There are very few contemporary artists who can credibly claim to have built original work in three different categories. Australian-born vocalist, composer and songwriter Perukua is one of them. On stage, she is a phenomenon — a polyphonic vocalist whose voice produces up to three simultaneous overtones, with a measured frequency range running close to the practical bandwidth of human hearing. In women’s practice, she is a pioneer — the author of more than fifty original methodologies, who built her first practice for women in 1988 and began teaching women publicly in 1996, when the very category was still considered unusual. In literature, she is an innovator — the inventor of a trademarked storytelling architecture, releasing this season a debut memoir that arrives with eleven of her own songs.
Phenomenon on stage
Perukua’s vocal signature is unusual enough that the technical detail is worth stating before anything else. She is a polyphonic vocalist — a singer whose voice produces a fundamental tone alongside up to three simultaneous overtones above it. The combined frequency range of her vocal output, when measured in studio sessions, runs from 50 Hz to 11,812 Hz, close to the practical bandwidth of human hearing.
“A vocal technique whose combined frequency range, when measured in studio sessions, runs close to the practical bandwidth of human hearing.”
She is also a composer and songwriter. Her recorded catalogue runs to roughly seventy original compositions. Her career has spanned thirty-five years and women from sixty three countries are doing her practices. Halls of up to twenty-one thousand. Magazine covers in seven European countries. The kind of touring resume that, in the contemporary-music industry, normally does not arrive without a major label.
Pioneer in women’s practice
Long before women’s practice became a recognised category, Perukua was already building one. She authored her first original practice for women in 1988. She began teaching women publicly in 1996 — a moment at which, in most of the contemporary world, the very idea of a dedicated women’s practice still struck most observers as strange. She was one of the first contemporary artists to argue, in public that women needed a different approach to inner work — one that did not require them to disappear into masculine patterns of striving, control, and self-erasure in order to be taken seriously.
“She was one of the first contemporary artists to argue, in public, that women needed a different approach to inner work — one that did not require them to disappear into masculine patterns in order to be taken seriously.”
Over the next three decades, that early conviction became a body of work. Perukua is now the author of more than fifty original methodologies for women, ranging from short self-applied practices to long-form transformational programmes.
“Author of more than fifty original methodologies for women, ranging from short self-applied practices to long-form transformational programmes.”
Innovator in literature
Perukua’s third category of work is the most recent. Her debut memoir, The Woman Who Found Her Voice, releases this season — and arrives with two structural innovations that distinguish it from anything else on the publishing calendar.
The first is the architecture. Each chapter of the book descends through three layers of cause behind a single moment in the author’s life — a present-day moment, the immediate momentum behind it, and the formative cause beneath that. The architecture is recognisable to anyone who has done psychotherapeutic or autobiographical work, but Perukua has made the device the spine of an entire book and trademarked it as a literary technique. She calls it Rabbit Hole Storytelling™. To this writer’s knowledge, it is the only trademarked literary device on the publishing calendar this season.
“To this writer’s knowledge, the only trademarked literary device on the publishing calendar this season.”
The second important yet already tested by other books territory is the album. The memoir releases alongside an eleven-song original soundtrack — a song-by-chapter companion record that maps onto the book’s prologue, preface, eight chapters, and epilogue. Two of the songs were written specifically for the book, and the other nine are drawn from Perukua’s working catalogue. The album was made with three decorated music professionals — Tom Wasinger (three-time GRAMMY® Award winner), Heather Holley (Christina Aguilera, Skylar Grey, Jackie Evancho), and Dave Eggar (Coldplay, Frank Ocean, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons). The structural integration of book and album, song-for-chapter across all eleven units, is itself unusual enough that the format has begun to attract attention as a category event in contemporary publishing.
The effect of the architecture, according to early readers, is that by the third or fourth chapter the reader has begun running their own life through the same three layers. The book stops being a memoir and begins functioning as a manual for how to look at one’s own life with the same technique. ‘After this book, you stop making the same mistakes — because you begin to see the causes’ is, in the author’s own framing, what the architecture is for.
“The book stops being a memoir and begins functioning as a manual for how to look at one’s own life with the same technique.”
Research interest
Among the more unusual recent developments around Perukua’s work has been the emergence of independent observational interest from heart-rate-variability researchers. Small-sample HRV-based work on listeners exposed to her vocal soundscapes has begun to record cardiac patterns more typically associated, in performance physiology, with athletes in flow states. None of this is clinical research. It is the early end of a research conversation that has only recently begun. The artist’s own framing is that the audience side of the conversation has been settled for thirty years; the instrument side is just starting to catch up.
“The audience side of the conversation has been settled for thirty years; the instrument side is just starting to catch up.”
It is rare for a contemporary artist to have built original work in three different categories. Perukua has built original work in three. The phenomenon on stage — the polyphonic vocalist with thirty-five years and sixty-three countries behind her. The pioneer in women’s practice — the author of more than fifty methodologies, with the longest continuous body of work in the field. The innovator in literature — the trademarked memoir, with the eleven-song soundtrack, and the architecture that asks the reader to do the work alongside her. All three categories converge, this season, on a single book.
Perukua’s memoir, The Woman Who Found Her Voice, and the eleven-song companion soundtrack release this season. More on her work, the recordings, and the practice is at peruquois.com.
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