 |
| Celeste Aldahn and Liam Kenny on the Gunyah jetty |
"... Upon arriving at Gunyah, we spent a day setting up our studio and getting familiar with our immediate surrounds. It was almost overwhelming thinking about how we might dig into the ten days that followed - it's rare to have the space and time to experiment and create, but time went quickly.  |
| Liam Kenny at Gunyah |
In the first week, we finalised guitar and vocal overdubs and mixed two songs for our project Zipper's upcoming double single (out November 2025) and spent some time working on graphic design for upcoming gigs. Knowing there was a storm approaching, we tried to spend some time each day out in Worimi country, finding inspiration from the landscape.
 |
| Celeste Aldahn at Bennet's Beach |
We rose at 6am to hit the surf at One Mile and Bennet's, took our afternoon walks through the fire trails, and ended our days sitting by the fire and sketching out demos for new songs as the darkness set in.
 |
| Liam Kenny at Gunyah |
Our second week saw us hit our stride. We revisited the rough sketches of songs made in week one and worked through refining them, walking away with a total of 8 demos - most of which had bass, drums, guitars, keys and sometimes vocal melodies. We feel mostly all of these demos will go on to form songs for our projects Big Echo and Zipper. We brought a surplus of instruments and recording gear, as we anticipated we might capture some more experimental recordings in our second week - but much of this was unused, as in the end we opted to keep things simple and to move through as much material as possible while we had the privilege of time and space time and space.
 |
| Celeste Aldahn at Gunyah |
We also experimented with new processes, thinking about tactile methods we could use for our upcoming single artwork - testing out cyanotype and polaroid emulsion lifts. As musicians, time and space to explore and experiment is vital to our growth and development.
 |
| Zipper instruments at Gunyah |
With busy lives and multiple bands on the go, carving out space separate to our day-to-day lives in precious and gives us the chance to focus in - think about the future - and feel excited about what's to come. Since returning to Naarm, we've started working on these demos with our band in the lead up to recording them late 2025. ..."
Gunyah residency report, June-July 2025
Zipper - Celeste Aldahn & Liam Kenny
