A note from Callum Mintzis

Folds of water sanctify the river. Tracing soft, cool hands, the tall oak make way for a child who is older now. The moon gives chase, as clouds attempt to climb her. And choiceless, she falls through, further out of sight. An episodic, dreamlike place; Headwater is an invitation to explore what is fundamental to life – as if asking the listener; what, after losing my compass, is the nature of my experience?

The headwater is the childhood of the stream – its beginning. And as though banished from the safety, innocence and purity of this place, the individual is carried through rapids, gashed and sawn, calling for the self to be woven again. In these early moments, the poignancy of this venture is felt in droves – a woman lost in the forest trying to find a way out, silhouette skating through light while something approaches, further out of sight.

Everyone is thrown out of childhood – hurled into a life to make sense of something which lives on in memory. The mind catches fragments, painted by ink found in the canals of the veins and rivers within – their headwater, the heart. Like tentacles beneath our skin, their message arrives unannounced, while a great struggle embarks to keep them at bay – the clarity of their awareness polluted.

After a time, the river is older now. The forest’s foliage has tuned, sculpted and moulded her – so much so, that the water is barely recognisable. But the girl is no fool, and her sensitivity will not be auctioned. Catching glimpses of the headwater – she cries out to the forest and the valley. This time, unafraid of the pain it wears and hides behind, pretending.

She sings to the eclipse, crying for the stars and their breath on the river’s back. Calling for the animals, insects and fish – bowing to the scent of the pine in the evening warmth of the air, weeping to the memory of her childhood, she comes alive. Only in such a surrender does the headwater of her tears make itself known, and all that is longed for arise without having ever been lost.

Could she really be creating all of it? And like a child with a boundless imagination, be confusing her role in the play with the candid, honest face of life itself? Humility might yet speak – claiming all she has taken herself to be as the leaves and foliage which pollute and fragment the stream. That a quest to return to childhood is an unnecessary one – because the currents which begun at the headwater still contain, at every step of the river, the headwater itself. And that the cries and memories heard starkly through the forest valley have still come from the deepest waterways the body has pronounced.

And so, originate in the heart – and are no threat. 

credits

releases June 26, 2026

All music composed by Helen Svoboda (except for Track 9, 12, 16), arranged by the Headwater ensemble, and produced by Helen Svoboda & Tilman Robinson. Track 9 co-composed by Helen Svoboda and Selma Savolainen. Track 12 composed by Jacques Emery. Track 16 co-composed by Helen Svoboda & Tilman Robinson.

Helen Svoboda: double bass (tracks 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16), voice (tracks 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 11, 13), composition, production
Selma Savolainen: voice (tracks 1, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14)
Jacques Emery: double bass (tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15)
Tilman Robinson: electronics, production

Recording engineers: Pat Telfer (Sydney Rd Studios) & Tilman Robinson
Mixing: Tilman Robinson
Mastering: Lachlan Carrick
Production: Helen Svoboda & Tilman Robinson
Video (for ‘If’): Directed, Filmed and Edited by Angus Kirby

Headwater was originally composed as part of a larger interdisciplinary performance at the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne, 2024, with the generous support of the Musica Viva Australia FutureMakers program and the Berg Family Foundation.

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