For decades, Lucas Abela played turntables hooked up to all sorts of objects, from swords to meat skewers to amplified trampolines. Since 2003, however, the Australian experimental sound artist’s instrument of choice has been a large shard of glass. Pressing his face against the broken pane, Abela hums and blows into it during his performances, with a contact microphone amplifying the sounds, warped by a series of effects pedals. The resulting noise resembles the high-pitched, grating yowl of a circular saw or of a high-speed drill boring into your jaw courtesy of your dentist; still, the layered screams that the mundane glassware emits are as alluring as they are jarring. This tension is what drew Abela to the material in the first place.
The Artist Who Turns Glass Shards and IV Drips into Instruments
