Carriageworks, Sydney
January 7, 2018

The sound of trickling, lapping water coloured the darkness of Bay 17 at Sydney’s Carriageworks for the opening of Between Music’s AquaSonic. Low humming and tenebrous rumbles gave texture to the space, otherworldly dissonances subtly emerging and receding as if borne on mysterious tides. The audience’s eyes adjusted – or the lights gradually came up – on a violinist submerged in an aquarium tank, his instrument scratching a gentle, innocent melody under the water, the sound picked up and amplified.

Nanna Bech plays the rotacorda. Photo © Charlotte de Miranda

Billed as “the world’s first underwater band”, Danish ensemble Between Music are certainly not wet behind the ears – they spent ten years developing AquaSonic, inventing and refining instruments and techniques that can be performed underwater, creating a unique and innovative sound palette from which to create their music. Arrayed across five tanks of various size and shape – the tanks themselves resonating chambers, becoming an extension of the instruments they hold – the musicians drew the audience into this new aquatic world of sound, in a strange and fantastic performance unlike any other.