Australian, Stockholm-based vocal artist Casey Moir enjoys testing and pushing conventional boundaries, exploring how vowels and consonants can be formed, distorted, and manipulated, and how sounds can be shaped and molded using the tongue, lips, glottis and hands. Humanoising documents three distinct, ad-hoc collaborations of Moir from the HumaNoise Congress,  recorded at Roncalli Haus in Wiesbaden, Germany, in July 2021.

The first piece «HUM» is with Berlin-based Mieko Klein (of the Jane in Ether trio) on contrabass recorder and veteran German drummer Wolfgang Schliemann. Moir leads this short, free improvised piece into eccentric but highly expressive and emotional terrains, while Klein and Schliemann intensify the mysterious atmosphere with unpredictable rhythmic patterns. «ANOIS», with veteran Swiss jazz pianist Christoph Baumann who plays prepared piano, offers a playful and provocative dialog between Moir’s vocalizations of bird calls and unintelligible but highly expressive, operatic lingo, and the resonating-percussive piano. Baumann responds beautifully to every imaginative vocalization of Moir and challenges her to dare more.

The third and last piece «ING» is also the longest one, 18-minute improvisation with Klein, German sax player Dirk Marwedel, and British tubaist Robin Hayward (of Microtub). The deep-toned sonic spectrum of the contrabass recorder of Klein and the tuba of Hayward, and the cyclical tones of Marwedel force Moir to adapt themselves to this subtle ethereal atmosphere while all explore their personal, extended breathing techniques. The outcome is a nuanced, meditative drone that insists that we are conduits of air, being fed by air and feeding others with breaths of air.

Eyal Hareuveni 

Casey Moir (v, effect pedals), Miako Klein (b recorder), Wolfgang Schliemann (dr), Christoph Baumann (p, prep), Dirk Marwedel (s, objects), Robin Hayward (tuba)