Words and Photos by Abbie McLaren
Unquestionably, there was no better evening for Australian folk musician and sound collagist Hana Stretton to take the stage in Chicago than Saturday, September 19th, during the crest of an all-day rain shower that would continue throughout the weekend. I snuck in and out of Constellation in Roscoe Village in brief dry moments, but during Stretton’s 9:15 p.m. set, it poured.
Water is everywhere in Stretton’s work. Amid intricate guitar melodies and hymn-like octaves on the grand piano were recorded sounds of the natural world: waves crashing, rain falling, a garden sprinkler with its dual rhythms of spray. “This song is for the sea,” she said at one point. “I lived on it and made music for it.” Her songs are structured with repeating motifs that grow and build and simplify and soften, rising and falling like the tide.
Constellation is an intimate black box theater with folding chairs in front of the performance space and a handful of rows of theater seats along three walls. At 8:30 p.m., the lights went down, then off, save for a table lamp next to the opening act, Chicago-based ambient composer Austin Cash. As his soundscapes built with resonant tones, chimes, and a long, reflective interview clip, I thought about what it would be like to hear this music in a planetarium. I looked up at the ceiling as if to find the stars, and was captivated by the shimmering of the reflective insulation, the way it caught the warm light of the table lamp and the red glow of the emergency exit sign.
Stretton emerged casually for her set, having already made friends with the audience members in the first row, and suggested they may be able to name her untitled tune. This is her first North American tour, and for an artist who seems more connected to the creation ritual of the musician than the touring one (“I’m not a reproducer,” she explained), she was a charming performer. Her self-deprecating humor and anecdotes between songs created a full image of a person, giving a personal context to her soothing melodies. Stretton sings more (or at least more noticeably) in the live show than on her August release tiarn. Her voice is delicate, nimble and choral, rolling from vowel to hum like a wave into the shore. In Stretton’s world, there is music in everything–from the creak in a wooden floorboard to the sound of her own breath, which she used as rhythm on “Seagull Theory II.”
The Line of Best Fit describes tiarn as “a celebration of the natural world, even if steeped in ecological grief.” This seems a fitting thesis for Stretton’s entire project. She’s using the money she earns from this tour to do work in marine conservation. She sold handmade bookmarks and postcards to support the cause. Every aspect of her performance felt steeped in quiet devotion for the world she inhabits. Her set is certainly one to see, one to close your eyes and listen to, one to be transported by, and one to think about long after you’ve left.
Hana Stretton’s North American tour continues throughout September, and will wrap up in mid-October in California. She’ll follow it up with an Australian tour in late November.
