CODES Quartet
CODES is an ensemble of queer New Zealand musicians instigated by Auckland songwriter and musician, Tim Stewart of Hopetoun Brown. The core line-up also includes Sean Martin Bus, Loxmyn Mcdonald Ness and Karen Hu, everyone playing multiple instruments.
Tim’s idea for this project surfaced after he realised his whole career had been spent performing his songs with straight musicians and in straight musical settings.
As important as this resetting of the work, was a chance to reach out and engage with other queer musicians who are also looking for a new way to express their identities. Most of the time as queer musicians it seems our sexual identities are concealed behind well-meaning misinterpretation in straight contexts and a one size fits all “love is love and we're all the same” buzz. Cute but hopelessly inaccurate.
“The lives of queer people have always been filled with codes. From Polari to the hanky code. Identities, locations, activities, interests, all specified sometimes with the eloquence of a semaphore in the back pocket to the frustrating ambiguity of a gesture. The language of queer culture is filled with them and something all queer folks share. Sometimes we throw them all away just to fit in. This project is all about embracing our codes.
The bulk of my songs were written about my gay experience and were being performed in settings where their perspectives went by unnoticed or at least unnoticed in the forum for which they were intended. This isn’t surprising really as I’d been code switching or toning it all down for decades. It's time for all of these tunes to be re contextualised and placed front and centre.
The songs I've brought to the project are really just substrates. Frameworks upon which to hang all sorts of new stuff that members of the group might bring to the party. One of the huge attractions of this project is the chance to learn from each other, make our worlds bigger.” - Tim Stewart
