Libby Myers - Unfettered and Alive

MNM020

Unfettered and Alive is the debut album by guitarist Libby Myers featuring works written by outstanding contemporary composers. Her performances aim to tell intimate, honest stories through music.

This album is about giving sound to the performer’s “sonic self”. While her musical upbringing was grounded in interpreting ancient texts, playing characters and examining the lives of composers, this album sees the scores as departure points for travelling along new paths that explore musical identity.

Nick Cave writes that "for some of us it is almost impossible to have a cohesive identity or, rather, there are some whose inconsistent and conflicted sense of self _is_ their identity. There are those who have an identity that is contrary and evolving and forever at war with itself. It is perpetually in the process of challenging its own best ideas. Once an idea of self — a stance, a point of view, an identity — is settled upon, this inner subversive begins the business of dismantling it. Yet, this resistance to a fixed identity could be our greatest strength”.

This collaboration between Libby Myers and five acclaimed contemporary composers aims to challenge, resist and dismantle fixed notions of genre and performance. Through free improvisation, multimedia compositions and unique interpretations, the resulting works foreground the performer’s own stories and experiences to evoke feelings of being at home, being alone, travel and meditations on Australian landscapes.

The pieces are at once melancholy, exuberant, spontaneous and thoughtful. Both resisting and celebrating notions of musical identities, they are unfettered.

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released March 25, 2022

Libby Myers - Guitar

Soundtrack to Solitude - composed by Helen Svoboda
Slancio - composed by Amy Brandon
Memories of Different Homes (postcard. for guitar) - composed by Connor D’Netto
Guiding Lights - composition and videography by Caleb Colledge
I Felt Unfettered and Alive - composed by Chris Perren

Engineered, mixed and mastered by Daniel Kassulke at Gasworks Studio, Newstead
Produced by Libby Myers
Photo by Vanessa Van Dalsen (Vivid Visual Co)
Design by Brodie McAllister

Special thanks to the Queensland Conservatorium, Creative Arts Research Institute and Gender Equality Research Network of Griffith University for their support