Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra addresses refugee rights, black lives and racial injustice in new single ‘Welcome To The Neighbourhood’ — a collaboration with diverse artists of First Nations, refugee, immigrant and gender diverse backgrounds.
Once again playing nearly all instruments heard in his music, Matt’s soul-inspired piece provides a lush backdrop for five diverse artists of colour to excavate their personal experiences, set against the real-time developments of the Bla(c)k Lives Matter movement and the Kangaroo Point blockade in solidarity with refugees.
‘Welcome To The Neighbourhood’ is a response to the very real, ongoing Australian issues of unethical detention of people seeking political refuge, black deaths in custody and systemic racism. It is a message of welcome and acknowledgement to those denied safe harbour and fair treatment, and a celebration of people in our community speaking, blockading and standing in solidarity against these injustices.
This song features some of Meanjin’s best loved artist and activists, with vocals by Solchld (aka Aurora Liddle-Christie, a Jamaican/Indigenous-Australian activist-artist), spoken word by Anisa Nandaula (Ugandan-Australian award-winning poet and author) and Naavikaran (Indian-born LGBTIQ+ activist and body-movement artist), rap by Nima Doostkhah (Iranian-Australian hip-hop artist), vocals and instruments by Cieavash Arean (Iranian-Australian refugee and multi-instrumentalist), and baby sounds by Mira and her father Amer Thabet (Syrian actor). Alongside Matt, each of these featured artists appeared in La Boite Theatre Company’s The Neighbourhood, with which this track shares unofficial DNA.
lyrics
This is why I left home
No freedom of speech back home
No basic human rights back home
State sanctioned violence allows police officers to brutalise black bodies back home
Bleed out on the pavement back home
Constitutions are rewritten so legal justice is impossible back
Living is dying and dying is living
When the circumstances are so bad you can't tell the difference back home
But justice is just this simple
If there's no justice for everyone then there's justice for no-one
So my home is your home, if her home, is our home
And when home is a place we can't bear to go anymore
Then hope becomes a place that we must learn to live
Welcome to the neighbourhood
Walk with me and see what's good
The memories
Welcome to the neighbourhood
Walk with me and see what's good
The memories
This is for '83, bombs dropping on the street
Moms rocking me to sleep knowing that she had to leave
This is for the first day, third term,
skinny little me, couldn't speak no Englisi
This is for the fun you made
Now we getting plenty praise
For the way we're using English on a day to day
This is for the intro
No further info
Run and tell your kinfolk
Them boys that bring hope
This is for steel doors and concrete walls
This is for no sleep, stress level so deep
I can feel a cold heat, listen when they don't speak
This is just the warm up, nowhere near hot yet
Being it's for Matt's mix, this is just a rabncheck
Hot as a plane jet
I ain't said my name yet
نیما، بچه شجاع، شهید شما، کی داره عقیده جنگ برای دلار.
Welcome to the neighbourhood
Walk with me and see what's good
The memories
Welcome to the neighbourhood
Walk with me and see what's good
The memories
I feel as though we've seen this all before
We fight, we grieve, it leaves us wanting more
Tell me, when we gonna change
Why we stay the same, try to heal the pain
I hope love does pervade
'Cause I gotta vision of the future and it's coming quick
The people are arising, they won't take this shit
These are symptoms of a system, it was built like this
And yes you benefit
Black bodies stand for glory, you 'gon understand
Make our way back to the moments when they took this land
Shed light on truth
I'm telling you, so tell me
Welcome to the neighbourhood
Walk with me and see what's good
The memories
Welcome to the neighbourhood
Walk with me and see what's good
The memories
Neighbour's children playing
Siblings being annoying
Grandma's in the kitchen
The memories
Rain on the bitumen
Jasmine on the window sill
Different languages
The memories
We honour those who are gone and remember why we fled our homes
Where they held back our speech and actions
A syndrome of a supremacy built to destroy our bodies and erase us for good
Our spirits will transcend hardships to find shelter in this neighbourhood
This is where we will make our homes.
credits
from Welcome To The Neighbourhood,
track released January 9, 2020
Composed and recorded by Matt Hsu using vibraphone, flugelhorn, trumpet, trombone, euphonium, harp, rhodes, mbira, double bass, clarinet, furulya, flute and percussion.
Vocals by Solchld (Aurora Liddle-Christie), Anisa Nandaula, Nima Doostkhah, Naavikaran, Cieavash Arean and Matt Hsu.
Oud performed by Cieavash Arean.
Baby sounds by Mira and Amer Thabet.
Mixed and mastered by Matt Hsu and Peet Gardner of So Soap Studios.
Music video directed by Matt Hsu with the support of La Boite Theatre Company and Aleea Monsour.
Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra is a 2020 QMusic Award winning composer and multi-instrumentalist who creates intricately-
crafted otherworldly music using rethought everyday objects and rare instruments. His one-person orchestra project is the brainchild of his offbeat musical sensibilities, creating sounds that celebrates difference, inclusivity and fuzzy spaces in-between cultures....more
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