Helen Svoboda - The Odd River

“A musician who absolutely defies categorisation” The Music Show, ABC. The Odd River is Finnish-born Melbourne-based bassist vocalist composer Helen Svoboda’s surreal musical evocation of the collision of organic and inorganic, of the natural and unnatural.

Her driving inspiration is her environment, she is struck by the weirdness of what we have done to natural world - and happily admits to being obsessed with finding uncustomary sounds, and ways of playing her instrument.

The Odd River weaves moments of startling beauty, childlike playfulness and dense chaos. Featuring a large ensemble of Australia’s most intriguing improvisers/performers, Helen’s quirky compositional style cycles through a rapidly changing landscape, seasoned by the eclectic instrumentation of double bass, voice, prepared piano, harmonium, zither, trombone, piccolo trumpet, woodwinds, percussion and virtuosic whistling.

The Odd River is both a film, and this album you hear. Composed with each musician in mind, and conceived to be recorded together, the pandemic shifted the process to each musician sending recordings from distant parts of Australia and Netherlands, and Helen multitracking with sound engineer Jem Savage, in an extended immersion in the sonic and production possibilities.

The Odd River film, made with filmmaker Angus Kirby, will be premiered at Longplay Melbourne in September.
Deep in nature, out of time, through a river portal, a young woman discovers a genetically modified food source that gives her strange visions of the end of the natural world.