Chloe Sobek - Apotropaic (2023)

NM presents the debut LP from Melbourne/Naarm soloist and electronic composer Chloë Sobek.

Whilst gripping stages and audiences alongside much of Australia's most adventurous composers and performers over the past 2 years, 'Apotropaic' appears following a series of self-released single track hints via her bandcamp. Sobek instantly soars to characterise her arresting first statement, flitting between sound collage as a looming vaporous threat, restless swathes of electronic pointillism and her unmistakable pneumatic rain of extended/effected solo violone performance. Curiously, Sobek's instrument is a custom built violone; ostensibly a dynamic, spectral six-stringed baroque variation on the instrument we know today as double bass.

Wrenching the instrument for absurdist thrills and atonal mystique, Sobek's designs are a puzzle for the listener attempting to grasp the exact tone of 'Apotropaic'. An obsession with personal hidden meaning firmly buoys her sensibility when selecting a sound, inevitably spinning a labyrinthine cosmos that is at once both acutely figurative and intimately informed by Sobek's notions of the experiential.

Recorded and mixed by Chloë Sobek and Vijay Thillaimuthu.

Mastered by Joe Talia.