Au Revoir Hands are Anthony Lyons and Emily Williams. Fusing sounds from the cello, buchla music easel synth, beats and samples they explore the worlds of experimental ambient pop and post-minimal electronics. Their music is richly textured and sonically unique with fragments, clicks and cuts sitting alongside effected cello and analog synth lines. They bring a raw expressiveness and live energy to their sound as they move between electronic atmospheres to driving rhythms made of loops, samples & glitched-out drum machines meeting at the intersections of neo-classical, soundscape and electronics.

Anthony and Emily have been collaborating together for most of their professional careers, having met in Melbourne and played together extensively on a number of recording and performance projects including the Electrundra AudioVisual Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival, the National Gallery of Victoria, Islington Mill Manchester for IMPATv, and more recently at The Melbourne Recital Centre.

Au Revoir Hands formed from their dedicated pursuit to capture the magic they feel happens when they make music together! Although living in Melbourne and London for much of the past 10 years, they have continued to meet, record, develop and refine their sound world releasing their first album in Nov 2021 ‘Hemispheres’.

‘Hemispheres’ is a testament to musical creativity across geographical divides, but is even more so an album about voyaging into the unknown, navigation and exploration across different sound worlds where cello, moog & buchla synths meet grittier fragments of noise, broken and reframed beats, underpinned by loops of viola da gamba, harp and strings. What emerges is a unique sound world sitting at the intersections of neo-classical electronic music and avant pop.

From the first track Submerge, which recasts elements of Orpheus’s journey between worlds to the final track Between Tides which reflects a momentary pausing to look out beyond the forces that push and pull us. The music of ‘Hemispheres’ evokes themes of navigation and voyage.

Au Revoir Hands are currently working on their second album due for release in 2024.