Jack Woodbury

Jack Woodbury photo from Rattle Records

Woodbury is Wellington-based composer “juxtaposing noise and glitch textures against ambient materials”. His first solo album, inst.19-20 (2020) came out on Rattle Records sub-label Genre Defying, and fits the description pretty damn well. Piano moments, bird song, noise and glitches, all mix together over 8 tracks. As Woodbury notes “the material is largely generated using processed recordings of piano and tubular bells, alongside field recordings of Wellington’s Ohariu Valley.”

Since then, Woodbury has released a collaboration with Peter Lilley, who stands out for his saxophone work, Unfathomed Waters (2021). I think you can take or leave the HP Lovecraft inspiration, it’s a set of curious ambient adventures that expand into noisy romps for drums and sax. On those later tracks I definitely thought of Colin Stetson’s distinctive bass sax roar, but I’m also satisfied it’s enough of its own thing.

Links

Jack Woodbury Rattle Records page

Has heaps of: Acoustic instruments, Field recordings, Glitches
Decades active: 2020s
Location: Wellington