“Singing with Audrey is like working with all the possible noises of the universe and beyond, earthquakes, colliding galaxies and slugs sliding down a wet window, very quiet.”
“Audrey Chen has created an uncompromising and idiosyncratic music, tightly disciplined yet acoustically wild and heavy with implication. Her ultra-verbal vocalising, often reminiscent of the visceral and emotionally charged sound poetry of François Dufréne or Henri Chopin, exposes physiological aspects of utterance that are concealed within standardised articulation and day to day speech. Fleshy, breath-driven and flecked with spittle, Chen’s voice emanates not just from her mouth but from an ensemble of upper body surfaces, channels, passages, and cavities.”
“The artistry of extended vocalise can be a tricky scaleto balance. No matter how much you might like it (ornot), there is always a risk of it coming off like an infantentertaining itself. Devices have mechanics, and one hasto learn how the switches and gears work. Vocal soundsand vocal “noise” can be a lot of things, but at base level,it can be just that. I therefore don’t have a method foradjudicating such gargles and utterances, so there’s nogood way to defend my belief that Audrey Chen is amaster of the form.”