Meet the musician summoning ghosts of the past from Melbourne Town Hall's grand organ

Wiradjuri artist Naretha Williams says her immense and fearsome new work, Blak Mass, is ‘meant to be unsettling’

Naretha Williams stares ominously from the cover of her new LP Blak Mass, hands outstretched as if performing an incantation. Standing in front of a large organ, this image of the Wiradjuri conceptual artist, composer and musician is unsettling, the kind of scene that precludes a curse. Those who press play on the disc inside, though, are far more likely to find a revelation.

Blak Mass is a fearsome work, a piece of music that utilises Melbourne Town Hall’s Grand Romantic Organ – the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere – to ask questions about the nature of colonialism. A 33-minute composition commissioned by the City of Melbourne last year for the Yirramboi First Nations Arts Festival, Williams’ piece combines pummelling organ with elements of techno and avant-garde electronic to create an intense, magnetic work that dares its audience to reconsider both civic and personal history.

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by Shaad D'Souza via Electronic music | The Guardian