Kate Hennessy : Freelance Writer

Come, whoever you may be
Even if you may be an infidel, a pagan or a fire-worshipper, come
Ours is not a brotherhood of despair.
Even if you have broken your vows of repentance a hundred times, come
(Mevlana)

The vision steals your breath: five robed Sufis, heads cocked, eyes closed, arms outstretched in supplication, spinning. Seeing Turkey’s whirling dervishes is an experience of sight, sound and soul that you never forget.

Sufis whirling at Hodja Pasha. Credit Paula Lobo

Yet an authentic performance is harder to find than you might imagine. In touristy Istanbul, several cafes and restaurants have whirling dervish evenings. But while the performances have justifiably become tourist attractions, the dance is a mystical Islamic ritual with deep spiritual significance, performed as a means to reach the divine.

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First published on Mess+Noise, here.

From all directions toward the Opera House steps, distinct from the perambulating tourists, come a stream of people wearing black. Closer to the steps the darks begin to outnumber the brights. It looks like a pilgrimage.

For many, it is. A couple of years after Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard met at a little band happening in Melbourne, they decided Dead Can Dance had no future in Australia. “The Australian music scene was … middle-of-the-road FM hard rock and the alternative scene that did exist was too small,” Perry has said. In ’82, DCD played a farewell concert at Melbourne’s Crystal Ballroom, moved to London and did not return.

Until now. The Concert Hall foyer is filling for the sold-out show. Aging goths and guys in 4AD tees drain flutes of champagne alongside opera lovers – drawn to Gerrard’s unparalleled voice – and world-music fanatics who’ve long appreciated the duo’s virtuosic dedication to mining centuries-old musical traditions from the Middle East, Africa, Greece, China and Haiti (to name a few).

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Brian Eno built his career by being patient with music and impatient with its confines. The former saw him pioneer ambient music in the 70s while the latter freed him to explore production, visual art, festival curation, writing and other oddball projects.

Enjoying a high strike rate of acclaim, Eno came to occupy an enviable realm where he’s recognised by most, accessible to many, yet answerable to no-one. So when he casually resumes a series 37 years after starting it, barely anyone blinks.

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First published on The Vine, here.

Six years ago the New York Times ran a video in which Chan Marshall (Cat Power) talked about being sober. She explained how her insecurities had led to alcoholism, which, in turn, led to her depression and ultimate hospitalisation.

It was hardly news for fans like me. I’d been watching Cat Power slug away on stage since ’98 and had witnessed several mid-show meltdowns. While others seemed to enjoy being either enraged or enraptured by her performances, my appreciation was sullied by a suspicion her fragility was in fact a savvy streak of showbiz. Shambolic vulnerability had become the show. In a recent interview Marshall quotes Jonathan Richman as saying: “When you’re playing by yourself in front of a lot of people, it’s like there’s a matador and a bull, and you don’t know which one you are. But the one thing you do know is that the crowd wants to see one of you die and one of you survive.” By sabotaging her own performances, Marshall was both matador and bull, destroyer and destroyed. She gave them what they wanted to see.

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First published on Mess+Noise, here.

Even before the arrival of Grand Salvo’s sixth record, Slay Me In My Sleep, Paddy Mann’s folk music was unparalleled in its evocation of nature, nostalgia, love and loss. In place of life’s more evident dramas, Mann dwells on the minor notes: the once-cherished objects; the overlooked sentiments of underdogs, animals, and children; of those long bereaved and of those freshly bruised. In doing so, he differs from most. In a world that insists on pace, Mann pauses to hold the small, quiet things to the light and spin them around, clarity and colour angling from their depth like opals.

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