Learning More Language Around Gender & Moving On From Pikelet

Pikelet's Evelyn Ida Morris has presented a deeply personal eponymous work. The album of delicately cerebral piano compositions explores genderqueer expression and Morris' coming out as a non-binary person who does not identify as female or male.

The Melbourne multi-instrumentalist - who uses they/them pronouns - had long experienced what felt like an undefined depression. But as a co-founder of LISTEN - an influential intersectional feminist advocacy group in the Australian music industry - Morris was introduced to discussions about gender identity in their exchanges, especially with trans-women. "I was like, 'Oh, maybe this feels like something I understand in a different way, not just in a theoretical way'," Morris notes. Indeed, their music and activism "coalesced".

Morris commenced Evelyn Ida Morris years ago, composing mostly post-classical instrumental on piano. The Body Appears is among few vocal pieces manifesting their internal narrative and was pivotal to the project. "Up until I made the song The Body Appears, I didn't really know what I was learning from it all. The previous songs were just sort of amorphous explorations. I was really fascinated at the time with the idea of trying to make songs without words, because I was like, 'Well, there's all this stuff that, whenever I try to talk about it, it doesn't come out right.' So I was just looking for songs without words. Then, when I went through all the years of running LISTEN and that album was just sitting on the shelf, I started to learn more language around gender. Then I was, 'Oh, ok, I know what this is.' The Body Appears was the song that articulated it more clearly for me." 

Today there is a cultural expectation that musicians (and pop stars) from marginalised communities both express collective experiences and challenge dominant discourses such as that of cisnormativity. Says Morris, "I think that the reason people look to musicians to clarify things is maybe [because] there is a little more freedom in that 'feeling' kind of realm that goes along with music - where it's not so much about battling different opinions, it's more about some other kind of space where we can try to understand each other."

By day, Morris has been gigging as a studio engineer for a year and a half. "I just find it so renewing and invigorating. Working with so many different kinds of artists and trying to get at what they're going for - like, trying to find out what their motivation is and all of that - to me, it's endlessly fascinating. I just find solving the technical problems in a studio setting to be very rewarding." Nonetheless, Morris has already completed another album. "I think I'll put it out sometime next year, hopefully early next year, 'cause I'd like to keep moving. It's one that I wrote thinking that it would be a Pikelet album. But, after having put out this piano album, I might just want to keep going as myself."

Morris, originally a drummer, has amassed an impressive discography as Pikelet since 2007. Yet they could be leaving that enterprise behind. "I think I might have moved on from it, 'cause there's a lot of history in Pikelet. It's also shared with my previous bandmates [who were] all with me for eight years. It started when I was 23 and I really was quite a different person. I'm 35 now. So it feels quite liberating to just be like, 'There's the moniker'."

Lately, Morris has additionally scored the film Acute Misfortune - adapted from the biography of the late painter Adam Cullen, written by journalist Erik Jensen. The Saturday Paper editor is now their partner. "I met him 'cause the director [Thomas M Wright] asked me to do the music and then we fell in love!" But, in June, Morris is performing at Melbourne Recital Centre. "They're letting me play on the Steinway and it's all very fancy." Here, they'll be joined by other musicians interpreting Evelyn Ida Morris. "I'm only just starting to rehearse with the other instrumentalists. It'll largely be shaped by what really works with them as well, 'cause on the album there's not a great deal of extra instrumentation, so we're gonna be improvising together and figuring out what works for the other players."