Dave Mason togehter with visual artist Libby Blainey and sound designer Scott Saunders have created the visually and aurally compelling son-et-lumiere performance: Dark.
Original Reels songs are reinterpreted by Dave and Scott and newly imagined visually by Dave and Libby, inviting the audience to rethink the meaning of Dave's original lyrics and to contemplate postmodern life, music, politics and the state of our world.
Uncompromising and always cool. Dave's song Quasimodo’s Dream was voted by his peers into the APRA Top 10 Australian songs of all time. He spear-headed his band The Reels into the consciousness of music fans for over two decades.
Dave Mason is a singer/songwriter, best known as the leader of colourful synth pop group The Reels from 1978 - 1992. In 2014 Dave received a grant from Accessible Arts to develop an electronic show reinterpreting selected pieces of his repertoire into a showcase live performance, incorporating reconstructed mixes with producer Scott Saunders and mise en scene projections with visual artist Libby Blainey. This project evolved into ‘Dark’ a solo performance at Vivid 2016.
Libby Blainey is a visual designer working in digital media including motion graphics, animation and game design. Libby designed artwork for The Reels and subsequently Dave Mason, collaborating with Dave on ‘Dark’, a multimedia performance presented at Vivid 2016. She taught visual communication at University of Sydney, Western Sydney University and Sydney TAFE
Scott Saunders is a composer, performer, musical director, producer and educator best known as the founder of dig (aka Direction in Groove). He has composed scores for many local and international TV projects, and worked as musical director on large-scale community music projects for the Queensland Music Festival involving the communities of Longreach (2007), Charleville (2009), and Gladstone (2013) (commissioned by Paul Grabowsky, Deborah Conway and James Morrison respectively). Scott is also a Master of Philosophy candidate at the University of Newcastle undertaking practice based research into the concept of “Groove” in music composition, digital music production, cognition, musicology and embodiment.
Dave’s gift for melody and lyric imagery are the toast of his generation, and the envy of contemporary artists. His songs are as vital as the day they were written and his voice richer and mellower for the benefit of the passing years.
