Composer Robert Ashley dies. I discovered him after a winter visit to Finland a few years ago. I was in Berlin and missing my friend Ukko, wandering aimlessly, and listening to Automatic Writing on repeat. Repeat back in Australia, sprawling angular, sinking into a lumpy bed on a stormy summer afternoon that lasted two months. Iron sky, mineral air, terrestrial rain, humid leaves, cool hollows in foundation brick, roots from a Moreton bay fig creeping up through strangling plaster, fine veins, and the layered creaks, whispers, the extra rooms, uninvited guests, the attic and the cellar friends of Robert Ashley. Watch Greenaway on Ashley, including Perfect Lives performed in London, here on ubu.
