OBSERVATIONS FROM THE 3RD AOTEAROA INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF SECRET(E) SOUNDS

The 3rd Aoteroa Internation Festival of Secret(e) Sounds took place across multiple venues on the 12-18th of February, 2026.

NIGHT 1 - AUDIO FOUNDATION

Alex Ventling / Kim Patterson


This is the first public performance of Kim Patterson on drum kit, who has been otherwise renowned as a veteran trumpeter in Aotearoa’s jazz scene. His subtlety and sensitivity with mallets sets up a synergetic polyrhythmic dialogue, riding Alex's repeated waves of chord suspensions and extensions. At one point, Alex samples and processes drums through filters on a hardware synth perched on the grand piano. The live electronics morph in and out of the textures. Kim elicits additional subtle colours from the cymbals, opting for tapping with his hands and rim shots with sticks. Alex makes a respite from the piano, playing sine grounded synth chords that eventually morph into a tranquil, liquid swing. This was by far the jazziest sounding set in the festival. Alex later on his Instagram account noted his appreciation of Kim's "raw energy in any musical situation, from standards to really out free stuff" – a very apt description of what the duo conjured.



Kingsley Sprago / Anna Fält


An intimate dialogue of brass, breath and voice. Kingsley inhabits both vocalist and brass doubler of tuba and trumpet, carefully and smoothly choreographing himself between instrument changes.  Kingsley's vocalizations take the form of dualled mutterings with Anna at the start, reappearing as a sung tuba multiphonic meditation midway through that is bears a resemblance to throat singing. It's a playful exchange between the vocalizing brass player and folk vocalist, characterized by chants, croons, hums, grunts, murmurs, panting, panting, groaning, sudden squelches, vocal fries, shrill vibrato, slapped tonguing and melodies working both with and against each other simultaneously. Anna's vocal versatility is on full display here: creaking vocal fries, dawdling croons, extroverted folky scats, trembling ululations and overtone shapeshifting. The tuba, trumpet and voices are equally articulate and adept conversationalists here.

Kingsley Spargo

NIGHT 2 - DUOS, AUDIO FOUNDATION

Ira Hadzic / Rāhana Tito-Taylor


A unique pairing of taonga pūoro and tam-tam (aka symphonic gong). This starts with the voice from the centre hole voice of the pūtorino, te wāhine. Rāhana alternates between two pūtorino, one 3D printed by visual artist Jaydn Flavell, and a carved wooden one. Both Rāhana and Jayden attest that the 3D printed one is the loudest of the two. Beating tones are formed between the pūtorino’s irirangi voice and the 40 inch Paiste tam-tam (courteously lent to Ira for the concert by Alan D. Jones). Rāhana surfs the harmonics of the irirangi voice of the 3D printed pūtorino while Ira provides a harmonically rich, delicate metallic drone padding. Amplified poiāwhiowhio clicks eventually appear. Rāhana switches to the SOMA - a type of breath controlled synthesizer not entirely dissimilar to but more smaller and compact than an Akai EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument). Rāhana intuitively uses a vibrating device accidentally dropped by Ira on the floor between the duo to vibrate the conch of his pūtatara, the vibrations of which are fed into the mouthpiece of his SOMA. Ira switches to fixed media field recordings from Ableton Live and tam-tam scrapes, as Rāhana ebbs into an enveloping feedback with a pūtātara + SOMA + microphone combo.


Rāhana Tito-Taylor

Christoph Gallio / Phil Durrant


A very pointillist, jagged, noisy but dynamic duo of soprano saxophone and solid body electric mandolin. The musical/sonic language somewhat reminds me of 20th century serialism, but with the organic spontaneity and unpredictability of free improvisation. Christoph's multifaceted soprano sax, sings, shrieks,  whispers, chatters, pants and honks with generous amounts of leg muting. At one point, Christoph draws out a mute to mellow things out while in a brief respite from the pointy tapestry of noise. The other half of this duo assemblage is Phil's brittle percussive, trebly plucks, smooth glass slide bends and sine tone bell-like pitch modulations via effects pedals. Phil’s playing demonstrates the subtle timbrel nuances and complexities possible with electric/amplified plucked stringed instruments that are otherwise inaudible on acoustic counterparts. Thoroughly amused audience member Franklin commented that the mechanical sounding menagerie was “like I’m having a nightmare that my car is going bad”.


Christoph Gallio 



Leila Adu



Leila’s performance is unique in the sense that she is the only singer-songwriter featured in the Secret Sounds Festival. The songs she performs in this set can be described as jazz-inflected art pop with traces of progressive rock. In contrast to Leila’s recorded discography which features trios and quartets, her set is a stripped back acoustic set. The set consisted of 7 songs: 4 played on an upright piano, 2 on the church's pipe organ and 2 on a honky tonk grand piano to the front right of the stage. She mentioned to the audience that it was her desire to play on every single keyboard that Auckland Unitarian Church had on offer. The upright and honky tonk grand piano both add a uniquely rustic character to her songs. Meanwhile the Unitarian Church’s organ adds a more ethereal and meditative dimension. Most of the songs in this set are a mixture of through-composed form and verse-chorus form. There are segments of freeness interspersed with definitive, steady pulse – an advantage to performing as a solo keyboardist. Leila’s songwriting and performance demonstrate organic and subtle experimentation in an otherwise overly pop idiom. Leila provided thematic commentary in between songs, some reflecting themes of romance and intimacy in a nod to Valentines Day (the day of the concert).

Leila Adu

SILO 6 SOLOS

Richard Francis


A slowly transformative, meditative modular synth drone-based improvisation. It starts with bright, enshrouding square waves that morph into pulsing and syncopated rhythms with harmonic filtering. A trance-like repeated major 2nd motif over a pulsating bass somewhat reminiscent of a transformer hum cycle occurs midway that leads to one audience member either dozing off or close-eyed meditating in stillness. Environmental sound is always a given for all musicians and sound artists performing in and interacting with Silo 6. How they receive extraneous sounds from the embedded environment is a matter of individual aesthetic considerations – either it’s an unwanted ‘intrusion’ or a welcome addition to the sonic pallette. Exterior ambient wind shrieks and rattles were a prominent extraneous sonic feature of this concert. The ambient wind rattling of the silos in Richard’s set eventually led to a thinner, filtered texture of cricket-like noises, a choice Richard deliberately made in order to foreground the wind into his improvisation, which he gladly and graciously welcomed.


Richard Francis



Anna Fält



An exploration of Anna's voice in relation to the resonant acoustic space of the silos. This is the longest set of all three silo solos. The set starts with utterances of single pitches of E natural divided by silences, each iteration in a different silo with varying degrees of loudness. This eventually gives way to fragments of melodic, folk inflected variations.  Anna's voice has enormous timbrel variety, created by varying mouth shapes. There is a "wide sounding" mid range chanting voice and a more altissimo sounding higher register "head voice" that she utilizes in this set. The wind rumbling and rattling of the silos adds to the sonic experience, once again foregrounding Silo 6’s proximity to the sea breezes of Waitematā Harbour. Silence is a very prominent aspect of this performance that bookends it. Anna mentioned that Silo 6 is one of her favourite acoustic spaces she has performed in, proclaiming she would spend all day in the silos if she could. She wishes to return to Aotearoa for a more extended stay to perform and record more in this unique urban acoustical fixture.


Anna Fält



2nd trio - Liam Bowen / Inda Yansane / Paul Buckton


Vocals are front and centre in this trio, with left-handed violin (Paul is literally the only left-handed violinist I know of), nan xiao (a Chinese bamboo flute related to the Japanese shakuhachi) and emu bone kōauau trailing and scattering themselves around the rest of the sonic canvas, Inda  breaks with Vitamin-S improvisatory norms by invoking the audience's participation, immediately right from the get-go bursting into a loud, impassioned cantabile call-and-response, spelling out the letters J-E-R-E-M-Y. This is the first name of the late Vitamin-S pool member Jeremy Carlisle-Marshall (also known in Vitamin-S and Audio Foundation circles by his various monikers of Jean Rèmy & Jeremy Seashell). Jeremy was a shadowy and elusive, but free spirited bohemian, cinephile, painter, art historian, outsider musician and barista at New Lynn’s The Activist cafe, who sadly took his own life in late January of this year. Prior to the first trio set of the evening, myself and fellow pool member, Adam Rotgans eulogized Jeremy’s life to the Vitamin-S audience, especially to those not present at his Waitangi Day memorial and those unfamiliar with Jeremy’s life in general. Inda ended the call-and-response with a sustaining rousing and domineering Y………………!!! for the first 2 minutes of the set before eventually withdrawing into a subdued single toned, murmured drone and chanson sung her in native French. She does this while perambulating on stage manoeuvring with and around the mic stand, accompanied by the nan xiao. At one point Inda laughs and then gruffs and groans in coarse monotone repeatedly, complimented by Liam’s tāne (aka trumpet) voice on the kōauau and Paul’s noisy bow overpressure.  Liam accompanies Inda with subdued murmured singing through his mic. He then defies the 15-20 minute prescribed time limit with a still, solemn and mellow kōauau solo at the end, with Inda's voice lurking beneath and bisected by Paul left-handed jagged and screechy pizzicato and short bow strokes. Inda duos with Liam, who sings into his kōauau only to stop abruptly when the “it’s time to stop the set” lights start flashing.


Liam Bowen



5th trio - Ivan Mrsic / Ira Hadzic / Kristian Larsen


Starts with quiet smatterings of small percussion, complimented by continuous gong rim scrapes dwelling within stillness and quietness. Kristian has his back to the audience the entire time playing a portable, hand held synthesizer that is completely out of sight from the audience. A continuous, friction mallet induced gong drone underpins the rest of the set, which Ira decides to suspend from her right hand for a firmer, steadier grip on the cords. Sub bass tones from Kristian's synth pulsates with the shimmering drone. A cymbal from Ivan makes an appearance in response to Ira’s ongoing metallic droning cycles.


Ira Hadzic

Alex Ventling


Ira Hadzic / Rosie Langabeer /  Kristian Larsen


The set begins with a very thin, sparse texture, reduced to near silence. Eerie, sombre tones approximating minor thirds are caressed by Ira with friction mallets from two small chau gongs to the left of the stage on the double sided stand, the other side featuring the larger, approximately 30 inch chau gong. Kristian and Ira timbrally meet midway, with Kristian sampling and processing her chau gong tones. Ira singularly focuses on friction mallets for most of the set which draw an array of delicate pitches from the three discs of metal. Kristian's sampled and synthesized events occasionally blare and swamp the delicate and subtle chau gong sounds. Three distinct sound worlds: chau gong, electronic and (unprepared) grand piano encounter, meet and intercept each other simultaneously. Kristian briefly leaves his laptop station for a kinetic, sensory, dance with smartphone synth in hand. Rosie’s jazz chord extensions contrast with Kristian’s electronic gestures, consisting of crackles, warbles, shimmers, sine tone squeaks. Meanwhile Ira continues to meditate in friction induced metallic subtlety and stillness. Rosie's modal jazz musings attempt to carve out a space of definite, tempered pitch centre in a sea of shimmering sea of spectral metallic-electronic ambience.

Ira Hadzic and Kristian Larsen



Anna Fält / Hermione Johnson



A dialogue between two distinct sound worlds of folk inflected voice and prepared piano. The set starts with Hermione sparsely and quietly plinking before Anna's folky crooning slowly emerges in the reduced soundscape. Hermione answers with her trademark free flowing, repetitive and syncopated metallic prepared piano rhythms. Anna utilizes microtonal slides, pentatonic inflections, and alternates between her head and chest voice. The voice and piano work against each other in a noisy, loud texture but eventually meet each other in quieter section when Hermione opts for concentrating on sustained drones drawn from chopsticks stuck into the piano strings (another characteristic of Hermione's distinct prepared piano sound) that blends in and harmonizes with Anna's contralto croons. Anna monologues in spoken Finnish towards the end which gives way to heartily blaring Finnish chant.

Hermione Johnson and Anna Fält

NIGHT 3 - AUCKLAND UNITARIAN CHURCH

Ira Hadzic


A sonic exploration into the aural and corporeal encounter with dentistry. The sets consists entirely of found mechanical and utensil sounds from the dental practice of Ira's mother treated and transformed in real time by Ira. All of the distinct, individual sounds are organized into vignettes: spatialized chattering, buzzes, swirls, waves of noise, loud buzzes, heart beats, liquid sounds and white noise. Each vignette is distinguished from one another by silence. In one vignette, normatively 'musical' (aka Western tempered) pitches appear from drill sounds pitch shifted to sound as 6ths and 7ths. Sounds such as liquid and noise swells and swirls morph into each other, alluding to the passing of time in dental procedures. Bursts of drill noises, gradually fizzle out into ethereal, glassy overtones. Brittle and abrasive plaque scraper and vacuum sounds are contrasted with heartbeats, sonically foregrounding the subjectivity and experience of the patient. The series of vignettes are bookended by the same beady-like sounds of model teeth (which Ira mentioned to me is used by dentists for training purposes).

Ira Hadzic.


Paul Buckton / Phil Durrant / Christoph Gallio


Three distinct timbres intertwine in and out of each other. Phil’s modular synth has the widest range of timbres and pitch. The sub bass register is a special place for the modular synth, humming and creaky warbling sine tones  both contrasts and compliments the sharp, jagged and abrasive noisy assemblage bought about by the shrieking but expressive gestures of Paul's guitar and Christoph's soprano sax. The chaotic, abrasive polyphonic texture gives way to a more quieter subdued texture towards the end, with bubbly sub bass rumbles, twanging acoustic plucking and subdued, delicate sax calls with occasional multiphonic honks, all combining in a meandering polyphony.


Phil Durrant’s modular synth



Drew McMillan



This is perhaps possibly the first ever public performance of Drew with his relatively new breath controlled synth, custom developed and built by Drew and Sean Martin-Buss to suit Drew's physical abilities as a wheelchair user. The sound of the synth is characterized by glassy, sine and square wave based monophonic tones, tuned to 12-tone equal temperament. The oscillators of the synth create difference tones which occasionally beat against each other. This improvisation is a melodious exploration of the filtering capabilities of the synth, modally basing itself in C phrygian. The pitches appear to be controlled by a vertical lever that Drew operates with either hand while a breath tube appears to control expression, not at all dissimilar to Rāhana’s breath controlled synth from night 2. The subtle howl of winds outside the silos colour the resonant acoustic space and contrast with the thin glassiness and mellowness of the synth inhabiting the silo void.

Drew McMillan.

VITAMIN-S SECRET SOUNDS SPECIAL – WHAMMY PUBLIC BAR

On this special Vitamin-S occasion, all sets had a prescribed maximum length of 15-20 minutes, set to a timer. This is consistent with Vitamin-S beginning of year (Festival of Secret Sounds) and end of year (Christmas Party) tradition, where any number of “free for all” sets occur. Up until this year, all pool nights between those have had two drawn trio sets, each lasting anywhere from 20 to 50 minutes in length (this year has seen the introduction of a third set).



1st trio - David Green / Jolon Dixon / Adam Rotgans


The sky is blue, the grass is green and so are unique and unusual instrumental trio configurations at Vitamin-S. This time it was processed vocals, tenor saxophone and tenor recorder. Jolon perambulated around the bar with his bent tenor recorder (up until then, I had never encountered a bent tenor recorder) as David’s tenor sax crooned wispily with rough edges. A respite from the recorder consisting of grunting and howling by Jolon ensues in dialogue with tenor sax mutterings. Adam has his back to the audience the entire time, murmuring and mumbling into a mic processed through reverb and delay pedals. This formed a mellow, dark, dense and cloudy ambient pad on which the recorder and sax atonally meandered upon in a delicate balance. David took a big solo, before Jolon trailed off the set with subtle, repeated single notes.


Jolon Dixon & Adam Rotgans



3rd trio - John Radford / Sean Martin-Buss / Paul Smith



A trio of three distinct sound sources: acoustic drum kit with an electronic drum pad, trumpet and found objects. Paul's electronic drum pad synth tom patch blares prominently, complimenting the rough-around-the-edges acoustic tom meanderings on his kit. Meanwhile Sean’s trumpet explores high register squeaks, pedal tones, whistle tones through the valves and conventional tones in both isolated fragments and scales. In Vitamin-S, John is known for three things 1) his humorous spoken word, (2) his use of everyday found objects and (3) occasional invocation of audience participation. We got (2) and (3) tonight. John gestures with ropes, crunches plastic and eventually hands out small pieces of sandpaper to various audience members to participate in the set, gesturing them to scrape them together. The multiple, spatialized coarse sandpaper rubs, alongside the piece of plastic cut through over Sean’s trumpet’s grunts and Paul’s thumping kick drum and toms in this real-time sound collage of disparate fragments and gestures.


Sean Martin-Buss & John Radford


4th trio -  Anna Fält / Drew McMillan / Lawrence Feng



The pungi (also known as a bīn or murli), a double reed woodwind instrument originating from the Indian subcontinent is a rarity at Vitamin-S pool nights. Here it brings a unique pentatonic vocabulary to the set, played by Lawrence for his first ever set at Vitamin-S. Drew showcases another custom-built instrument, a slide guitar whose strings are plucked, bent and scraped with bands worn around both of Drew's hands. Lawrence’s pungi is thin sounding here to due to it being distanced a little too far from the mic, which made it prone to being swamped by the domineering, brittle sounding amplified slide guitar. There's a chaotic interplay between pentatonic melodic inflections from the pungi, met with indefinitely pitched, discordant and jagged slide guitar bends, plucks and scrapes, as well as Anna’s intense, throaty, vibrato laden calls. Lawrence and Anna meet briefly in a pitched unison.

  Anna Fält, Drew McMillan & Lawrence Feng



6th trio - Maurice Reviol / Anna Fält / Steve Cournane / I (Joshua Taylor)



A break from the Vitamin-S norm of trio sets, Anna Fält gets a last minute encore quartet set before her departure to the airport immediately after the pool night, with Steve on drum kit, myself on cello and Maurice on jaw harp and B flat clarinet. Anna, Maurice and I improvised on a D drone  (the pitch of Maurice’s jaw harp), exploring gradations of discordance. The set takes on a more melodic character when Maurice switched from the singular tone jaw harp to clarinet, with Maurice, Anna and I weaving in and out of each other. Steve meanwhile strategically and gently painted rhythms with his drum kit around this three-part improvised polyphony.

Joshua Taylor was unable to attend the closing night of AIFSS which featured Oksun Ox, The Obfuscators & Jim White/Marisa Anderson