‘lastwave’ by salllvage is Edition No.14 (NWAED014) in the New Editions artist series, curated by New Weird Australia. 

Ambient through the looking glass of Indigenous Futurisms… Kombumerri artist salllvage (Rowan Savage) mutates a palette made 100% from field recordings (plus mysterious vox) to construct a soft post-apocalypse. 

Eschewing the clubbier leanings of his recent work, lastwave is sonic mysticism in action – from gentle-yet-intense drones to fried, bassy skitterings and heavenly, sinister bells. Deep listening to Country is the doorway to a path guided by indistinct voices dredged from the depths of 1970s wyrdness, speaking of bodies, love, and death – and by the cries of animals and insects in warning or in recognition. 

salllvage (Rowan Savage) is a proud Kombumerri man, living on Wangal Land. He is an experimental producer and DJ working at the intersection of sonic mysticism, queer and club culture, and connection with Country. His work mutates on-Country field recordings into electronica, and inhabits and bridges the tensions between abstraction and emotion, the wild bush and the speaker stack, the personal and the social, authenticity and reconstruction. 

Recent work includes pieces for Essential Tremors Festival (curated by Angus Andrew of Liars, Phoenix Central Park), Outlines Festival (Sydney Opera House), Soft Centre (Sydney), and the soundtrack for the 9pm Sydney New Year’s Eve Fireworks 2022/3.

Available as a Name Your Price download / stream fom Bandcamp.


Tracklisting.

1. Fronds of Iron (Bells for Him)
2. Dive Reflex
3. O’Drone Park
4. Pigface Arcana
5. The Boilermaker’s Dream


Credits.

Field recordings were gathered on Kombumerri Country (Gold Coast, Australia) and Gadigal Country with permission (Sydney, Australia). 

Mastering by OVRSCN (Holosuite Mastering). 

Released September 2023.