their embouchure, and I approach the tapes in this manner.' [6]

After releasing material on the Fringe Benefit label, in 1983 he created his own label Pedestrian Tapes, [7] releasing his own and works by Michael Sheridan, Jim Denley, Jo Truman, John Gillies, Ian Hartley, Ernie Althoff and others. [4] [8] In the 1980s he was a member of the group Mind/Body/Split with Jim Denley, Sherre de Lyse, Jamie Fielding, Graham Leake and Kimo Venonen, [4] and in 1989 he co-founded the performance ensemble Machine for Making Sense with Chris Mann, Amanda Stewart, Jim Denley and Stevie Wishart, first performing at Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria. [9] [10] Later he worked with performance group Gravity Feed [11] on over 20 projects between 1994 and 2007 in Australia and Germany, [1] [12] Urban Theatre Projects, [13] dancer Tess de Quincey, the group Social Interiors (with Shane Fahey and Julian Knowles), [14] musicians David Moss, Eugene Chadbourne, [15] Ikue Mori [16] and released recordings on Extreme Records. [17]

In 1995 his recordings were included in the exhibition Sound In Space: Adventures In Australian Sound Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), Sydney. [18] The major sound work Things Change, Things Remain The Same commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, was exhibited as part of the major contemporary art exhibition Australian Perspecta 1997: Between Art and Nature. It has been described as an 'outback road-trip of the mind'. [19] His video and sound work Fire and Water was shown at SNO Gallery Sydney in 2014. [20] A number of Rue's early cassette recordings were re-released by Shame File Music from 2014. [21] In 2018 the exhibition In-Formalism at the Casula Powerhouse, included a survey of his tape works. [22]

Rue suffers from multiple sclerosis and is now no longer active in performing or recording. [1]

Discography

Radiophonic Works

Compilations

with Social Interiors

with Mind/Body/Split

with Machine for Making Sense

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Jon Rose and contributors, "Rik Rue, Sound Collagist" http://www.realtime.org.au/rik-rue-sound-collagist/, retrieved 14 June 2017
  2. ↑ Warren Burt, "Some Musical and Sociological Aspects of Australian Experimental Music : Feature Article: Australian Music Centre". www.australianmusiccentre.com.au.
  3. ↑ Shannon O’Neill, "Copyright Doesn’t Mean Shit to Me: sampling and appropriation in Australian Experimental Music and Sound Art", in Gail Priest (ed), 'Experimental Music: Audio Explorations in Australia', UNSW Press, Sydney 2009, ISBN   978-1-921410-07-9
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 John Jenkins, 22 Contemporary Australian Composers, NMA Publications, Brunswick, Australia, 1988
  5. ↑ Rose, Jon; Rose, Performer.), Jo; Kelly, Performer.), Pete; Reid, Performer.), Ro; Rue, Performer.), Ri; Burdett, Performer.), Loui; Clare, Performer.), Joh; Hobbs, Performer.), Ton (7 June 1978). "Towards a relative music : contemporary spontaneous music" – via Trove.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ↑ Roger Dean, "assembling...improvising: Rik Rue", Sounds Australian, No. 32 Summer 1991-92.
  7. ↑ Shannon O’Neill, "Copyright Doesn’t Mean Shit to Me: sampling and appropriation in Australian Experimental Music and Sound Art", in Gail Priest (ed), 'Experimental Music: Audio Explorations in Australia', UNSW Press, Sydney 2009
  8. ↑ "Pedestrian Tapes". Discogs .
  9. ↑ "Machine For Making Sense". Discogs.
  10. ↑ D. Bechtloff (ed.) 1989, Kunstforum International 103, Im Netz der Systeme, 'Jim Denley/Rik Rue: Passives/Aktives Weshelspiel: Zwei Burschen aus dem Busch'
  11. ↑ http://www.realtimearts.net/article/issue24/4277 accessed June 16
  12. ↑ "AusStage". www.ausstage.edu.au.
  13. ↑ "UTP".
  14. ↑ "Australia Adlib - Ehm Ehm". www.abc.net.au.
  15. ↑ "Eugene Chadbourne / Jon Rose / David Moss / Rik Rue - Country Music Of Southeastern Australia". Discogs.
  16. ↑ "David Watson / Jim Denley / Rik Rue / Amanda Stewart / Ikue Mori - Bit-Part Actor". Discogs.
  17. ↑ "Rik Rue - Sample/Shuffle/Interplay - Extreme Music".
  18. ↑ "Sound in Space: Adventures in Australian Sound Art". Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.
  19. ↑ "From the Vault: Things Change, Things Remain The Same". Radio National. 10 March 2016. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  20. ↑ "109". Sydney Non Objective. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  21. 1 2 "Rik Rue cassette archive". www.shamefilemusic.com. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  22. ↑ Centre, Casula Powerhouse Arts (8 April 2020). "In-Formalism". www.casulapowerhouse.com. Retrieved 13 August 2021.
  23. ↑ "Rik Rue". www.kunstradio.at. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  24. ↑ "From the Vault: Things Change, Things Remain The Same". Radio National. 10 March 2016. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
  25. ↑ "Rik Rue cassette archive". www.shamefilemusic.com. Archived from the original on 22 February 2017.
  26. ↑ "Rik Rue". Discogs .
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