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"The thirty minutes of "Iland" are highly impressive, in that the fusion of these different kinds of electroacoustic presage cracks our fake tranquillity, dragging us into an uncertain kind of awareness that doesn't admit the presence of danger but at the same time almost expects it with unpronounceable pleasure. By alternating movement and stasis, Caddy and Soddell manage to express an otherwise undefinable sense of inner connection with something that resembles the various phases of a nightmare, but one that - one way or another - has an happy ending." Touching Extremes, Massimo Ricci - February 2007

"The uneasy acoustic sensations continue on /Iland/. Cellist Anthea Caddy and sampler player Thembi Soddell forge a formidable duo - Caddy's activated strings are a welcome agent of change for Soddell's spiralling layers of sonic debris. The stinging bites of cello act as vital punctuations for the concrete elements -the vigorous bowing and scraping resulting in jarring linkages between swelling oceans of Soddell's distended source materials.Like all of Soddell's compositions to date, the soaring dynamic shifts in volume, texture and density are the key to her strategies. A one-time student of Philip Samartzis, whose influences can be heard in Soddell's attention to spatial shape and sonic detail, lIand bears a more lateral approach to composition, with Caddy's influence recasting and redirecting the listener's focus. The contrast of Soddell's simmering cinematic moods against Caddy's ferociously animalistic cello strikes is nothing short of jarring, but it’s in this juxtaposition the duo's potential is maximised." Lawrence English, The Wire, February 2007

"A memorable performance by the established local duo of Anthea Caddy (cello) and Thembi Soddell (sampler) followed. Contrasting strongly with Tietchens’ subtle and understated ambience, Caddy and Soddell’s intense and expressionistic work is characterised by huge dynamics, strong textures and dramatic pauses. Theirs is a unique sound, blending acoustic and sampled elements and underpinned by strong live performance, adding a freshness that is sometimes absent from the calculated presentation of pre-programmed work."Chris Reid, Realtime Arts Magazine, Aug-Sept 2009

"Recovering from earlier technical issues to what was to become an event highlight, Anthea Caddy and Thembi Soddell burst into their performance with a richly textured and detailed wall of noise. Caddy performed cello in unconventional means and Soddell operated samples, however the artists' deliberate situation behind the audience and more so the musical cooperation and understanding of the duo meant a division between the artists' playing was indistinguishable. The performance demonstrated extraordinary dynamics and deeply considered timing. Caddy and Soddell took listeners through enormously spacious atmospheres; dense, textural noise climaxes; beautifully glistening granular sounds from Soddell and the incredibly rich creaks and wails of Caddy's disembodied cello. Upholding a delicate pace, Caddy and Soddell's sounds unfurled and revealed themselves over time, both through steady sonic shifts and as well as the subjective psychological shifts of extended listening." Jared Davis, Liquid Architecture 10, July 2009

"There is another way of shaping time-space in Melbourne at the moment. On ILAND (CD, Cadjid 007CD), Anthea Caddy on cello and Thembi Soddell on sampler create disturbing and exhilarating atmospheres, which unlike Gorfinkle and Avenaim's long sweep, are always heading somewhere else. ILAND is a treacherous landscape of vast plains with sudden, unseen crevices and gorges that leave the listener suspended in mid-air like a cartoon character as the ground is whipped away. After long sections of the imperceptible, a texture or gesture emerges. The cello stands apart sonically from the sampler but no psychically - the two of them travel through this dreamworld hand in hand." Jim Denley, 'Networks, Playfulness and Collectivity: Improv in Australia, 1972-2007', Experimental Music: Audio Explorations in Australia, Gail Priest ed.

DISCOGRAPHY

ILAND - Thembi Soddell and Anthea Caddy
2006 (cajid 007CD)

ILAND is where the textural and dynamic capabilities of extended cello and sampler performance collide. Mapping spaces bordered by isolation, paranoia and dislocation, this collaboration between Australian sound artists Anthea Caddy and Thembi Soddell describes a provocative and tense sonic world. From the damp obscurity of condemned architecture to the laboratory conditions of anechoic and reverb chambers, Caddy extends the sonic capabilities of cello through a response to the distinct acoustics of the space she performs within. Combined with Soddell’s unique and expressive treatment of sonic textures and her signature approach to narrative structure through dynamic extremity, ILAND moves through a dense core of physically and psychologically contrasting formations to become a singular act of intense and cathartic sonic expression.

BIOGRAPHIES

Thembi Soddell’s volatile sonic worlds morph, shift, rupture and dis-rupture into filmic atmospheres with a distinctly disquieting edge. Contorted into unreal environments and luscious masses of sonic textures, her sound palate sources field recordings, instruments and electronics to be suggestive but often unidentifiable. Her compositions exploit the dynamic extremes, toying with the listeners’ sense of expectation and generating anticipatory suspense.

Based in Melbourne, Australia, she does work for CD, gallery installation, and live performance. She has been involved in many of Australia's major sound festivals, such as What is Music?, Liquid Architecture and The Now Now Festival of Spontaneous Music, and toured Europe as part of a collaborative duo with cellist, Anthea Caddy. She is a graduate with honours in sound art from RMIT, and assists in running the Australian experimental music label, Cajid Media.

Anthea Caddy is an artist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her practice addresses the convergence between the applications of sound, the instrument and performance, through a focused study of the relationship between recording and spatialisation techniques, and the instrument as sound object. Exploiting the celloÕs textural, spatial and dynamic capabilities, she draws reference points from electro-acoustic music and sound art, focusing her projects on space and environment. Working with digital composition, environmental field recording, and acoustic performance she seeks to consolidate both the conceptual and practical aspects of these media, articulating techniques and concepts indigenous to digital spatialisation in her performances and recordings.

After studying a degree in Media Arts majoring in sound at RMIT University, she has gone on to become an active member of the Australian and international sound art community. Anthea's regular collaborations are with Thembi Soddell (Iland, Cajidmedia), with Philip Samartzis (as part of the ensemble Absence and Presence released on 'Unheard Spaces'), with tubist Robin Hayward (Berlin, Germany) and sound artist Eric La Casa (Paris, France), with Magda Mayas (Berlin, Germany), and in performance/installation project 'Maps of Corners' with guitarist and composer Annette Krebs (Diapason Gallery, NY) and in the trio The Magnets/No Triangle with Krebs and Mayas. Anthea has worked in the past with many notable artists in varying media-based projects including Tarab (Eamon Sprod), Clayton Thomas, Christian Wolff, Alice Hui Sheng Chang, Larry Polansky, Tony Conrad, Chris Abrahams, Tim Catlin, Rasmus. B. Lunding and Pia Borg. She has done numerous collaborations for video installation, dance, live sound design/score for theatre (with Darrin Verhagen and Franc Tetaz), film and video. As a curator she has co-curated for Liquid Architecture Festival in Melbourne and for the video collective DotMov. Anthea has toured internationally in Europe, Australia and USA in a variety of festivals and series.

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