intimacy

incites tense listening

Jonathan Marshall, RealTime Arts
Soundcloud player for “Withdrawal”, track two from Thembi Soddell’s album Intimacy. The image shows the CD cover, which is dark red with abstract texture of shade of black and red. The word “intimacy” is in large letters toward the right side in a lighter shade of red than the background. An audio waveform is overlaid on the image with a track length of 4:28

From sounds on the threshold of perception to rupturing bursts of noise, these manipulated and sculpted environmental recordings hint at an evocative and emotional narrative in six movements: Violation, Withdrawal, Mistrust, Discomfort, Repulsion and Expectation.

Intimacy is Thembi’s first solo album, released in 2004 by cajid media. This composition was also exhibited as a quadraphonic installation in a small room lined with thick red drapes at First Site Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, as part of 360 Degrees: Women in Sound curated by Arnya Tehira and Sianna Lee for the Liquid Architecture Festival  in 2003.