Naarm-based producer and composer Nina Buchanan presents ‘Solo Works for CS-80’ in this episode of Live at Phoenix. Centred on one of the world’s rarest and most expressive synthesisers, the work has become celebrated for its elegance and complexity—earning a cult-like status within Australia’s electronic music circles.

Given the rarity of the original instrument, Buchanan performs the piece on the Deckard’s Dream, a respected Japanese synthesiser that faithfully reproduces the architecture and possible depth of the CS-80.

Drawn to melody and its transformations, Buchanan explores how the smallest shifts in tone and texture can alter the emotional weight of a phrase. During her 2021 residency at Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio, she described being captivated by the CS-80’s strangeness and its extraordinary capacity for expression and in ‘Solo Works for CS-80’, repetition becomes a site of discovery—music that is at once immense, intimate, and otherworldly.

Directed by Olivia Costa, the film captures both the gravity of the instrument and Buchanan’s ability to render it into something expansive—shifting between analogue recordings, Costa echoes the rich emotional landscapes of Buchanan’s music, oscillating between melancholia and ecstasy.

Director: Olivia Costa
Live at Phoenix Producers: Soie An and Josh Milch
Cinematographer: Trudi Gultom
Lighting Designer: Andre Vanderwert
Camera Operators: Irisha Adnyana, Soie An, Lucca Barone-Peters, Angus Hunt
Editor: Ange Scott
Colourist: Alina Bermingham
Lighting Design: Joey Sadler
Recording Engineer: Toby Baldwin
Mix Engineer: Nathan Moas
Cover Image: Brontë Godden
Supervising Producer: Angus Hunt
Executive Producer: Judith Neilson