Reflex in Waves brings together a series of sonic approaches Manning has been developing for over a decade. Specifically, Manning’s work is concerned with waves and the impacts of their resulting vibration. Quietly producing audio works out of his studio in Yeronga, on the south side of Brisbane city, Manning’s works are based on a series of deeply personal instrument designs, tape manipulation and other exploratory approaches. His instruments, which are often percussive, use harmonically related materials that are activated by motor-driven strings. The resulting sound is a chaotic but pulse-like cluster of harmony.

Developing sets of uniquely pitched materials, Manning’s instruments each maintain a distinct quality. No two instruments sound alike and although the way in which they are ‘performed’ may be similar, the resulting sound is anything but familiar.

“I have always been interested in how sound lives in spaces,” Ross summarises. “As I worked on this exhibition, I spent a great deal of time in my studio building instruments and exploring them. I recorded many, many hours of materials in this space and this collection of recordings is very much a summary of my sound practice to this moment.”

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His music is best comprehended through examining his time as an architect, and how that forged his innate sense for constructing tactile atmospheres, that navigate through unknown structures and forgotten spaces, creating profound new places. Over his career he has placed focus on the relationship between body, medium, and sound, creating a field of work that defies easy definition. An architect of foundsoundscapes.

For Schaefer, the medium plays as great a role as the message itself. He creates music that exposes the marks and memories of a variety of media, as presented in the 26 tracks on ‘Glitter in my tears’, an eclectic album that celebrates the sense of overwhelming desolation held in the music. A subdued cathartic opus.

Each piece is a microcosm of haunted memory, that unites to create a record of melancholic vignettes, and is easily his most critical recorded work to date.

It’s a record that reflects Schaefer’s obsession with texture, atmosphere, and emotive acoustic states. Multiple interludes, like active memories, lace into one another. Their relation is temporal, and shaped very much by the settings in which they are encountered. Like the very best ambient music, ‘Glitter in my tears’ is an acoustic reflector of sorts, rebounding off the places and spaces within which it is experienced. This process means the record is never static, but in a constant state of discovery and rediscovery.



Schaefer comments, “The album was composed over the last decade, in moments when most people are asleep in the dark, while the lucky ones are still dancing in the lights. It’s a record of delightful dark emotions evolving from the evocative dreams we yearn for, with our feet firmly on the floor, always wanting more. An unfolding compendium of motifs and repetitive fragments, fading from the memories of our emotions. Sparkling lights glisten in the hidden shadows of our feelings, with outpourings of love falling through the depths of despair. It is based on a true story”.

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Over the past half decade, Manning has been behind a series of increasingly profound explorations into light and movement. These installation works seek to reveal spectrum and frequency in patterns that often go unrecognised.

With Interlacing, his first LP for Room40, Manning showcases his deeply personal sonic works. Having been an active experimentalist for much of the 00s across Australia, with projects such as 4 Layers Of Nine, Sky Needle and Faber Castell, Manning has amassed a collection of work that draws on broken electronics, hand made instruments and custom electronics.

“Japan is where I first started getting interested in making electronics,” Ross explains of his first experiments conducted whilst he was living and teaching in Japan, “I would go into Akihabara and all the electronics stalls. Japan is where I saw all this amazing music and art and also got the chance to start building and experimenting.”

Interlacing summarises two essential threads of his work. The record splits into two broad ap- proaches. The first, captured in pieces like Expand Scatter, bring together electro-magnetic recordings and custom electronics into a cascading flow of uneasy tonality and noise.

The second epitomised on the piece %, focuses attention on Manning’s custom made fan driven instruments. Using all manner of objects, from clock chimes to wooden boards of nails, he creates fluttering patterns of rhythm and melody as a rope driven by the fan connects with the various materials. The results are unpredictable and playful, but unerringly resolved.

Interlacing is the perfect introduction to Ross Manning’s work in the sonic spectrum.

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