Underwards - Delve (2023)

Sydney based trumpeter-composer Ellen Kirkwood’s Underwards new release, Delve, draws inspiration from the ways in which humans experience nature, combining beauty, mystery, colour and rhythm. The project features talented emerging artists guitarist Hilary Geddes, bassist Nick Henderson and drummer Alex Inman-Hislop.

Ellen Kirkwood explains the project:

The full moon through trees and mist. Towering majestic cliffs above a quiet rural valley. A calm river winding through a rocky landscape. A swim in a tidal ocean pool. A muddy swamp, teeming with life. The effects that being in nature has upon our senses and our minds, and the stories, memories and mysteries that beautiful and wild places hold. This is what Underwards makes music about.

Led by award-winning trumpeter and composer Ellen Kirkwood, the music for this project, like nature, combines beauty, mystery, colour and rhythm, but also leans into the ways in which humans experience nature; sometimes with wonder and joy, sometimes with awe or bewilderment, sometimes with melancholy.

Across ten original compositions, Kirkwood and her band mates show off their abundance of musical versatility, wit and expressivity. Moods range between fiery drum and bass on the title track Delve, the ambient luminosity of Night Hymn and The Cliffs Beheld, curious and playful group improvisations on Swampy and Gather… and the hypnotic off-kilter groove of In Ganguddy.

Kirkwood’s compositions for Underwards draw on her love of the natural world, and a desire to strengthen listeners’ bonds with it through music, as a form of “soft” climate activism. Her composition methods often involve immersion in places in nature, letting inspiration arrive through the impact of the surroundings upon herself.

Tracks 5-10 were inspired by places in Dabee country near Kandos in NSW, and informed by conversations she had with Indigenous locals to whom this area is their ancestral home. These were penned as part of the 2021 APRA Art Music Fund commission.

Ellen Kirkwood is a composer, trumpeter, bandleader and educator from Sydney, Australia. She was awarded the Jann Rutherford Memorial Award in 2012, the NSW APRA Art Music Award for Jazz Excellence in 2019, and one of ten 2021 APRA Art Music Fund grants. She was a finalist in the 2017 Freedman Jazz Fellowships, and her groundbreaking [A]part suite for big band was a finalist for Jazz Work of the Year in the 2018 APRA Art Music Awards. She has received numerous composition commissions both in Australia and internationally, and has released four albums of her original works.

Alexander Inman-Hislop is a multi-ARIA nominated drummer and composer. He is one of the co-founders of neo-instrumental group jetrio. In 2021 he was nominated for the prestigious Freedman Fellowship Award for Jazz Artists and was shortlisted in the 2018 Wangaratta National Jazz Awards. Alongside his performing career he teaches drums at Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music.

As well as being a sought after bassist on the Australian jazz scene, bassist Nick Henderson is also an accomplished composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer. He writes, records and mixes music for acoustic ensembles and electronic technology at his studio, Peppermint Grove. Nick has the pleasure of collaborating with a number of projects including Tourismo, Rogues and Emily-Rose & the Wild Things. Recent projects include ambient music with 50 Cycles, singer-songwriting music with Little Clouds and banjo-led chamber folk with The Good Behaviours.

Hilary Geddes is Sydney based guitarist and composer. She is the 2021 Freedman Jazz Fellow, a 2021 ABC Jazz Scholarship recipient, and the 2019 recipient of the Jann Rutherford Memorial Award. Hilary is the bandleader of the Hilary Geddes Quartet, and released her debut album 'Parkside' (ABC Jazz) with the band in 2021. She is also lead guitarist of indie rock band The Buoys.