Duo Owelu Dreamhouse join Mandisi Dyantyis and Afrospace Interchange for a free sample of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival in Prahran Square.
The Melbourne International Jazz Festival heads to Prahran Square this year, and Owelu Dreamhouse is the act you’ll want to catch.
The project (made up of duo Nkechi Anele and Nic Ryan-Glenie) grew out of the soul-filled sounds of Saskwatch, so you won’t be too shocked when you put on their debut self-titled record.
Less a reinvention and more an expansion of the Saskwatch sound, Owelu Dreamhouse dances gracefully across a stack of interrelated genres.
It is, for lack of a better summation, a very good time.
Melbourne International Jazz Festival
- 16-25 October
- various venues across Melbourne and Victoria
- Tickets here
Check out our gig guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
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Are they jazz? What even is jazz? Should they be playing as part of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival?
According to Anele, many interpretations of jazz have been quite institutionalised; it has been seen as highbrow in the way people experience it, but that, and the definition of jazz, is changing.
“Lately, you’ve seen a lot more players imbue their own life into the music, or their own background into the music,” she explains.
“Bringing it back to pubs is where jazz originally started.
“It’s meant to be played with life surrounding it, and it’s meant to sound like life.”
Ryan-Glenie adds that jazz is varied and for everybody.
“If you go somewhere into a beautiful bit of nature and put on Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, and listen to that from start to finish in a completely silent space, you’ll have a transformative experience.
“People like jazz, but they don’t realise it yet because they feel like it’s not for them.
“Once they’re brought into a space where they realise it’s for everybody, they realise what a fantastic experience it is.”
Does the duo fit your definition of jazz? You have a zero-risk way of finding out when they perform a free show as part of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival in Prahran Square with the Melbourne Conservatorium Big Band, internationally acclaimed Afro-soul jazz vocalist and trumpeter Mandisi Dyantyis with Afrospace Interchange, and DJ MzRizk later this month.
For the duo, a little live jazz is exciting, and something they believe is truly worth your time.
“It’s kind of like watching an air show, where you really hope that everything’s going to be fine, but there’s also that tension, especially when people are soloing, or if a piece is being played for the first time,” explains Anele.
“That fear that it may all fall apart, and holding that tension, is something I really get a thrill out of.
“I love watching the micro expressions on stage with a live band, when a soloist starts, and everyone’s standing there listening.
“Then they take off, or have this idea that completely enlightens the sound, and you see everyone around them just being like, ‘Oh, okay, shit, that’s really good.’ It’s really beautiful.”
Ryan-Glenie clarifies, “While I don’t think we consider ourselves a jazz band per se, the approaches we take are very, very jazz. We recorded the album after just calling up the members, after only two rehearsals, and then went straight to the studio.
“The music was completely fresh, and the people hadn’t really played together. Everything was a first take, and we used one microphone. Then we have these frameworks of music, but on stage, things can change, and someone can get thrown a solo.”
“In the live setting, sometimes it’s the hook that, if we go a bit off-script, we lean into it or get the crowd involved with it,” adds Anele.
“It’s really fun to know that the songs we came up with in our home studio we now get to share with a giant band, and then extend that to so many other people.”
The songs in question can be heard on Owelu Dreamhouse’s debut record, which originally was never meant to be an album, but rather just an EP.
“It was going to be secretly put on Bandcamp, and no one was ever going to hear about it. Then Nick and I got to a stage where we were talking about set lists, and we realised that it was a band, because why would you care about set lists otherwise?”
“The first album is very broad stylistically, yet it has a similar aesthetic,” explains Ryan-Glenie. “It can change from piece to piece. It sounds a bit like a cinematic film story, Curtis Mayfield, to modern Afrobeat-y, to something else.
“We’re working on a new album now that is about honing in on that and making it a bit more one thing, instead of stretching out into different things.”
Catch Owelu Dreamhouse for free when Melbourne International Jazz Festival takes over Prahran Square on Saturday 24 October from 1pm – 6pm.
