Story of Another Soul
A decolonial dreaming of new futures that seeks truth in the roots of improvisation.
Award winning Naarm based musician Reuben Lewis and legendary Meanjin based spoken word poet Huda Fadlelmawla combine forces in the world premiere of their live duo. Known as 'Huda the Goddess' on stage, Huda Fadlelmawla delivers powerful spoken word poetry about equality, her journey as a Sudanese refugee and women’s rights. Through trumpet alongside live processing with pedals and laptop, Reuben Lewis devises an ever expanding and “vivid listening experience that gleams with sinister detail” (The Wire). There is a vast, monolithic intensity to this collaboration. It plays on expectations, shattering all semblance of familiar form, story and symbol. We are instead evoked to create a new narrative, one that is just between us the listener, the poet and the sound world. This is a first-time creative exchange not to be missed!
About the debut album, Story of Another Soul:
Tariro Mavondo:
Black women we are hyper sensitive to the injustices of other people. Often we have the capacity to hold space for others but just because we can doesn’t mean we always should. This is the result of Western European epistemological, ontological and axiological civilisation that has cornered us into this shape, this form of hyper vigilance.
In Story of Another Soul Huda the Goddess proclaims she is retiring from this role and it is a powerful act of resistance, disruption and liberation. The hanging up the boots of martyrdom is a very important process because it is the journey of self love, self respect and self knowing.
The conviction and oral dexterity that this wordsmith utters these truth through poetry is deliciously generous and wonderfully showcases her mastery of spoken word. Reuben Lewis’s music is the perfect soundtrack to enter into Huda’s mindscape and interiority of expansive themes, deep as the ocean, and longitudinal like stretches of endless desert.
Story of Another Soul is an irresistible and unforgettable album for its irrefutable honesty. It is a profound offering into the poetics of presence and stillness. Inviting the audience to be and to feel moved by the world seen and unseen and to in the spirit of reciprocity move the world from a place of cup overflowing where one’s wellbeing is prioritised first.
The album is a decolonial dreaming of new futures and we get a sense that this exercise is far from futile that it is indeed a necessity for our very existence. It is the love letter, the love dedication to humanity we so needed in these times.
