A decolonial dreaming of new futures that seeks truth in the roots of improvisation
Legendary Meanjin based spoken word poet Huda Fadlelmawla and award winning Naarm based musician Reuben Lewis combine forces in Story of Another Soul, out now via Life Before Man. Huda delivers powerful spoken word poetry about equality, her journey as a Sudanese refugee and women’s rights. Reuben devises an ever expanding and “vivid listening experience that gleams with sinister detail” (The Wire). Together, they create a new narrative, one that is just between us the listener, the poet and the sound world.
There is a vast, monolithic intensity to this collaboration. It plays on expectations, shattering all semblance of familiar form, story and symbol.
Huda’s poems are messages and prayers that oscillate between past and future, jostling conflict into harmony and back again. They bleed, they cry, they celebrate.
Reuben’s role is that of sorcerer, creating backdrops and soundscapes, permitting these poems to breathe. Trumpet, pedals, samplers, loops, all combine to forge otherness and mystery, all-the-while mimicking the delicate thrum of the heart, its tranquil rhythms.
Everything is twinned. Hope co-exists with its shadowy underside, love flourishes with pain. Reuben’s electronic score bathes Huda’s words in a warm sonic glow; his ambient and otherworldly textures provide shelter, the promise of calm, solace, and reassurance.
Music
