tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-124261312024-03-12T22:08:57.280-07:00de-composingUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger198125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-16848347617887204822015-12-11T10:55:00.003-08:002015-12-11T10:55:25.729-08:00BUY NEW MUSIC FOR CHRISTMAS! KERRY'S RUNDOWN 2015Hurrah! It's time to encourage to you spend your Christmas pressie money on lots of fabulous music by friends and acquaintances for your nearest and dearest. I know music seems like it's mostly for free, but you know what? IT ISN'T. Check my recommendations out and support musicians who have released albums in 2015:<br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://fireflyburning.bandcamp.com/album/skeleton-hill" target="_blank">1) Firefly Burning - Skeleton Hill</a></b><br />
<br />
A beloved live act, made up of five extremely talented musical chums. They mix Kate Bush-esque songwriting, minimalist grooves, dark folk leanings and some bloody wondrous vocal harmonies. 'Everything about Skeleton Hill is fresh, original and often audacious... old and futuristic at the same time' **** MOJO<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL8oyIah9_CWBBB4JayYEk5Nvkak711lbkbCR-X9JXCkHlbGqL2UlAZwG_RFJiPi70T5TYZcjM1MYZY8zhhyphenhyphenZbBMZWgAl8AAp9fMr69MoyPZ-su728rFHztTpJ_mMq9IvbGlWU/s1600/firefly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL8oyIah9_CWBBB4JayYEk5Nvkak711lbkbCR-X9JXCkHlbGqL2UlAZwG_RFJiPi70T5TYZcjM1MYZY8zhhyphenhyphenZbBMZWgAl8AAp9fMr69MoyPZ-su728rFHztTpJ_mMq9IvbGlWU/s320/firefly.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fade-Time-Sam-Lee/dp/B00RK4PWLQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1441013560&sr=1-1&keywords=sam+lee+fade+in+time" target="_blank">2) Sam Lee and Friends - A Fade in Time</a></b><br />
<br />
One of the most awesome folk musicians in the UK and all-round folktastic guru, Sam has swiftly followed up his Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut with this, his second album. 'Blackbird' is sublime sort of gospel-folk.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzV1GugHr2xlgcahFiSk0u7tjezKTA9GjBEdOreRHcHAB-3eo3ooxWFaM_ax44gYL6lyPk_UpoPESRtMBE5UlLPx0pzlTDsqS444IKFAe_vwgtKkMdStm0wyYMP-RroGLWpHzo/s1600/sam+lee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzV1GugHr2xlgcahFiSk0u7tjezKTA9GjBEdOreRHcHAB-3eo3ooxWFaM_ax44gYL6lyPk_UpoPESRtMBE5UlLPx0pzlTDsqS444IKFAe_vwgtKkMdStm0wyYMP-RroGLWpHzo/s320/sam+lee.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b><a href="https://letspin.bandcamp.com/album/let-go" target="_blank">3) Let Spin - Let Go</a></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Groovy, nasty, perplexing, wonky, fabulous rock-inflected jazz from a newish group, whose members include Polar Bear bassist Ruth Goller and Led Bib's ace sax player (and my Metamorphic compadre) Chris Williams. </div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqu9y6WD-8xjH-E9a6iijHwxU1BJigJQp2qvx85kIBUbySFSNd9r0wSZYkTGHR2hMLTOs9swa_uOCqPTktvSMlhux3xA_WNENJZUBSmN4-TRO1q8lrYfDayy98B86ADMIgSy78/s1600/let+spin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqu9y6WD-8xjH-E9a6iijHwxU1BJigJQp2qvx85kIBUbySFSNd9r0wSZYkTGHR2hMLTOs9swa_uOCqPTktvSMlhux3xA_WNENJZUBSmN4-TRO1q8lrYfDayy98B86ADMIgSy78/s320/let+spin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://boomkat.com/products/good-sad-happy-bad-418541dc-d4ae-493d-a774-0730cb69788e" target="_blank">4) Micachu and the Shapes - Good Bad Happy Sad</a></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Strange, oddly-shaped pop nuggets from Mica Levi and her crew. Sparse and unexpected stuff.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAeWDzqIljOVFYNd6cEDwK5IqChwW_ahz3lLJ6j6_QMcCe1r50aKzNg1BLWQeRWqoICB5mpw5__iRNR3zIQZXu6PRoulHp5_s7sCh6NtMwFpxo0_Xa4WPm3vKdtTBOLe9m81hM/s1600/mica.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAeWDzqIljOVFYNd6cEDwK5IqChwW_ahz3lLJ6j6_QMcCe1r50aKzNg1BLWQeRWqoICB5mpw5__iRNR3zIQZXu6PRoulHp5_s7sCh6NtMwFpxo0_Xa4WPm3vKdtTBOLe9m81hM/s320/mica.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<b><a href="https://www.discovery-records.com/product-ST82886/the-lyre-ensemble/the-flood.htm" target="_blank">5) Lyre Ensemble - The Flood</a></b><br />
<br />
Composer/performer Stef Conner helms this album which features her own voice alongside a reproduction of the WORLD'S OLDEST INSTRUMENT, the Lyre of Ur, some 4,500 years old. Stef has also recreated lyrcis based on Mesopotamian texts from the 4th century, and it's all sung in Sumerican and Babylonian. And sounds beautiful!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ0cdMnyYLD1Oy-CAp688rVMbHabDCA66efJmHX68nJZmCfqxilsepqpja7itqe2FnZgVHPKjER_kpC6liLHAMddFRLwPAAvfRdSKZzHqZavglb33Uy1r0hS9TMMwdA8-pmjSJ/s1600/flood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ0cdMnyYLD1Oy-CAp688rVMbHabDCA66efJmHX68nJZmCfqxilsepqpja7itqe2FnZgVHPKjER_kpC6liLHAMddFRLwPAAvfRdSKZzHqZavglb33Uy1r0hS9TMMwdA8-pmjSJ/s1600/flood.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b><a href="http://www.emilyportman.co.uk/shop/coracle" target="_blank"><br /></a></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b><a href="http://www.emilyportman.co.uk/shop/coracle" target="_blank">6) Emily Portman - Coracle</a></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
One of my favourite gigs of 2015 was seeing Emily and co at Cecil Sharp House for a gorgeous set that was both sweet and spiky, with dark lyricism and wit stitching old folk themes to new songs.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvT3HFfog6FJeKhX3eGBpLM8dt60j8BqojP0TEw854M1F-pyBlLo9rEHNj5Ap7rormLy3R4FQc0_9y88p7t9ZQeu8CZdSi55ALHQHoSLHC6p8_LE97s33me7fxP-RZwPBCyJcq/s1600/emily+portman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvT3HFfog6FJeKhX3eGBpLM8dt60j8BqojP0TEw854M1F-pyBlLo9rEHNj5Ap7rormLy3R4FQc0_9y88p7t9ZQeu8CZdSi55ALHQHoSLHC6p8_LE97s33me7fxP-RZwPBCyJcq/s320/emily+portman.jpg" width="305" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b>7<a href="https://davidbreslin.bandcamp.com/releases" target="_blank">) David Breslin - The Trees Are Coming</a></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Exquisite singer-songwriting from David, with touches of Nick Drake in his delivery, though his songs are a little more wry than that. Blissful lyric writing and his low notes at the end of the final track slay me stone cold dead.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDgXjbIynIU-izTGiVvfb3SRFFlAHNvRaVNqM8RFPJSM7oL1teamw_8gXaVfhjmr3pqpxq4_zITGbaHz9c49glDb591SxDtij_1_2OYsl-RA6uXeO-J7vabj5byNV_M9noXmnw/s1600/dave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDgXjbIynIU-izTGiVvfb3SRFFlAHNvRaVNqM8RFPJSM7oL1teamw_8gXaVfhjmr3pqpxq4_zITGbaHz9c49glDb591SxDtij_1_2OYsl-RA6uXeO-J7vabj5byNV_M9noXmnw/s320/dave.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<b><a href="http://www.nonclassical.co.uk/music/" target="_blank">8) Klavikon - Klavikon</a></b><br />
<br />
The recent project of out-there, piano-reinventing, improvising star Leon Michener, Klavikon mostly prepares a grand piano so that it sounds like techno. Electronic music but created live. At his most recent gig, the preparing included a hamster in a wheel.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVI-9aiv9568871I_2pQxwCn0I7sZ1eFuiSkwXqCIt4vPIhgzr-AGtZA4W7TKa0h_pZa4K4A5lITtAMq21tFj0ak9c1wSD_PRGnYAtrAW7COYsKc0PgUBbnop17Yq8rJ1bG8W8/s1600/klav.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVI-9aiv9568871I_2pQxwCn0I7sZ1eFuiSkwXqCIt4vPIhgzr-AGtZA4W7TKa0h_pZa4K4A5lITtAMq21tFj0ak9c1wSD_PRGnYAtrAW7COYsKc0PgUBbnop17Yq8rJ1bG8W8/s320/klav.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<b><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/from-here/id1018488934" target="_blank">9) Stick in the Wheel - From Here</a></b><br />
<br />
New bold folk darlings (BBC Radio 2 Folk Award and fRoots award-winners this year) have managed to win over both indie music press and folk press with their unadorned, heart-on-sleeve folk re-imaginings. Gritty and lovely.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB3QpDodqqfhX7892Qg6u67hNLldmn3MUL4J3vEA8_GYrP6LYurYbDUm7RtWH_8M33dNtyy5XrL8qwuy_ECmw1ptIsPiVeB_CgO9hi8isjNOKdz5ztng4E-LRGOnfIsj5QImTW/s1600/stick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB3QpDodqqfhX7892Qg6u67hNLldmn3MUL4J3vEA8_GYrP6LYurYbDUm7RtWH_8M33dNtyy5XrL8qwuy_ECmw1ptIsPiVeB_CgO9hi8isjNOKdz5ztng4E-LRGOnfIsj5QImTW/s320/stick.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b><a href="https://dollyman.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">10) DOLLYman - Ponderous Skiffle Rubbish</a></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Well, it's not a Christmas list if I don't stick my own on the end. DOLLYman released our debut album this year, and there's all sorts of crazy nonsense on there, basically every style apart from the title (taken by a strange heckler of ours once). Plus a Dolly Parton medley.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJz70ULAk8W9D3tUH2NBj4YAIF-Bi3eQioLBLcg0lDBPoujiAeNMprUctectwPTj2kxR8bxYCpth7ye4vyYn4JY7adtp54c6YmDRFYo29lys_mwkFv3WP4IDvr3C9qpPGkkaW/s1600/dolly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJz70ULAk8W9D3tUH2NBj4YAIF-Bi3eQioLBLcg0lDBPoujiAeNMprUctectwPTj2kxR8bxYCpth7ye4vyYn4JY7adtp54c6YmDRFYo29lys_mwkFv3WP4IDvr3C9qpPGkkaW/s320/dolly.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<b><a href="https://dollyman.bandcamp.com/album/have-yourself-a-dolly-dolly-christmas" target="_blank">PLUS THERE'S ALWAYS OUR STOCKING FILLA CHRISTMAS EP!</a></b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUIw5ZJMNEDV19SxWXmJyCOCSJP0B527ygARuA4KYnln-OGcziUMTxkm35XdGTLHokDbtS7pyL8tsH1Vembzj8TxQ2XL01u_4l2V0bIeCVtlRo3AdS_XXTaKX3E-ecYaJDsjPo/s1600/dollyxmas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUIw5ZJMNEDV19SxWXmJyCOCSJP0B527ygARuA4KYnln-OGcziUMTxkm35XdGTLHokDbtS7pyL8tsH1Vembzj8TxQ2XL01u_4l2V0bIeCVtlRo3AdS_XXTaKX3E-ecYaJDsjPo/s320/dollyxmas.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-26639500822421770482013-12-20T11:20:00.001-08:002013-12-21T04:17:03.020-08:00Buy Music For Christmas! Kerry's 2013 Rundown'Tis the season to spread the love and BUY music as presents! Support the UK's finest alternative musicians! Here are my recommendations of friends' and acquaintances' music that has been released this year. Remember to buy them from the source (helpfully linked below)!<br />
<br />
1) <a href="http://www.kudosrecords.co.uk/release/GEO024/Roshi_3_Almonds_and_a_Walnut.html" target="_blank"><b>Roshi feat. Pars Radio - <i>3 Almonds and A Walnut</i></b></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3jBJZPvsm7tN70IxQNN52ybMiHDVYmyFSckT8WHXo_fc0YlOLSC6OCJ_c76HfAjIwgQjK4WeYtNlAi8EJNeFDmrsmB2PfD-Bi5cp5eampJ2yQ0MZqAFRXNMprzYyDWwsjeAu6/s1600/roshi2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3jBJZPvsm7tN70IxQNN52ybMiHDVYmyFSckT8WHXo_fc0YlOLSC6OCJ_c76HfAjIwgQjK4WeYtNlAi8EJNeFDmrsmB2PfD-Bi5cp5eampJ2yQ0MZqAFRXNMprzYyDWwsjeAu6/s200/roshi2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
My main girrrl released her new alt-pop/electronica album early in the year. The first track is a killer version of an Iranian children's poem, with the rest of the album weaving Pars Radio's atmospherically-gritty electronica in more traditional Iranian material and evocative original songs. She's been nominated for a Songlines award this year!<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://boomkat.com/downloads/755773-anna-meredith-jet-black-raider-ep" target="_blank">2) Anna Meredith - <i>Jet Black Raider</i></a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjncaG_KecyIjaUORP6yK0-5CW5T61Ve1n861nH9iP7Ck74tCzME6rBlsw_mupRdKH9R6_aax0qJtxGIELG8j23AHJNV94_1Ccfj9pK-uHJYMXHg9CpOnhqSKG4TK0vxsmdfvuu/s1600/anna+m.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjncaG_KecyIjaUORP6yK0-5CW5T61Ve1n861nH9iP7Ck74tCzME6rBlsw_mupRdKH9R6_aax0qJtxGIELG8j23AHJNV94_1Ccfj9pK-uHJYMXHg9CpOnhqSKG4TK0vxsmdfvuu/s200/anna+m.png" width="199" /></a></div>
<br />
The follow-up to composer-performer-daredevil Anna's first EP <i>Black Prince Fury</i> (both named after her ma's childhood horses, don't you know). It's four injections of punchy, bleepy, bonkers electronica, which got rave reviews in the summer. Anna's looking forward to supporting Anna Calvi in 2014...<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.propermusic.com/product-details/Lisa-Knapp-Hidden-Seam-153972" target="_blank">3) Lisa Knapp - Hidden Seam</a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi33jg9cDqYi19CagxllJ5rRUJUOcICAltbX14uBgM2t1nnDXH_ixdIbnI4z8mvA87_vmHbjy42UrqucoU53jWRLNz1BKlj2S_A9V5F6BD9KIatCEYZ_y5k5YXo3A98UzSTONhK/s1600/lisa+knapp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi33jg9cDqYi19CagxllJ5rRUJUOcICAltbX14uBgM2t1nnDXH_ixdIbnI4z8mvA87_vmHbjy42UrqucoU53jWRLNz1BKlj2S_A9V5F6BD9KIatCEYZ_y5k5YXo3A98UzSTONhK/s200/lisa+knapp.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
One of my favourite folk artists brought out her long-awaited second album this year, and it's a gloriously-textured feast of loveliness, with mostly original tunes connected to the elements. It features guest vocals from Martin Carthy, James Yorkston and Alasdair Roberts with beautiful instrumental writing. Lisa's been nominated for BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in Feb 2014!<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rhythmsticks.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank"><b>4) Rhythm Sticks - The Hen's Tooth</b></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijF4Xj2iJ8vcj2bptYivgbL1hdL14NCt0-DUIQXntrcaIzXkrqEVZbo2WMFg4sTO_6m0Cd4Qiefrrk_atiy10dNeO2Xk0fKbu-Wbug81-KWJWKVPXeYNZkuNPWJdZZuLZ5uA0D/s1600/rhythm+sticks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijF4Xj2iJ8vcj2bptYivgbL1hdL14NCt0-DUIQXntrcaIzXkrqEVZbo2WMFg4sTO_6m0Cd4Qiefrrk_atiy10dNeO2Xk0fKbu-Wbug81-KWJWKVPXeYNZkuNPWJdZZuLZ5uA0D/s200/rhythm+sticks.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
A load of 16-year olds from Tottenham! Steered by death-baritone Andrew Plummer and drum-devil Tom Greenhalgh! This album is properly excellent, mixing grooves, rock and improv. And speaking of Andrew and Tom, check out their <a href="http://snackfamily.co.uk/" target="_blank">single with terror-blues trio Snack Family from last summer.</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://stonetaperecordings.bandcamp.com/album/hirta-songs" target="_blank">5) Alasdair Roberts and Robin Robertson - Hirta Songs</a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWoZL2H7HxLMTMdZJT50bJTB-Rz5Sn-S9pKRjXTvK8vpftWnZ10Wln2Myos13dS541guWwB7tjRx7R-8C7XOnPhUYfbYUiw6w4oACT1y0rqh8fzVE9qyOotZb8_9hKQMlYA1M3/s1600/hirta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWoZL2H7HxLMTMdZJT50bJTB-Rz5Sn-S9pKRjXTvK8vpftWnZ10Wln2Myos13dS541guWwB7tjRx7R-8C7XOnPhUYfbYUiw6w4oACT1y0rqh8fzVE9qyOotZb8_9hKQMlYA1M3/s200/hirta.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
My favourite folk singer in a collaboration with my favourite poet, collectively mining their dark and dolorous Scottishness. Alasdair sets Robin's specially-written lyrics in a love letter to the remote archipelago of St Kilda. Alasdair does his usual wizardry as a tunesmith and Robin will make your ears crumble with his readings...<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDA67998" target="_blank">6) John Potter, Rogers Covery-Crump & Chris O'Gormain<i> - Conductus</i><i><u>, Vol. 2</u></i></a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnMjPD1O0LiZYs5OWR2LgVqiGkfdRpVi7Ng4__balLd-YxhRx8vNqiAyl7PwiuLFHITs_K7qqyiuDFD7H2rq4juN0p33ZNhnbth0N9_FzJjhooXBmONgEtpY7wT-lZjxJJDur0/s1600/conductus.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnMjPD1O0LiZYs5OWR2LgVqiGkfdRpVi7Ng4__balLd-YxhRx8vNqiAyl7PwiuLFHITs_K7qqyiuDFD7H2rq4juN0p33ZNhnbth0N9_FzJjhooXBmONgEtpY7wT-lZjxJJDur0/s1600/conductus.png" /></a></div>
<br />
Lovely 13th century French vocal music and poetry from York-based tenor chaps including my ex-lecturer/guru/landlord John Potter...<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><a href="http://www.nonclassical.co.uk/?p=3585" target="_blank">7) House of Bedlam - <i>Talking Microtonal Blues</i></a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrjgkhrv28kkRgpMNF7Icb1LcFeoQcmk4BKNv5m-ehkfOWZTgQ1mYJ_mkRZxRv2Z1ovidUjdDMZrar9Y3qnCOEt6DbB4ZIclfjfSD3YgZoxEoF4jQfsBaKvDrIuPvMnUkzuX51/s1600/bedlam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrjgkhrv28kkRgpMNF7Icb1LcFeoQcmk4BKNv5m-ehkfOWZTgQ1mYJ_mkRZxRv2Z1ovidUjdDMZrar9Y3qnCOEt6DbB4ZIclfjfSD3YgZoxEoF4jQfsBaKvDrIuPvMnUkzuX51/s200/bedlam.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
Helmed by composer of brilliance Larry Goves, this instrumental chamber ensemble loose an album of wild, vivid sounds and textures, interspersed (and mixed with) spoken word from Mathew Welton. It's FAB.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/olivia-chaney-ep/id581387492?ign-mpt=uo%3D4" target="_blank">8) Olivia Chaney - <i>Olivia Chaney</i></a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPQW3ZLlznivWKYWPOPO8xpIYN3ncAN17oDDKLr_o3iIwM4fu6h3183GDHQ70F_yhBZWlHx2dpkaYqoCOTZ0Wkm-BPmwlqPw76kBzMUZZ_ekIVHoFvgtYaTWnlJi73nS-4wMVW/s1600/olivia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPQW3ZLlznivWKYWPOPO8xpIYN3ncAN17oDDKLr_o3iIwM4fu6h3183GDHQ70F_yhBZWlHx2dpkaYqoCOTZ0Wkm-BPmwlqPw76kBzMUZZ_ekIVHoFvgtYaTWnlJi73nS-4wMVW/s1600/olivia.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
OK, so this came out at the end of last year, but I hadn't yet got it... this is English singer-songwriter Olivia's thoroughly shimmering debut EP. Original songs, fab lyrics, and she's basically the 21st-century Sandy Denny. And now she's been signed to Nonesuch! Score!<br />
<br />
<b>Cheeky plug</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_HQDYUCJKiPU4wGJ_7xHIMfqQ8TIXLycZV5dPK99jhtFvItXl4KfaVUN7Mys6NPZ2hItbDj-5ZXB533-0anDJLaAl_Yv3BP7JMJyCT-hedAiv3GJuFF0Mpoa-VvAsmYHAqdLw/s1600/coalescence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_HQDYUCJKiPU4wGJ_7xHIMfqQ8TIXLycZV5dPK99jhtFvItXl4KfaVUN7Mys6NPZ2hItbDj-5ZXB533-0anDJLaAl_Yv3BP7JMJyCT-hedAiv3GJuFF0Mpoa-VvAsmYHAqdLw/s200/coalescence.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b><a href="http://www.mdt.co.uk/metamorphic-coalescence-f-ire.html" target="_blank">Metamorphic -<i> Coalescence</i></a></b><br />
<br />
The original jazz-folk-prog sextet I sing with, led by pianist Laura Cole, released our second album in the spring, to great reviews (and Brian Morton from Jazz Journal's album of the year!). It's a mix of grooves, folk song shreds, wild improv, vocal loops, and P Diddy basslines, obvs...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-79308770027276399052013-11-26T02:46:00.001-08:002013-11-26T02:46:23.590-08:00Autumnal catch-upLevel of conviction in own genius: 6.5<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved in last 24: 2<br />
Reading: Lucy Wood's debut collection of short stories, 'Diving Belles' / FIRE-themed music for my Strawberry Shortwave Radio Show<br />
Hair day: GINGER<br />
<br />
Cripes, it's been an AGE since I've written here. It's mostly because I have been pouring my writing efforts into a Faber Academy fiction-writing course, which I intend to aid in turning me into a sort of Sarah Waters/Hilary Mantel/George RR Martin combo (ahem). I have had a blissful time off composing given the operatic excesses of the larger half of the year, hurrah! Words are MUCH more fun.<br />
<br />
Instead this autumn I have been celebrating juice's 10th anniversary, where we had a marvellous gig at Kings Place with friends and workshop participants, and juicing it up in America (see here for <a href="http://www.juicevocalensemble.net/site/?cat=7" target="_blank">juice's breathless blog</a> on both things). I've been getting an explosion of orangey hair and a new tattoo. I've been teaching songwriting at the University of Kent, a new department set in the historic dockyard at Chatham, meaning I have to dodge steam vehicles and emerge from blasting S Club 7 and Radiohead and Tom Waits at unsuspecting 20-year olds and look straight onto whopping great submarines and battleships.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWDTO-cfL2p7Uu1tIEJ8WF2HdNoJFQYFSyaF65d9mcu3PXYyXh5Da04nP_hkqTm-diyHawkiU1JMi_fNQ8zJZ868L3Iq12u_UeVYvRxzeS6l8gfoGLvGcn7RhZKCWzREHJLsRw/s1600/juice+Kings+place+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWDTO-cfL2p7Uu1tIEJ8WF2HdNoJFQYFSyaF65d9mcu3PXYyXh5Da04nP_hkqTm-diyHawkiU1JMi_fNQ8zJZ868L3Iq12u_UeVYvRxzeS6l8gfoGLvGcn7RhZKCWzREHJLsRw/s400/juice+Kings+place+2013.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I've also been keeping up the broadcasting fun by presenting and producing the Strawberry Shortwave Radio Show on Haggerston Radio, which takes a theme each week and includes everything from throat-singing on horseback, post-punk, electronica, mictrotonal detuned pianos and MORE. Check out the extensive archive <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/search/?mixcloud_query=strawberry%20shortwave%20radio%20show" target="_blank">here</a>!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-14529312152324409762013-08-03T02:24:00.001-07:002013-08-03T02:24:18.027-07:00New Complexity Car Park MassacreLevel of conviction in own genius: 7<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved today: 0<br />
Listening / Reading: Joanna Newsom on my underwater mp3 player whilst swimming my daily kilometre / Game. Of. Thrones.<br />
Hair Day: chloriney<br />
<br />
How lovely that I can saunter a mere mile down the hill in this August's delicious early evening balm, end up in London's current coolest endz, climb a few storeys of a manky car park and immerse myself in some serious-assed contemporary classical music. YES!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj76qUw3qyVMY41RP5zL77JpYZ46bOzy2VWDGUwUhb_CdMw5jeZCzGofXJj6IqmoAT7MpLXZOT9soCPzsa1w2BS7r6Su_syo5o9K7gTnZrzw-RDBIpRxM9f8-LSQNy7F2vmW6iT/s1600/FranksCafePeckhamMultistoreyCarpark-5_440.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj76qUw3qyVMY41RP5zL77JpYZ46bOzy2VWDGUwUhb_CdMw5jeZCzGofXJj6IqmoAT7MpLXZOT9soCPzsa1w2BS7r6Su_syo5o9K7gTnZrzw-RDBIpRxM9f8-LSQNy7F2vmW6iT/s320/FranksCafePeckhamMultistoreyCarpark-5_440.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I've finally had some free evenings to visit the <a href="http://lcmf.co.uk/" target="_blank">London Contemporary Music Festival</a>'s epic debut run, in league with art commissioners <a href="http://boldtendencies.com/" target="_blank">Bold Tendencies</a>, on the penultimate (disused) tier of Peckham's seven-storey car park. Thursday's steamy evening saw two operatic monologues: the first, by the outrageously talented <a href="http://katewhitley.azurewebsites.net/" target="_blank">Kate Whitley</a>, set a chunk from the play <i>Glengarry Glenn Ross</i>, a top film of course with Jack Lemmon going into a meltdown. Baritone <a href="http://www.atholestill.com/artist.php?id=89" target="_blank">Charles Rice</a> did a marvellous job of commanding the whole audience as he moved amongst them. This was a compositional answer to Gerald Barry's (not to mixed up with England footer international Gareth Barry, as I once did to DJ Tim Winter. BLUSH.) <i>La Plus Forte</i>, which was fun, but somehow not as much as Kate's piece. I enjoyed seeing the young 'uns in the orchestra (ably conducted by Chris Stark, as these things often are) squinting hopelessly into the fierce sun firing straight at them.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmdWIoI25rjKniJLmeh9ppOk_UPv00J6_iVq_CekcqYX2jyznz3eAKjJRYXDM8uEqqM2zhThMy26jqucKdfD9ZJarx0VaUSTlUqjzhXjfOOQ4f9C92B7Oko8VSN6WJeFZV9i9c/s1600/car+park.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmdWIoI25rjKniJLmeh9ppOk_UPv00J6_iVq_CekcqYX2jyznz3eAKjJRYXDM8uEqqM2zhThMy26jqucKdfD9ZJarx0VaUSTlUqjzhXjfOOQ4f9C92B7Oko8VSN6WJeFZV9i9c/s320/car+park.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
But perhaps a contender for gig of the year so far was last night's cracking, crackling evening entitled 'New Complexity and Noise'. In some excellent programming, we saw a poor Yahama grand piano being well and truly bitch-slapped: first by <a href="http://www.markknoop.com/" target="_blank">Mark Knoop</a> in two visceral pieces from Michael Finnissy's <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXBR0JcFO48" target="_blank">English Country Tunes</a></i>; and then by Australian free improviser Anthony Pateras, in a rampantly exhilarating solo that was like a silent movie pianist who had gone COMPLETELY OUT OF HIS MIND. Ferocious pounding, fierce tremeloing up at the top end, and stark, rhythmic dark chords were flung at us like bricks. Brilliant. <a href="http://www.youngmusicmakers.co.uk/?page_id=1850" target="_blank">Sara Minelli</a> did a great, spitty, flutey job of Ferneyhough's <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgSPq2L9dvM" target="_blank">Cassandra's Dream</a></i>. I mostly really enjoyed the interaction with the trains rattling past outside, especially in the trombone solo work by Aaron Cassidy: the train squeaks seemed to emerge from some of those quiet, squalling brass notes, or vice versa, and it was magical to see a couple of hundred faces, sitting on the concrete floor at the front like us, or on benches, or standing crowded around (some having strayed from the hipsterville central of Frank's bar on the top floor), listening intently for ten minutes to what sounded like a very sad, very drunk mosquito. <a href="http://anthonypateras.com/" target="_blank">Anthony Pateras</a> also paired up with legendary experimental drummer <a href="http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/musician/mnoble.html" target="_blank">Steve Noble</a> for a couple of free sets, with whining modular synths or thunking prepared piano interacting with Steve's manic 'FUCK the washing up!'-style improvs with shallow snare drum, cymbals and singing bowls. Finally, there was a set from noise merchant <a href="http://haswellstudio.com/latest/" target="_blank">Russell Haswell</a> that had me immediately dashing for the far wall, away from the PA. I like noise, y'know; I just wish it didn't have to be so loud. Ha. Well, I think I'm allowed to scoff at the nonsense that is the pornification of volume, seeing as I've got only one working ear. Still, I took in another few minutes, enjoying the sight of Russell, hunched and fag in hand, lit by a single hanging naked lightbulb, with the dark shadows of the crowd looming all around him; as if he was soundtracking his own imminent death by mass zombie attack. As I left the car park, the retching rumblings and eviscerating squeaks sounded like the apocalypse had truly come to Peckham. Fab.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWdEGlal2vPA7iSdAb0KLJ5RwKIXi3P-l1MPIl-WvGRxoYaPQ_7sm61stuC4gdFDvAprvvEjuaHxSC6Goaqcyudwm-LnRp-wf8h2IE0Vf2akoi_YSdyxtTvwnLDntzrEkVcW7w/s1600/trombone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWdEGlal2vPA7iSdAb0KLJ5RwKIXi3P-l1MPIl-WvGRxoYaPQ_7sm61stuC4gdFDvAprvvEjuaHxSC6Goaqcyudwm-LnRp-wf8h2IE0Vf2akoi_YSdyxtTvwnLDntzrEkVcW7w/s320/trombone.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
So congrats to chief contempo music young guns <a href="http://aishaorazbayeva.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Aisha Orazbayeva</a> (a juice labelmate), Nonclassical's own <a href="http://www.timeout.com/london/opera-classical-music/sam-mackay-interview" target="_blank">Sam Mackay</a>, and 'cellist and Kammer Klang curator <a href="http://cargocollective.com/lucyrailton" target="_blank">Lucy Railton</a>! My end of South London i<span style="text-align: center;">s the best place to be in the world this weekend. Kudos!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-24426099394589308132013-07-29T14:50:00.001-07:002013-07-29T14:53:14.776-07:00Wild Sing, Wild SwimThis week saw a smashing night for juice and MaJiKer at the very eclectic Holt Festival, where our fellow artists were the likes of John Hegley, the Britten Sinfonia and The Proclaimers. YES. I think it was our best joint gig yet, and marvellously received by all-comers, aged 8 to 98, who clamoured to take part in our interactive <i>Radio JaJa</i> piece. We are nothing if not inclusive... Then it was up north to co-devise and perform a music-theatre piece with wonderfully-named York University PhD student Nektarios, who has an unusual approach of really getting under the skin of his performers and creating pieces very personal to them. Last year, he got us to talk about our first loves (cue much heart-rending sobbing, at least from me, ha), and wove these into this final work which also included singing into a grand piano, imitating sirens, taking the mickey out of his grandmother, and accompanying a Cypriot song. I loved this bare-all approach: that the audience could watch us as musicians, and suddenly be confronted with such personal revelations; like we were removing masks and reminding them that we were just human, and just like them. Here's the trailer for Nektarios' piece!<br />
<iframe width="360" height="203" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/aYksiIkAgds" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<br />
Gig of the week was, however, over at the Manchester Jazz Festival, where Metamorphic were one of four bands chosen for Jazz on 3's BBC Introducing stage. It was a top gig, with a heartily whooping crowd; I made sure I wore my sluttiest possible outfit (ha) and rocked out on stage; I also enjoyed being a bit more adventurous in the freer vocal sections, inspired by working with Royst on the tour. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b037tz11" target="_blank">Our set is being broadcast on Jazz on 3 on August 5th and on iPlayer for the next week, and you must listen to it</a>!<br />
<br />
Wild swimming scout of the North, Oli (depping on sax for Chris), had tipped me off about a cracking outdoor swim at Gaddings Dam in the Pennines. So after four hours' sleep (having celebrated at our classy Staycation apartment by drinking Oli's dreamy homemade elderflower champagne and being flung around commandingly by Tom, who turns out to be a dab hand at Lindy hop), Oli, his ebullient keo-mun-go player friend Eun-Jung and I got a train to the cutely squat market town of Todmorden. We climbed the two miles up onto sun-baked moorland to this four-acre-plus reservoir, with dry-stone walls sloping down to black water with a glint in its eye. We coaxed Eun-Jung in up to her waist before taking off to swim a length of the Dam to the far corner and to flop onto England's highest beach! On climbing out, we stood dripping and looking west into Calderdale, on the best view I've ever had after a swim: dancing cotton-sedge in the foreground and magnificent, pale mustard-coloured hills beyond. Heading back down, there were butterflies everywhere: trios of cabbage whites did Japanese fan dances, and red admirals kept repeating themselves over and over next to the path, as if they were bunting heralding our return. BLISS.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDAn6YKB5BxsqFf4e79CxE1or7AZ2WIeXa8Q2LhC7bKkvs_I8ZWcpMZgroo_Mv6oTy9rUa5u9lN2o7IQEabRNWoHEaVS_1UEdpN40_rMUVYkRIIpR4LcmBxO4jEHH8V3ngzlU3/s1600/DSCF4416.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDAn6YKB5BxsqFf4e79CxE1or7AZ2WIeXa8Q2LhC7bKkvs_I8ZWcpMZgroo_Mv6oTy9rUa5u9lN2o7IQEabRNWoHEaVS_1UEdpN40_rMUVYkRIIpR4LcmBxO4jEHH8V3ngzlU3/s320/DSCF4416.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 130%; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-49956679511711724292013-07-22T13:52:00.001-07:002013-07-22T13:52:22.643-07:00Woodwosed, Trembling and ItchyLevel of conviction in own genius: 10<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved today: 2<br />
Watching / Reading: The Tour de France finale / 'Game of Thrones' by George RR Martin, shamefacedly bought at Herne Hill Books, where I normally buy things like psychogeography by Robert McFarlane. Ahem.<br />
Hair Day: EXCELLENT<br />
<br />
<i>Woodwose</i> was a triumph at Wigmore Hall on Friday, hurrah! I was sooo pleased with it all, and with how much the participants seemed to enjoy throwing themselves into it. The community choir, Paddington's <a href="http://www.makingmusic.org.uk/inyourarea/london/groups/a/allsingharrowroadcommunitychoir-f7g5fwx2560ou253es9" target="_blank">All Sing</a>, were as gutsy and characterful a chorus as you could hope for, and the school groups all their bit, with some smashing face-pulling and zombie-poses from the Year 5s at Queen's Park and totally wicked acting and beautiful singing from the Year 7 lasses at Marylebone School, whose two-part South African lullaby made me blub. Amber from Marylebone, who played the Lonely Girl, did her best music-theatre hand-gestures and sang like a dream. I'm rather in awe of tenor <a href="http://www.hazardchase.co.uk/artists/andrew-kennedy/" target="_blank">Andrew Kennedy</a>, a big bad operatic prof who breezed in this week to do the central role; his communication and Woodwoseyness was masterful, like he could do it in his sleep. I had some cracking praise afterwards, from the big tearful man who crushed me in his bearlike embrace, sobbing 'Britten would be proud!', to the man who told me that my talents outweighed my reputation and that I looked like Annie Lennox (I also got a lot of comparisons to Pink from the girls), to the All Sing-ers who enthused that the opera was a masterpiece and that it was one of the best days of their lives. SOB! This is really me, this community opera thing... more please! I hotfooted it to Brixton's Hootenanny for the unofficial <i>Woodwose</i> after-party featuring <a href="http://www.step13.co.uk/" target="_blank">Step 13</a> - fresh from playing to a thousand people at dawn at Glastonbury a fortnight ago, and with Andy on bass - who made us all melt into sweaty drum 'n' bass puddles.<br />
<br />
It's been gig central as usual this week. I went with photographer mate Dannie to Bush Hall to see the Incredible String Band's <a href="http://www.mikeheron.co.uk/" target="_blank">Mike Heron</a> with Glasgow psych-folk-rockers <a href="http://www.tremblingbells.com/" target="_blank">Trembling Bells</a>. The 'Bells are pretty great, melding folklore and place and a sense of real British rootsiness with rollicking drums, rock-ish pretensions and Lavinia Blackwall's astounding Sandy Denny-meets-classical-soprano voice, which soared and fluted effortlessly as she sang about Yorkshire rivers and rituals about earthworms. Mike Heron, bless him, was not in great shape, though this may have been due to having his arm in a cast following a stage calamity in the night before's gig, and his voice was pretty off-target. But there were some charming moments, my favourite being when drummer Alex Neilson and Lavinia did a simple, intertwining a cappella duet.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://files.list.co.uk/images/2013/01/29/Mike-Heron-&-Trembling-Bell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="http://files.list.co.uk/images/2013/01/29/Mike-Heron-&-Trembling-Bell.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Finally, it was off to the Lexington for another round of doing improvising backing vocals for one of my favourite musicians, David Thomas Broughton (Sarah and I had done the same at Cecil Sharp House last year). This time, we were joined by musical compadre <a href="http://www.lauramoodymusic.com/" target="_blank">Laura Moody</a>, who did a short solo set including two new ones involving serious Diamanda Galas-esque croaky distorted vocals, and a 'nihilistic sea shanty'. Hurrah! Then we had an absolute treat in the slight, colourful form of Japanese 'musician-artist-inventor' <a href="http://ichimemos.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Ichi</a>. Part-children's entertainer, part-magician, part-well funky musician, he is a delight, pulling out hybrid homemade instruments as if they were rabbits from a hat. He came onstage on stilts, playing a harmonica. He played a steel pans. He blew into a balloon which became a sort of bagpipe. He brought out a little harp/thumb piano/trumpet combo, whilst using his feet to hit a bass drum behind him, or clacking the little castanets on his toes. One of his stilts turned into an upright bass. Another mutant trumpet became a percussion instrument, pattered on with metal rings on his fingers. He disarmingly introduced songs in halting English by saying things like 'this song is about animal;' 'this song is about big mosquito' before launching into curious chanting, high-pitched mantras. The <i>coup de theatre</i> was when he combined several of his instruments into a delicate narrow slide for a ping pong ball, which miraculously rolled down into his steel pan, creating waves clanging, plasticky-metal ringing. Sarah and I watched the whole thing with our jaws slowly hanging further and further towards the floor. It was BEEEAUTIFUL and one of the best things I've ever seen. Catch him wherever you can.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3_IK9PDw0_t_pl65Yci1nNh2XF3Np-5TYq6ae8j-g0dET-uap3lOq4KBXOrWdPw5DiA6z8-zAjy-MPZNfpgjUfzt1dr90rIebwgeCSah5iYm26i3JXIpNn2SvThGprq5Bzvu/s940/IMG_3497.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3_IK9PDw0_t_pl65Yci1nNh2XF3Np-5TYq6ae8j-g0dET-uap3lOq4KBXOrWdPw5DiA6z8-zAjy-MPZNfpgjUfzt1dr90rIebwgeCSah5iYm26i3JXIpNn2SvThGprq5Bzvu/s320/IMG_3497.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
With no soundcheck, David simply crouched to his merry band (Sarah, me, MaJiker, Laura, and guitar/effects dude <a href="https://twitter.com/NapoleonIIIrd" target="_blank">Napoleon III</a>) and said nonchalantly to just join in whenever, before he meandered onstage and began another night of his idiosyncratic brand of bewitching troubadour-clown-looping in his doleful baritone. He had a terrible chest infection, but brilliantly used it to his advantage, looping his coughs and looking miserable enough to make his audience uncomfortable. And we loped on with him soon enough, after the lovely <a href="http://bishi.inthecompanyofus.net/" target="_blank">Bishi </a>had done a brief guest vocal. We picked up harmonies, copied his arm movements, beatboxed, stamped our feet, did mouth-pops and water-gurgles, and it was VERY FUN. I love how David truffles around for the imperfections that you normally try and iron out of a performance and makes the most of them, and how he turns a humdrum stage set-up into props for his baffled, trying-to-keep-it-all-together stage persona. And it makes us react to it, and do it to. Super-liberating and exhilarating!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://listings07.skiddlecdn.co.uk/2/8/a/391304_0_the-local-presents-david-thomas-broughton-friends_400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://listings07.skiddlecdn.co.uk/2/8/a/391304_0_the-local-presents-david-thomas-broughton-friends_400.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-39163412671074750262013-07-17T09:20:00.002-07:002013-07-17T09:20:22.721-07:00Double Opera Whammy IN THE BAGLevel of conviction in own genius: TEN!<br />
Amount of creative activity achieved today: like the Tour de France, it's been a sort of rest day, to make up for extremely arduous compo over the last 2 weeks<br />
Reading / Watching: A.S. Byatt's deliciously evocative 'The Children's Book', all late 19th-century Arts and Crafts, politics and fairy tales / 'Game of Thrones' Season 3 has landed, as a perfectly-timed reward for opera-finishing! Hand-chopping, nipples being removed, slave soldiers... I've NEVER BEEN HAPPIER<br />
Hair Day: Sedately fastened under a hot pink scarf, land girl style<br />
<br />
BOOM! It's been a heavy two weeks of Serious Compo, finishing off <i>Dart's Love</i>, which I did yesterday, though boring part-making is still to come. A weekend of incessant score-formatting and tweaking has left me with an injury peculiar to composers, the very twingey and numb 'Sibelius wrist'. I'm sooo pleased that Tim, the MD, and Bill, the director - and Tamsin, the librettist - are all loving the look of it, hurrah! Now just to convince them that everyone needs to be in swimwear for the opening night... Here are the details for the August 17th/18th shows at the <a href="http://www.tete-a-tete.org.uk/darts-love/" target="_blank">Tete a Tete Festival!</a><br />
<br />
I've been writing a swimming diary to accompany the opera, which has been a lovely way to embrace my swim-sessions more deeply. The lido has to be borne in a different way now that the sun is (gloriously! MIRACULOUSLY!) out: the water is filmy, with much creepy human-derived flotsam and jetsam, and is crammed with slowcoaches. But it's still a blissful hop, skip and a dive away, and I've supplemented it with dips at the Hampstead Ladies' Pond and Shepperton Lake, where I went with <a href="http://soundcloud.com/dollyman%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">DOLLYman</a> compadre Jimmy for some open water swimming with the Iron Man-training big boys.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.sheppertonopenwaterswim.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/view1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://www.sheppertonopenwaterswim.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/view1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I went from finishing one opera to rehearsals of the other: it's <i>Woodwose</i> week, and everyone - two primary school and a secondary school class, community choir and Open Age group, tenor Andrew Kennedy and band Ignite all piled into Wigmore Hall for the first time together yesterday. It's strange not to have been involved much in the rehearsal process - both a luxury and an uncomfortable not-knowing; but joyous to see scenes being stitched together for the first time, and to see how director Hazel Gould has managed to work with the un-operatic surroundings of the lovely, but chamber-sized Hall. I confess welling up at more than one instance, which means that I must be some sort of genius, right?! Ah ha ha. What has been most rewarding has been community choir members telling me how much they love the piece, and how magical it all is. There is nothing better than praise from the shop floor. <a href="http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/woodwose-a-community-chamber-opera" target="_blank">Wiggy Hall's very first opera hits THIS FRIDAY at 6.30pm - do come if you can</a>!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6CcqHS81ZZQ4tZl4yDRcN9sG5kxuGOLUePQeWoYVQw6IHHlAun6bGdsfzLqmy4L38jnSK0yh54JmTDElW8E2pDwJcNeQaV-nHJnkrZeBO7XrxiMAtKOYHDt_-gnqzGNkmDL3Ohg/s200/Woodwose-387wx290h_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6CcqHS81ZZQ4tZl4yDRcN9sG5kxuGOLUePQeWoYVQw6IHHlAun6bGdsfzLqmy4L38jnSK0yh54JmTDElW8E2pDwJcNeQaV-nHJnkrZeBO7XrxiMAtKOYHDt_-gnqzGNkmDL3Ohg/s200/Woodwose-387wx290h_0.jpg" /></a></div>
The Ignite crew, Andrew, perky Lonely Child singer Amber and myself ambled to Broadcasting House this afternoon to go to the Radio 3 In Tune studios to chat about <i>Woodwose</i> to the unflappable, super-cool Suzy Klein and present two lovely extracts of music, as well as meet James Rhodes, the raffishly rock 'n' roll pianist of the classical world, who was also on the show. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tp0c" target="_blank">Listen to it here again, about 49 minutes in!</a><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-42222149612340679192013-06-30T15:31:00.003-07:002013-06-30T15:43:50.884-07:00DiddleLeigh DiddleLeigh DeeLevel of conviction in own genius: 7<br />
Amount of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 4<br />
Reading /Watching and Listening: Vera Brittain / Glasto telly, which has picked up after a disappointing start. Highlights: Lianne Le Havas, surprisingly quite liked the honky-tonk-meets-Jeff Buckley-meets-small-child Tom Odell, but Public Enemy blew all competition out of the water and had me throwing shapes around the living room rather than working this morning... they know how to do a proper show! The Mumfords are currently doing their usual Burton-man-goes-barn-dancing-shtick.<br />
Hair day: lightly pink; large blue bird atop.<br />
<br />
Another year, another Laurie Anderson show at the Barbican, this time with the Kronos Quartet in tow, to perform 'Landfall', a song cycle using Hurricane Sandy as a starting point. I have to say, as of the last show I saw, I was pretty disappointed. Laurie has settled into a default setting of late, entailing some electric viola playing, storytelling - some in a creepy, but unintelligible, low pitch shifter - and some keyboard/synth stuff. The Kronos material, arranged by someone else, added a beautiful bit of depth, but it was still the same show I've seen several times running. There was a lot of text being projected, and I enjoyed the relationship between spoken and visual text; the best moment was the second violinist apparently triggering words through some energetic pizzicato stabs, but it still looked like an A-Level Powerpoint presentation. I don't mean to be harsh - a recent Guardo interview affirmed my faith in her general vibes and being (lack of kids, love of New York, striving for art and new technology), but I was hoping for more. It still made me want to create my own big swimming-themed show (prediction: all my pieces for the next two years will be swimming-related)! And she has enabled me to refresh my uncanny Laurie impression, where I talk about extremely mundane things like what was on special offer in the veg section at Sainsbury's in a sing-song, low American-accented voice, Very Slowly and with odd. Pauses. It's a winner!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmX34KUOWPMBq6Og4JSRwxQ4rXad6VkHv3i2TIXWwyq-GdhyF4v_qHrsKGe2U06nKIu45FA4xgEg3KJIv90a9-U9asl19sqli75kI-b8tIUJcvbkmCPqFudT3cpfCBPcfq-78Q/s640/20130630_135719.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmX34KUOWPMBq6Og4JSRwxQ4rXad6VkHv3i2TIXWwyq-GdhyF4v_qHrsKGe2U06nKIu45FA4xgEg3KJIv90a9-U9asl19sqli75kI-b8tIUJcvbkmCPqFudT3cpfCBPcfq-78Q/s320/20130630_135719.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Whilst Andy was enjoying the mild sunshine at Glastonbury, painting his face half black and half white to play with <a href="http://www.step13.co.uk/" target="_blank">Step 13</a> on the Hell Stage at Shangri-La to a thousand-plus people at 5AM ON SUNDAY MORNING (so proud!!). I was on the other side of the festival coin, with a trip to Leigh Folk Festival for a You Are Wolf set, following up my support of Martin Carthy last year. It felt somehow rather exhilarating and slightly anarchic down in the Old Town. Under the hottest sun of the year, it heaved with splendidly (and not-so-splendidly) tattooed locals all unselfconsciously pinking under the high sun, queuing for chips and sloshing lager, and serenaded by bands of all descriptions - folk-rock, hurdy gurdies, squeezeboxes, local acoustic cover duos - spilling out of pubs, sheds and truck stages. With the heat and the incessant music coming from all corners, it felt a bit like SXSW had come to Essex, ha ha. There were morris dancers, one man bands and a chap wearing a pink dress and carrying a teddy bear, and all around was festooned with ribbons and bunting. There was a very English, outsider-art, pleasingly traditional bent to the whole thing, but not in a namby-pamby Cambridgey, or hipster, sort of way, but rather more like the old gods rearing their heads.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv6TGgRxF9U1OcBPgNRSJl-QUT_4-kMnwzQTrf4TV2ICNpt5KLb3ayFM1nBNFh9JlZuKfX369xwAvVL-rBDYSGIDCyKDi7cd4zpfWkUzOBROvoDj9cPfEq0CnZuNIPms7m4eG2/s640/20130630_140133.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv6TGgRxF9U1OcBPgNRSJl-QUT_4-kMnwzQTrf4TV2ICNpt5KLb3ayFM1nBNFh9JlZuKfX369xwAvVL-rBDYSGIDCyKDi7cd4zpfWkUzOBROvoDj9cPfEq0CnZuNIPms7m4eG2/s320/20130630_140133.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
I played in the lovely New Road Chapel, after <a href="http://www.iamwoundedknee.com/" target="_blank">Wounded Knee</a>, a swarthy Scotsman who had a highly entertaining wheeze of getting the audience to pick a ball out of a bag which would correlate with his notebook of numbered traditional songs, and then he'd score points as to who could name the tune. He simply belted them out unaccompanied or accompanied only by a shruti box. The best was a yearning, robust one about being in the mountains in Scotland, so damned authentic that I swear there were heather fires burning in his stomach. Following me was the lovely <a href="http://www.sharronkraus.com/" target="_blank">Sharron Kraus</a> and Nancy Wallace, with an Anne Briggs/Gillian Welch sort of delicately reedy voice, with some wonderfully rich songs based on the medieval Welsh <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabinogion" target="_blank">Mabinogion</a>.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAM-T7llPty5s3ZM8XSOq-ZXsB8Touln9A5pmukG_frVZ-h1FBEkzbON2N9aufM0h7Z6ZX9Fae2dDmXwTXK53kbR-B44yhp4Yrn2j0FwGjyTcwa8sbaZlfCT8ciajzUnjiyQ6D/s600/sk_48_gsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAM-T7llPty5s3ZM8XSOq-ZXsB8Touln9A5pmukG_frVZ-h1FBEkzbON2N9aufM0h7Z6ZX9Fae2dDmXwTXK53kbR-B44yhp4Yrn2j0FwGjyTcwa8sbaZlfCT8ciajzUnjiyQ6D/s320/sk_48_gsmall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I was reeaallly hoping for a sea-dip, and had packed my vintage 1950's 'looking' (as opposed to 'swimming', obviously) swimming costume for the very purpose, but alas, upon arriving at Leigh, I found the tide to be at its lowest, a mile away over the mudflats. So I made do with a dreamy sit-down at the quiet western edge of town, squinting at the distant sea with a sort of blissful melancholy, imagining its cool saltiness around my calves, as plovers burbled and the dry grass prickled my legs. It's <i>another</i> sort of Essex, this, with simple themes: seabirds, marshes, reeds, and mud-caked boats that look more ancient than humans; under a dusty late afternoon sun, there was a dryness, and a bite, and a sense of things fading. Except the sea, which edged closer, but never close enough.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-18772466586317326372013-06-28T08:33:00.000-07:002013-06-28T08:33:45.057-07:00Meta-metamorphic<div class="MsoNormal">
Level of conviction in
own genius: 7</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Amount of creative
activity achieved in last 24: 5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Listening / Watching:
<a href="http://www.oliviachaney.net/music" target="_blank">Olivia Chaney</a> / an empty screen, forlornly, as I’m waiting two weeks for ‘Game of Thrones’
Season 3 to become available to stream… <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Hair day: pink, and
with a little bird nestling in it<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The <a href="http://www.metamorphic.org.uk/" target="_blank">Metamorphic</a>/<a href="http://soundcloud.com/r-yst-trio%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">R</a><a href="http://soundcloud.com/r-yst-trio%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">ø</a><a href="http://soundcloud.com/r-yst-trio%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">yst</a> tour is sadly now over
– it has been such fun hanging out and performing with this brilliant bunch of
musicians. This week we had the official album launch at the Vortex in London,
to a great crowd, with me rocking a monochrome androgynous look (Laurie
Anderson / Tilda Swinton: you are my heroes!), though I needed a bit of help
with the tie, ahem. I am going to try and force the boys to wear the same I
think… we need a LOOK! Nerves always slightly get me at the Vortex for some reason,
but it was still a top gig – Andy said that our thick-textured, bombastic
collaborative pieces (featuring all 11 of us rubbing elbows on the teeny stage)
sounded like a free jazz Polyphonic Spree, which can ONLY be a good thing. The
week got better: Jamie Cullum <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rr86v" target="_blank">played ‘Juicemaster’ on his über-mainstream show on Radio 2 </a>(42 mins in), causing my Mum’s heart to SWELL with pride; and us being selected
as one of four bands for the <a href="http://www.manchesterjazz.com/2013/jazz-on-3-bbc-introducing/" target="_blank">Jazz on 3 BBC Introducing Stage at the ManchesterInternational Jazz Festival</a> at the end of the month, hand-picked by Jamie, Jez
Nelson and Gilles Peterson. Woo hoo!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEircyHIS9PCu8_BHl2gWuUeTess9A_ThmiMGQC2zNIwpIKTq4SJP2_fK5gwVETahTCQwaE32GFVkCpMIQrQ6_yPflPxVsxRpB_80u3Mv8caSeuM4b0fm3ZY5LoLc0P9qUiOV7i6/s671/meta+vortex.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEircyHIS9PCu8_BHl2gWuUeTess9A_ThmiMGQC2zNIwpIKTq4SJP2_fK5gwVETahTCQwaE32GFVkCpMIQrQ6_yPflPxVsxRpB_80u3Mv8caSeuM4b0fm3ZY5LoLc0P9qUiOV7i6/s320/meta+vortex.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
We finished up the
tour in drizzletastic Liverpool, in the sublimely lovely <a href="http://www.viewtwogallery.co.uk/%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">View Two Gallery</a>, a
sedately arty oasis amongst the bubble-lettered retro horror of the clubs on
Mathew Street, where the Cavern Club also sits. It turned out to be a gorgeous
night, possibly the highlight of the tour, with an enthusiastic crowd including
an old chap who is <a href="http://www.ledbib.com/" target="_blank">Led Bib</a>’s superfan and basically stalks Chris – from Bib and
our superfierce alto sax player - around everywhere. We sounded pretty sharp,
Laura delivered a monstrous piano solo thunderous enough to wake the dead, John
tore it up on ‘Blood’, and Tom did his usual brilliance even though he was
playing a borrowed kit which basically comprised 2 dustbins and a couple of tin
cans held together with masking tape. <a href="https://twitter.com/SethBennettBass" target="_blank">Seth </a>and Oli, who make up the extended
Metamorphic family, are ludicrously good improvisers, with Oli somehow evoking
muted trumpets and Mariah Carey-style riffing on his bass clarinet, and Seth striking
little matches alight and making whales sing on his bass. Yum. Røyst were on beautiful
form, giving me goosebumps in one moment; they have really inspired me to be a
bit wilder with my vocals; my default setting is pureprettyvoiceness, and
whilst I make all sorts of bonkers notated sounds with juice, it sometimes
seems hard to let rip when improvising. But muttering, percussively rattling
and yelping with the girls has really helped, and I need to keep that up now
that I am without them! Next up is Oli and Seth’s brilliantly-named trio <a href="http://ortcafe.co.uk/?p=3177" target="_blank">Nutclub and Metamorphic in Birmingham</a>, which will feel like a very slimline gig
without tha laydeez…<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxC9gnXPCGCt0ZRqFU9BtxBCheIj1xg29gC-ibVw6c7GH468dBZuuV4ZelN9BC16PX8L7bYJV9KXzsPN_WVwv6rIYyF_W9nWvt91_hI1qn_XgQiBuxfqN9A-w0liLxs3724fqM/s1024/Nut+Club+Metamorphic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxC9gnXPCGCt0ZRqFU9BtxBCheIj1xg29gC-ibVw6c7GH468dBZuuV4ZelN9BC16PX8L7bYJV9KXzsPN_WVwv6rIYyF_W9nWvt91_hI1qn_XgQiBuxfqN9A-w0liLxs3724fqM/s320/Nut+Club+Metamorphic.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s been a crazy
couple of weeks; inbetween doing my mini-dance moves on various jazz stages, and attempting to write my second chamber opera of the year, I’ve been workshopping new pieces for us at the Roundhouse’s Voices Now Festival, and floating spectre-like around the fabulous Dennis Severs’ House with
juice for Spitalfields Festival. We did over-the-top languid siren stuff whilst
clinging to the walls (and accidentally getting stuck on a hook at one point,
leaving Anna to frantically try and rescue me, whilst we sang serenely out of
sight of the audience, ha ha!), twanging Vietnamese mouth harps, and generally being VERY CREEPY yet AMAZINGLY IN TUNE...</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDXJsoqVRiNxr6qBIyqVpc_SDwnKdgFvZ-WaGk5ecGNYlAHNxxZhBef-EB7nfZ-6X6mbk4PrmxYS-Lf4ImILn9FmLSlI-dCBR3cP6ojt4ZxzGKLYwmzkWMAXe3rniovYFurEJ4/s960/juice+dennis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDXJsoqVRiNxr6qBIyqVpc_SDwnKdgFvZ-WaGk5ecGNYlAHNxxZhBef-EB7nfZ-6X6mbk4PrmxYS-Lf4ImILn9FmLSlI-dCBR3cP6ojt4ZxzGKLYwmzkWMAXe3rniovYFurEJ4/s320/juice+dennis.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>
<w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>
<w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
</w:Compatibility>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-22581342668117403522013-06-21T23:24:00.004-07:002013-06-22T07:24:50.382-07:00The North - Where WE DO WHAT WE WANT<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Level of conviction in own genius: 6.5</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Amount of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 2</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Listening / Watching: Metamorphic's album; Rat/bucket/fire-based violence on <i>Game of Thrones</i>, urgh</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Hair Day: Limp</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2Ubsln8eAsqEhnnY10KGFUHzw-nIqKU93qAHw8hIs7I_VEFC85nwEpvOLssvojZd8kyFcMxPatvg02CIMIfT5-RAzAgfRRtruWsGiHqLisx3L4xJIPo42-uYVRnYJZ9IvmQw/s1600/coalescence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2Ubsln8eAsqEhnnY10KGFUHzw-nIqKU93qAHw8hIs7I_VEFC85nwEpvOLssvojZd8kyFcMxPatvg02CIMIfT5-RAzAgfRRtruWsGiHqLisx3L4xJIPo42-uYVRnYJZ9IvmQw/s1600/coalescence.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s been an EPIC week
of gigging o’er hill and dale, bringing folky, energetic, multi-hued jazz on the <a href="http://www.metamorphic.org.uk/gigs/" target="_blank">Metamorphic second album tour </a>with vocal trio <a href="https://soundcloud.com/r-yst-trio" target="_blank">Røyst </a>to the unsuspecting and startled north. I
missed the Darlington gig, with the fabulous <a href="http://www.ceciliegiskemo.com/" target="_blank">Cecile</a> from Røyst standing in, but made
it back for a homecoming gig for Metamorphic’s leader, Laura, at Sheffield’s
Millennium Hall, in what sounds like a lofty turn-of-the-latest-century piece
of super-architecture, but which is in fact a Polish working men’s club. Arf.
But it was a top gig, with an appreciative crowd, and other local lad Seth
(double bass demon) feeding us spaghetti at his folks’ up the road. I
hot-tailed it to York for a day with juice workshopping new vocal trio pieces
for us (intricately notated finger-palm clapping, simulating drowning, making
pretend snow angels on the floor, y’know, THE USUAL). Then it was to Derby, a
joyless non-entity of a city (finding TopShop was a moment of unreasonable
excitement and RELIEF). We played at Voicebox, hosted by amazing vibes player
and Derby boy <a href="http://www.coreymwamba.co.uk/" target="_blank">Corey Mwamba</a>. Sadly, it was a smaller crowd here, but <a href="http://www.fuseboxleeds.org.uk/" target="_blank">fusebox at 7 Arts inLeeds</a> the next night made up for it! I certainly sang my best gig yet here,
probably fuelled by glee at wearing my sluttiest top yet (<i>Game of Thrones’ </i>lightly-clad ladies are having an effect, clearly)
in front of my mother, and sheer deranged exhaustion having only slept for four
hours the night before. Some superhuman brainwork has meant I can finally do
our meanest tune, ‘What Is Real’ off the page, complete with nifty moves. YES!
(Now repeat after me: 4 bars of 7/8, a 4/4 improv, 4 bars of 7/8, a 4/4 bar, 5
bars of 7/8, a 5/8, a 2/8 vocal solo, 5 bars of 7/8, a 3/8, 3 bars of 4/4, a
4/8 vocal solo, 2 bars of 7/8, a 6/8, 5 bars of 4/4 improv, a 1/8 vocal solo, 3
bars of 7/8, a 2/8, 5 bars of 4/4,
a 5/8 vocal solo, a 3/8, 7 bars of 4/4 improv, a 4/8 vocal solo, 4/8 and YOU’RE
OUT OF THE WOODS). Two people in the audience at Leeds said it was THE BEST GIG
THEY HAD EVER SEEN. Metamorphic’s second album, <i>Coalescence,</i> was released this week and it’s had some lovely
reviews <a href="http://www.londonjazznews.com/2013/06/cd-review-metamorphic-coalescence.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/metamorphic-coalescence/" target="_blank">here</a>. You should probably <a href="http://www.propermusic.com/product-details/Metamorphic-Coalescence-152927" target="_blank">BUY IT</a>, and we’re rocking out
The Vortex on Monday with the official launch. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/1009928_10151632065105822_1970042414_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/1009928_10151632065105822_1970042414_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">With a day to kill in
Leeds before our gig, I’d already looked ahead to see what outdoor swimming was
to be had in the hood, and had my eye on Ilkley’s lido. Local outdoor swimming
experts Seth and Oli (improvising bass clarinettist of wonder, and also very
fierce throat singer in ALL styles; his <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5CxK78cGac" target="_blank">kargyraa</a> </i></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">is something to behold)
scoffed at this suggestion, as apparently the lido is grimy and full of muscle
men (sounds ideal to me) and kids (hhm, p’rhaps not) and the only place to go
swimming was in the Wharfe. So I badgered a rather nervous-if-cavalier Tom
(drummer of extreme fearsomeness and genius) into coming with me and Oli to
Burley-in-Wharfedale, a sleepy village at the foot of the Dales for my first
wild swim of the year. Swimming there was the highlight of my month. The water
was peaty, cool and blissful – certainly no colder than Brockwell Lido, and
soft enough to make our hair kitten-fluffy afterwards. We dipped downstream,
staggered and slipped our way up to the weir, plushly thick with moss, and sat
in the full-pelt blast of its mini-waterfalls, before climbing over the top of the weir and into
another river-world of serene, deep black water, overlooked by large trees on
either side. It was HEAVEN.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWSMw1oOP4lopxUcqaFG2HR6iJvNc2k71VYcxBQaD3I3xv6pQRsPB-vIritG5taffpU09SIJzzCQ0e5Oe4gVqc2Qo9-7BevnLTFIJNpt3BthaTgCBpRoSsaDNW-ANccPI3AAg/s1600/burley+bridge1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWSMw1oOP4lopxUcqaFG2HR6iJvNc2k71VYcxBQaD3I3xv6pQRsPB-vIritG5taffpU09SIJzzCQ0e5Oe4gVqc2Qo9-7BevnLTFIJNpt3BthaTgCBpRoSsaDNW-ANccPI3AAg/s320/burley+bridge1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It’s all inspiration
for Dart’s Love, my wild-swimming-themed opera, which was commissioned to round
off the Tête
a Tête
Festival on August 17<sup>th</sup> and 18<sup>th</sup>. Hence I’m doing a lot of bad electric
guitar playing, testing out of wine glasses for their ringing ability, trying
to nick Oli’s best clarinet sounds, and working out the time signatures of my
swimming strokes, tee hee.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>
<w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>
<w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
</w:Compatibility>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I’m currently speeding back
to London for a juice-heavy weekend of singing new music in the extremely
spooky Denis Severs’ House for the Spitalfields Festival, plus a day of
workshops as part of the Roundhouse’s Voices Now Festival, with juice
nonchalantly turning their hand to spluttering out erotic medieval letters, darting
through some utterly fiendish rhythms, and doing some monk-ish growling...</span><!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-4525811317707536942013-06-15T15:42:00.000-07:002013-06-15T15:42:10.812-07:00Same Old Drones Amount of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: does watching 'Game of Thrones' count? If so, about EIGHT.<br />
Level of conviction in own genius: a humble 6; my brain has melted slightly through watching too many horse decapitations, tongue removals and deaths-by-having-molten-silver-tipped-over-your-head<br />
Reading / Listening / Watching: Back on the very-meaningful-to-me Vera Brittain / <a href="http://meltyourselfdown.com/" target="_blank">Melt Yourself Down,</a> our new punk-skronk-jazz saviours / 'Game of Thrones', to which I have become woefully and predictably addicted, having got through Season 1 in about 6 days. WINTER IS COMING, etc (forgive any hints of GoT in this blog. I really have watched an AWFUL lot of it).<br />
Hair day: unstyled, post-bath. HIDEOUS.<br />
<br />
Much work has been undertaken in the shadow of Kerry Towers: rehearsals for <a href="http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/woodwose-a-community-chamber-opera" target="_blank">Wigmore Hall's 'Woodwose'</a> have started (premiere: July 19th), with brave Borough of Westminster folk aged 9-80 starting to get their chops around my music. Meanwhile, I'm halfway through my second chamber h'opera of the year, a lovely commission which is rounding off the annual <a href="http://www.tete-a-tete.org.uk/" target="_blank">Tête à Tête Festival</a>. Auditions are now done, and I'm excited to see how the singers - a mix of operatic and more folky, grounded voices - combine. <i>Dart's Love: a wild-swimming-themed chamber opera</i> is for five voices and a four-piece band, hopefully will include a LOT of swimwear, and has mostly involved me making wine glasses ring, trying to play the electric guitar, and working out the time signatures for my swimming strokes on my hallowed visits to Brockwell Lido. It's being performed in two months' time so is pretty skin of the teeth stuff - I'll probably just pop a load of drones in for the last ten minutes... <br />
<br />
Meanwhile, it's up to the North, home of wildlings and direwolves and unexpectedly lovely small jazz venues for the Metamorphic tour, which is Jazz Pick of the Week in the Guardian Guide. We're promoting the release of our second album, <a href="http://www.mdt.co.uk/metamorphic-coalescence-f-ire.html" target="_blank"><i>Coalescence</i></a> and on the road with us is wicked Norwegian jazz-pop-experimental vocal trio <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/R%C3%B8yst-Trio/32408440821?fref=ts" target="_blank">Royst</a>. Our first date was up in the desolate wastes of Morecambe (truly! The pub, the church, the shops - EVERYTHING was up for sale), with the great arts venue <a href="http://www.moremusic.org.uk/%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">The Hothouse</a> nestling on a street behind the sea front. They looked after us beautifully and it was a cracking start to the tour. Next: have at you, Sheffield, Derby, Leeds, London and Liverpool, and genuflect before our Hendrix/Wheeler/P Diddy-inspired proggy folkjazz majesty!<br />
<br />
It was up to the North again a couple of weeks ago, where the noble Lord David Thomas Broughton of Otley Vale, a magically artistic world where basically every other darkstone manor houses a print-maker, illustrator, pianist or studio engineer, most of them Broughtons... DTB had invited the Three Screaming Queens of Juice to come up and record some semi-improvised songs with him. We first ventured up to the drizzly Chevin Forest Park, found ourselves a spot surrounded by sentry-like trees, and sang around some of David's lyrics whilst he meandered through his tunes and picked delicate guitar arpeggios. Thence to Otley's arts venue and a studio in an attic, and somehow we recorded five songs, which - having heard the pre-mastered sneak previews - sound BLOODY AMAZING! Read <a href="http://www.juicevocalensemble.net/site/?page_id=31" target="_blank">more about the day at juice's blog by Sarah</a>, and await with BATED BREATH the vocal-folk-guitar-looping wondrousness that will appear at some point as an EP. If you don't buy it when it comes out, it shall be a lifetime at The Wall for you! Etc.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-71988191313520020522013-05-27T12:18:00.001-07:002013-05-27T12:29:58.381-07:00Bank Holiday Bumper Music WeekendLevel of conviction in own genius: 7<br />
Amount of creative activity achieved in last 24: 2<br />
Listening: to ME<br />
Hair Day: floppy and sun-kissed, post-swim<br />
<br />
I crammed a lot of live music into 48 hours this weekend. We started off on Friday late afternoon outside Aldwych underground station on The Strand, these days of course unused apart from as film sets for drowning Keira Knightley or for go-getting contemporary music promoters... We were there for the first part of the <a href="http://www.lcorchestra.co.uk/" target="_blank">London Contemporary Orchestra</a>'s <a href="http://www.lcorchestra.co.uk/imaginedoccasions/" target="_blank">Imagined Occasions</a> series, which is spread throughout the year, and seeks to create 'immersive, site-responsive' experiences. In front of us was Thomas Ades, who had a piece being played, and who seemed to have trouble getting into the event, arf.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://now-here-this.timeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/photo-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://now-here-this.timeout.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/photo-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I have to say, I think the LCO were missing a trick or two; reading the hyperbolic preview in The New Statesman, it seemed we should have had our tickets checked as if we were heading into the Tube as commuters of a distant past; were to be handed newspapers about the event; and were to feel as if we were milling about in the main vestibule among other ghostly travellers. There was, I'm afraid, none of this. Andy and I had been on a tour of the station last year, so there was no novelty of being down there for the first time, and we wanted An Experience, dammit! One of the singers, friend-of-juice Cheyney Kent, delivered the most dramatic pre-concert health-and-safety announcement I've ever heard, and seemed to be setting the scene for a theatrical promenade. But instead, pieces were simply presented separately, and between them, we were led by stewards who simply told us where to move, getting us to shuffle awkwardly along a platform to stand in front of a film. It felt like really what the whole thing needed was a narrative of sorts, a performer who would lead us around the spooky tunnels and up the crumbling steps on a dreamlike journey in which there was no relaxing or chatting between pieces.</div>
<br />
There were some lovely moments, and most of the actual programming was great: my favourite was the twelve singers with headlamps (including aforementioned Cheyney and Sarah-juicette) deep in a dank tunnel, singing Jonathan Harvey - although why the audience were then placed on a side platform where they could hardly see them I've no idea; the Stockhausen film with the Brothers Quay images on a wall slimy with mould and dirt was evocative, though again, almost impossible to actually see; I enjoyed sitting in an old tube train watching a quartet, though their performance again felt very untheatrical; and my favourite piece was the 'cello, viola and tubular bells trio which sadly again, few people could actually view. The Claude Vivier piece around which this performance centred was beautifully staged on the rail tracks and stopped startlingly (it was the last piece he was working on before he was murdered), but at £35 a pop, it didn't do enough for me, and I think needed a theatre director overseeing the whole shebang. Creases may have been ironed out for the second performance of the evening; at least Jon Snow and Jonny Greenwood made positive tweetings about it.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/146/3e404940e64442c083f10a13946702d0/l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://a4.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/146/3e404940e64442c083f10a13946702d0/l.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>
We made off into the rain, slightly underwhelmed by the experience, and to Cecil Sharp House for<a href="http://www.lisaknapp.co.uk/" target="_blank"> Lisa Knapp</a>'s gig. I'd never seen her live, though have long been a fan of her glorious voice and inventive arrangements. She played two sets, her feet going crazy clacking away on the foot-pumped harmonium, or delicately plucking a fiddle, or wheezing a shruti box. Her man Gerry Diver would swoon away on viola or add samples, and she was further complemented by shimmering hammer dulcimer, string bass and occasional drums. She played many of her 'May carols', my favourite being 'The Pleasant Month of May', long-sung by The Copper Family, which in Lisa's version, builds up from a simple pulsing bassline into a joyous carnival or hay-making and yelling. Lovely stuff, and I'm looking forward to her second album in the autumntide.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.thisisfakediy.co.uk/images/uploads/sav1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://www.thisisfakediy.co.uk/images/uploads/sav1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
We were blessed miraculously with no rain at Field Day on Saturday, and tramped up and down Victoria Park looking for flashpan bands to whoop at. We kicked off first in the <a href="http://www.caughtbytheriver.net/" target="_blank">Caught By the River </a>tent, which I'd have happily stayed in all day, had it not been pummelled by several sound systems around it, therefore somewhat destroying its embrace of all things field recording-related. Still, I saw a discussion with Chris Watson, London Sound Survey peeps and others which made me want to grab a massive microphone and head into the woods pretty sharpish. We caught Stealing Sheep, three wide-grinning lasses who did a charming turn in three-part harmony and indie-folk. We then dashed over to catch the last few songs by new punks <a href="http://savagesband.com/" target="_blank">Savages</a>, as short and sharp as a jab in the arm with a penknife; their last one had the singer simply yelping viciously: 'Hus-BANDS Hus-BANDS Hus-BANDS'. It shouldn't be exciting in 2013 to see a band of four girls dressed in utilitarian black shirts, rocking the hell out of their short, nasty songs, but it IS. I'd love to see them in a proper gig, though I expect it would only be about 20 minutes long, given how quickly they stalked offstage here. We gave Ginger Baker's Jazz Confusion (pedestrian) and Django Django (djangly) short shrift, and got ourselves right at the front for Everything Everything. EE, clad in styled outfits that made them look like ASOS-loving bus drivers, were energetic and fun, with a singer delighting in his falsetto, and an array of clever guitar licks. We stayed put for Bat For Lashes, who made it all worth it by sashaying beatifically on in an outfit that made her basically the sexiest rainbow you've ever seen. Her set was all thrumming pop with electro sprinklings, added 'cello and theremin, and she had a cracking voice. Neither EE not BFL were exactly ground-breaking, but were certainly Good Solid Fun. Four Tet played fairly 'meh' techno-lite fare as the sun set, and Animal Collective's experi-indie was perhaps a little too noodly to headline, but it was a Fab Day. Hurrah!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7435/8846797050_e7f5262092_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7435/8846797050_e7f5262092_z.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-11133973061179330372013-05-26T14:07:00.000-07:002013-05-26T14:07:43.587-07:00Birds, Lobsters and HoneybeesLevel of conviction in own genius: 6<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved in last 24: 1<br />
Watching: Mike Leigh's 'Another Year'<br />
Hair Day: Bit dank, post-swim<br />
<br />
It's not hard to miss New York (see previous post) and it's gum-chewing, get-on-with-it <i>insouciance</i>, but, as my friend Dannie yelled gleefully last week, 'London's GREAT!', and I shouldn't forget it. Sometimes it's good to get oneself to another city, where - as you're on your hols - you throw yourself into everything that the relevant Time Out issue can offer, to remember that you can do EXACTLY the same thing back home. Minus the comradely banter between strangers, of course. That would be INSANE.<br />
<br />
We took ourselves off to Dalston's (London's?) loveliest dancing club, <a href="http://www.passingclouds.org/" target="_blank">Passing Clouds</a>, for our <a href="http://vimeo.com/46898477" target="_blank">burlesque champion/stylist/glamourpuss mate Char</a>'s birthday last weekend, for a night of silly music and big grins all round. Oh, and, as it was promoted by 'Badgerfest', most people were dressed up as woodland animals. Hurrah! Andy and I did our best with a limited dressing-up box palate and went all birdy - in more impressive efforts from other punters, we boogied amongst glittery frogs, fishnetted badgers, onesied squirrels, and terrifying Donnie Darko-esque rabbits. The first band was a classic Passing Clouds outfit: the sextet <a href="http://seasofmirth.com/" target="_blank">Sea of Mirth</a>, appearing to comprise 18th-century pirates, who banged out a set of funk/stomp/ska/sailorfolk-tinged music that I can only class as shantycore. They had a song about a wrestling match with a crustacean, in which the hulking melodica player (looking very easily like an extra from 'Pirates of the Caribbean') dived offstage to tussle with a small man dressed in a massive lobster costume. Brilliant!<br />
<br />
Alas, I had to get home a bit early due to my morning appointment as occasional pop hymn choirmistress at <a href="http://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/classroom/sunday-semons/" target="_blank">The School of Life's Sunday Sermon</a>. This weekend, it featured writer Jon Ronson discussing his latest research subject, humiliation, and recounting delightful stories of the familial and human minutiae of life in his slightly giggly, wetly witty style. I leapt up, with Matt Dibble as trusty keys man, to lead the sold-out congregation of Conway Hall in singing Britney Spears' 'Oops I Did It Again' and Carly Simon's 'You're So Vain', before limping home to Brockwell Park to snooze and cold-swim in recovery for lack of sleep. I've STILL GOT IT.<br />
<br />
THIS week saw me and DOLLYman bassist Lucy Mulgan head up to the Beeb's Salford headquarters to record for BBC Radio 3's 'word cabaret' show The Verb, as fronted by Ian McMillan, the poet whose radio voice is as claggy and scrumptious as Yorkshire pudding. The Verb had asked me to write a new You Are Wolf song for their bee-themed show, so I drew upon a few black-and-gold nuggets of beelore for a wee song that included drunken vocal buzzing and double bass 'prepared' with tissue paper. I was also interviewed a bit, got to listen to wonderful poet/beekeper Sean Borrodale and poet Jo Shapcott, and performed my song 'Cuckoo' at the end too. Ian fed us apples and honeycake (with almondy bees atop it) and told me about Barnsley FC's Greekly dramatic end of the season. Happily, my 'honeybee' song was also chosen to be on Radio 4's Pick of the Week, so a double radio whammy for me this week! You can hear it for the next week <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01shytv" target="_blank">here on The Verb</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01slrsr" target="_blank">here on Radio 4 (at 33 mins)</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-41339382458094315642013-05-14T04:00:00.000-07:002013-05-14T04:01:24.884-07:00New York City, YEAH!Level of conviction in own genius: 6<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved in last 24: None<br />
Reading / Watching: Brilliant book on New York's essential five years of genre-making music, <a href="http://www.willhermes.com/" target="_blank">'Love Goes To Buildings On Fire'</a> by Rolling Stone writer Will Hermes / Back in Blightly, getting our Brooklyn fix with the second season of 'Girls'<br />
Hair Day: Under a hoodie. Best kept out of sight.<br />
<br />
I've had a wondrously fulsome two weeks flitting about North American cities - initially solo while Andy worked his book publisher chops. It was a whistle-stop tour to Toronto, home of my early childhood (I was there ages 3-5), and thus I had a proper heart-pang when I saw the CN Tower spike perforating the wide blue sky. Rather than a suburban house on Bayview Avenue, this time we stayed in the uber-cool <a href="http://www.thedrakehotel.ca/" target="_blank">Drake Hotel</a>. I didn't have time to investigate much of the town as all-new, grown-up Kerry, but Queen Street West was one long hipsterdream of vintage shops, boutiques and places selling raw carrot cake with maple syrup cream cheese icing and mushroom lattes. YES! The waterside was lovely, and I came across my ideal exhibition at <a href="http://www.thepowerplant.org/" target="_blank">Powerplant</a>: <a href="http://www.thepowerplant.org/Exhibitions/2012/2012_Winter/Beat-Nation.aspx" target="_blank">Beat Nation: Art, Hip Hop And Aboriginal Culture</a> - contemporary responses to Native Canadian traditions/mythology, featuring custom-made bikes, light installations, massive murals, and THIS very cool Cree/English/video/speech/song piece (intro only here):<br />
<object height="360px" width="425px"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"/><param name="movie" value="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=24488426,t=1,mt=video"/><embed src="http://mediaservices.myspace.com/services/media/embed.aspx/m=24488426,t=1,mt=video" width="425" height="360" allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent"></embed></object>
<br />
<br />
To a week and half of neck-craning, eating and gig-going in New York! I made a concerted effort NOT to do all the obvious sights, but to absorb the city through a lot of street-pounding, and general hanging out. Here are some highlights:<br />
<br />
<b>Food</b><br />
Ginger potato hash at haute-Indian <a href="http://www.devinyc.com/menus.html" target="_blank">Devi</a> with Andy's lovely workpals; crunch-and-melt falafel from a stall in Central Park, where we talked to the English football-obsessed server; divine Ukranian pierogi, borscht the colour of an East European vampire-bite and stuffed cabbage at my favourite East Village hang out, <a href="http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/veselka-new-york" target="_blank">Veselka's</a>; decaf lattes by <a href="http://www.brooklynroasting.com/" target="_blank">Brooklyn Roasting Company</a>, fresh from the grinder in Dumbo, home of Girls actress/writer/director/producer all-round heroine <a href="https://twitter.com/lenadunham" target="_blank">Lena Dunham</a>!; polenta, poached eggs and home fries for brunch at <a href="http://www.oleabrooklyn.com/" target="_blank">Olea's</a> in Fort Greene; a garlic wurst on rye which stared me down at <a href="http://katzsdelicatessen.com/" target="_blank">Katz' Deli</a> (Harry, Sally, etc).<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCbk7FTX2QXYcVEDPM0DTIoT079m_VmKKvpDYrgv8GHiFdYHnmCNq30VDY-eGvwCAG9M_rVpxJaNr5bUrCNo_RD0i4NDGPxZLPowN7LI7K9tWrDc4G9mGoJfS1Sb_lLl4uxykt/s1600/veselka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCbk7FTX2QXYcVEDPM0DTIoT079m_VmKKvpDYrgv8GHiFdYHnmCNq30VDY-eGvwCAG9M_rVpxJaNr5bUrCNo_RD0i4NDGPxZLPowN7LI7K9tWrDc4G9mGoJfS1Sb_lLl4uxykt/s320/veselka.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Gigs</b><br />
We happily saw that Oli, who we'd met playing with Laura J Martin in Oxford last week, was in town with his main band, indie-folksters <a href="http://www.stornoway.eu/" target="_blank">Stornoway</a>; he invited us to their secret rooftop gig in the <a href="http://sleepnomorenyc.com/hotel.htm" target="_blank">McKittrick Hotel</a>, abandoned in the 1940s and recently opened up by Punchdrunk Theatre. We caught James Blake at Terminal 5 in the mid-West Side - he was pretty cool, some nice rumbly bass, but I felt it was a bit samey... I crammed in four bands at the Mercury Lounge: the three gorgeously dewy girls of <a href="http://www.paperbirdband.com/" target="_blank">Paper Bird</a> (bluegrass harmony/pop/folk), who deserve to be Mumford-famous; the slightly disappointing, given her comparisons to Joanna Newsom and Sufjan Stevens, <a href="http://danafalconberry.tumblr.com/%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">Dana Falconberry</a>; <a href="https://soundcloud.com/empressof" target="_blank">Empress Of</a>, talked up as the new Grimes, mixing power-pop balladry a la early Madonna, ribcage-splintering bass and ebullient electro; and the silly <a href="https://soundcloud.com/doldrumss" target="_blank">Doldrums</a>, who stoked initial excitement by using only a mic and a suitcase full of gizmos, but ruined it all with crap songs delivered in a needlingly whiny voice. We also caught a night at the Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn, featuring some indie-doom from Creep, wonky-pop with a Frank Zappa-meets-Jarvis Cocker frontman from The Flinstones, and yowly gloom-electro from <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/sep/21/new-band-exitmusic" target="_blank">Exitmusic</a>, headed up by the actress who plays Angela Darmody in <i>Boardwalk Empire</i>. Finally, I played my own teeny You Are Wolf gig in Williamsburg's Goodbye Blue Monday!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVn4Yq6dWp-UExbo3l0jlo5yaZGGUD6SpUgA5nrdwyUiRI3zaxT5qccfQx2H6rS-EqJYb7qiqfF1lYAYXW92ht8qBu4nGq_9vFqLpFIcKw99vVyCStCzBQh5MI3KwfW0yvD1YX/s1600/goodbye+blue+monday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVn4Yq6dWp-UExbo3l0jlo5yaZGGUD6SpUgA5nrdwyUiRI3zaxT5qccfQx2H6rS-EqJYb7qiqfF1lYAYXW92ht8qBu4nGq_9vFqLpFIcKw99vVyCStCzBQh5MI3KwfW0yvD1YX/s320/goodbye+blue+monday.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<b>Books</b><br />
New York gives off a damn good indie bookish vibe, and, partly for Andy's work, we scouted many a fashionably literary temple, and dreamed ourselves around the tomes. <a href="http://www.housingworks.org/bookstore/?utm_source=shop_nav&utm_medium=webpage" target="_blank">Housingworks</a> was the best; we went to a brilliant event called '<a href="http://www.askroulette.net/" target="_blank">Ask Roulette</a>', in which two people are divided by a screen. One asks the other a question about themselves. The other answers, and then gets to ask a new person, picked out of a hat, their own question. I got picked, got my hair compared to Grace Jones', and ended up telling 30 people how terrified I was of cows and once got stampeded by them. It's a brilliant wheeze - wordy, human, and witty. We want to do our own London version!<br />
<br />
<b>Walks</b><br />
The Highline, of course; around the gorgeous Prospect Park on a hot sunny day; and an epic hike from Brooklyn's Greenpoint past the Brooklyn Navy Yard, through Dumbo, over Brooklyn Bridge, through Downtown to the West Village. I also popped to Washington D.C. to see my old university friend Stu, and tramped enthusiastically through the whole city catching the sights.<br />
<br />
<b>People</b><br />
At least in Manhattan, and in complete contrast to London, many people really want to talk. They got the jaw-jaw good there.<br />
<br />
On the subway, a man asked to take a photo of my Beastie Boys t-shirt - he said that they were his favourite band, and we chatted about MCA. He asked what I was listening to, predicting Pantera; he was a little disappointed when I let him hear my headphone, and said that Roy Ayres was far too mellow for him. A waiter in a Queens diner told me it seemed like yesterday that it was 1994 and he was dancing to the 'Sabotage' video. A guy who ran a bike shop said the Beasties were around when 'MTV was MTV, y'know?" We went to MCA Day in Brooklyn, which celebrated the life of Adam Yauch, who died a year ago. Check the kids' tribute gallery!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTaUy2gwDBDxtX77OSeiwOjyoXa_WnWv71SwXnT-lf6zjn3s-Xcaf9S6znnpKudAF8GI-Veyf842vkNGiQmmrhhRhvuE5o-GeIA3jl5Z1aHOt1iFo3fT2BYf45dXDGrvfQvn1i/s1600/mca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTaUy2gwDBDxtX77OSeiwOjyoXa_WnWv71SwXnT-lf6zjn3s-Xcaf9S6znnpKudAF8GI-Veyf842vkNGiQmmrhhRhvuE5o-GeIA3jl5Z1aHOt1iFo3fT2BYf45dXDGrvfQvn1i/s400/mca.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
I played chess in Washington Square with one of the hustlers, retired 60 year-old Joe, who persuaded me to play two games with him, one without his queen. He still won $10 out of me. He was a charmer, who sat there every sunny day, or else went and watched action movies, and told me my husband must be a dream to have married me...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFNp7OCKNVAszbQMG9x_zRLRG_s78HrmN6tfm4OWKL-Z8VU-qpy9-cfUYNk0UbG7IzR8KKF9nwRdHPNlaesm8vXQpsGIvYgsQuhqnsYA51k3rrepkF6ZSFo4EVyNCbPkkiYMFw/s1600/joe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFNp7OCKNVAszbQMG9x_zRLRG_s78HrmN6tfm4OWKL-Z8VU-qpy9-cfUYNk0UbG7IzR8KKF9nwRdHPNlaesm8vXQpsGIvYgsQuhqnsYA51k3rrepkF6ZSFo4EVyNCbPkkiYMFw/s320/joe.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
At the Mercury Lounge, I found myself earwigging next to a guy who performs with the Wainwrights at their annual Christmas show, who was chatting to country/folk star Anais Mitchell, who it was hilarious to hear say that her <a href="http://anaismitchell.com/" target="_blank">current project was singing British ballads that are all 'a bit too long'.</a> Ha ha!<br />
<br />
A guy in the lift up to the rooftop at the McKittrick's compared hair product notes with me, and said he wouldn't normally be seen DEAD in the Meatpacking District (it was OVER a decade ago), but that it was for a friend...<br />
<br />
<b>Stumbles-upon: </b><br />
The ethereally calm St Paul's Chapel, next to Ground Zero, which has become a monument to the memory of the victims of 9/11; being invited in to a Raw Chocolate Party in Downtown; Andy busted into an art fair full of chained concrete babies and sheep with telephones for heads; the gloriously calm and unkempt community garden of the Sara Roosevelt Park; the amazing Pratt Sculpture Park in Brooklyn.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbqBYfppAwi6L6_fSHEaBmFF-JBj8NTnABVJWHmg04atU4OQMk9M-RKcAnQCPIRYQnRfm52h7cFK_plBID7PPZwSlpe_R7CpaM9hEfd1KU0dbDZvpS65fy1HuZfdcY-1TwleA1/s1600/nyc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbqBYfppAwi6L6_fSHEaBmFF-JBj8NTnABVJWHmg04atU4OQMk9M-RKcAnQCPIRYQnRfm52h7cFK_plBID7PPZwSlpe_R7CpaM9hEfd1KU0dbDZvpS65fy1HuZfdcY-1TwleA1/s320/nyc.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I'm pretty happy to be back in London, though this cold is just outrageously affronting. The city feels like the shorter, wiser, wittier, friendlier older brother to Manhattan's tall, gym-buffed younger sibling. I'm looking forward to getting stuck into my second chamber opera of the year - this time a wild-swimming themed affair to open the <a href="http://www.tete-a-tete.org.uk/" target="_blank">Tete a Tete Festival</a> in August! MaJiKer has also being whizzing through the mixing of my You Are Wolf debut album, woo hoo!<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-40881845269092456752013-04-30T05:52:00.001-07:002013-04-30T05:58:03.315-07:00Sunken Gardens, Dalston Power Lunches And Wonky Folk<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>
<w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>
<w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
</w:Compatibility>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Level of conviction in
own genius: 6.5</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hours of creative
activity achieved in last 24: 3<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Watching / Listening:
‘The Master’ on my flight to Toronto / Emily Portman’s back catalogue<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hair Day: The Most
Expensive Haircut I Have Ever Had (like Emeli Sande but without the twin-sets
and achingly dull songs); firmly considering having zig zag lines etched into
the sides by a Brixton barber!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m a bit late with
getting my oar in on the ENO’s much-trumpeted,
look-at-us-we’re-down-with-da-yoot <a href="http://www.eno.org/see-whats-on/productions/production-page.php?itemid=2309" target="_blank">3-D opera <i>Sunken Garden</i></a> at the Barbican; but I’m picking up my paddle anyway,
to add to the smokin’ <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2013/04/criticisng-the-critics-so-whos-right-about-sunken-garden.html" target="_blank">‘was it good? Or was it SHIT?’ online debate</a>, with the
Telegraph/Guardian/Standard/Indie etc firmly crossing their arms in the former
camp, and Norman LeBrecht looking a bit billy-no-mates in the latter.
Sarah-juicette and I happily got bumped up to some good seats, upon which to
take in the undisputedly impressive technical heft of the various screens and
the synchronisation of filmed singers with live orchestra and vocalists. I do
think there could be a lot of fun to be had with 3-D film in theatre, but fun
was to be heard slamming the door and skipping off, laughing maniacally, to
some club in Clerkenwell to pump its fist for four hours while WE sat,
increasingly baffled and squirming slightly.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.eno.org/__assets/asset5202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://www.eno.org/__assets/asset5202.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> </o:p>As Mark Kermode is
extremely wont to rail, 3-D is not a marker of quality, but instead too often
thrown in desperately to add gloss to a soulless flibbertigibbet of a movie in
which a) story b) writing and c) characters are found lacking. For every <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZFP5HfJPTY" target="_blank">Cave of Forgotten Dreams</a></i>, there are
plentiful <i>Transformers 3</i>. Whilst <i>Sunken Garden’s</i> use of film, and in the
second half, 3-D film, WAS integral to the story (documentary filmmaker gets
increasingly drawn into his research about a missing guy, who has in fact been
trapped in a verdant virtual purgatory by a crazy woman), I couldn’t help but
hear Kermode shrieking like a disapproving great-aunt in the background. For
this opera had a pretty dreadful story, chased down with weak characters and
fist-in-mouth dialogue. Honestly, no-one should EVER have to hear the phrases
‘I am the head of a charitable arts foundation’ or ‘it’s an arthouse
documentary’ sung operatically in slightly angular phrases. David Mitchell has
not made an auspicious start in the world of libretto-writing, and Michel Van
Der Aa’s music was mostly uninteresting vocal lines and swampy orchestral
writing which had so many dramatic peaks that when the biggest revelations
happened, they were rendered musical damp squibs. It was hard to make out the
revelatory details anyway, as they were being histrionically wailed by two
sopranos at pitches far too high to get the words out, and mostly whilst one
did some madly hammy hand-thrashes to splash 3-D droplets towards the audience,
and the other writhed around wrestling a long bit of apparently threatening
material in unconvincing fashion (Van der Aa also directed). Having gone in
rooting for it, we emerged underwhelmed and slightly embarrassed, and found
many friends and acquaintances equally irked. Let’s hope the next big things do
a little better…</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static.tumblr.com/j3hzvrz/5bHlykq5y/pink.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://static.tumblr.com/j3hzvrz/5bHlykq5y/pink.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p> </o:p>Two days later, Andy
and I were in Mangal 2, rubbing shoulders and plates of tzadziki with various
Beeb writers, conductors (<a href="http://www.andrederidder.com/" target="_blank">André de Ridder</a>, who’d waded his best through <i>Sunken Garden</i>) and BBC Radio 3
presenters (<a href="https://twitter.com/SaraMohrPietsch" target="_blank">Sara Mohr-Pietsch</a>, with him), which made up for the fact that we
(gasp!) didn’t see Gilbert and George (they were reportedly in later. PHEW). We
then headed to Dalston’s latest bottled-beer-and-dank-basement-dive called
Power Lunches (of course!); it turned out to be a highly illustrious and
extremely select audience, including André, Sara and Radio 3 producer <a href="https://twitter.com/petermeanwell" target="_blank">Peter Meanwell</a>, who
had rocked up to see a bunch of Manchester music students, including young
composer <a href="http://www.dummymag.com/new-music/2013/02/19/tom-rose-berghaus/" target="_blank">Tom Rose</a>, put on their second night celebrating their new record label
<a href="http://www.slipdiscs.co.uk/" target="_blank">Slip Discs</a> (nice). <a href="http://www.olivercoates.com/" target="_blank">Olly Coates</a> played a stunning solo ‘cello set as we sat on
the concrete floor (Kagel, Britten, Squarepusher), followed by a fab electric
guitar and laptop/drums duo with <a href="http://www.leoabrahams.com/" target="_blank">Leo Abrahams</a> (who has the most amazing CV as a
producer and session musician, from Brian Eno to Imogen Heap to Grace Jones), and
<a href="http://larrygoves.com/" target="_blank">Larry Goves</a> did some live electronica alongside Olly. It was fun, and Very
Dalston.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQRdGekYpGR8MVdQZYW2DiHJlL-0-dTr_G6TlgS6wZzCd-3CoJ1Ow" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQRdGekYpGR8MVdQZYW2DiHJlL-0-dTr_G6TlgS6wZzCd-3CoJ1Ow" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I had a smashing You
Are Wolf gig in Oxford this weekend, at The Cellar’s <a href="https://twitter.com/IrregularFolk" target="_blank">Irregular Folk</a> night. Vez,
the promoter, looked after us beautifully (tea, cake, general super-niceness)
the sound (by Geezer – that was his name!!), for once, was really excellent,
meaning Andy and I could really respond to each other, and the crowd was
fulsome and full of cheer. Headlining was the very wondrous <a href="http://laurajmartinuk.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Laura J Martin</a>, a
Scouse lass wielding the same Boss RC-50 loop station, a flute (she did some
mean jazz-spitting and singing into it), a voice that really was like Kate
Bush’s (rather than just a lazy reference point) in its mixture of ethereal
gossamery tones and sudden, more strident edge, plus some mandolin and
keyboard. She was occasionally accompanied by bassist Ollie from Oxford
mega-folkpopsters Stornoway, and did brilliant fawn-like dancing to quirky
beats that evoked Greek ancients having a rave. Check her out!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRksLskoOtsU_1b8novVjq5Dbf2gsJmcecFm9-aQDlY7o_j30Sd" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRksLskoOtsU_1b8novVjq5Dbf2gsJmcecFm9-aQDlY7o_j30Sd" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Creative news: juice
have now recorded their final second album session, tackling Dai Fujikura’s
2.5-minute beast of a piece, and Anna-juicette’s marvellously dislocated Mariah
Carey cover. The You Are Wolf sessions are now fully recorded, and beginning to
be mixed by MaJiKer, who sends me rough cuts over email from Paris. And <i><a href="http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/woodwose-project" target="_blank">Woodwose</a></i>, my community chamber opera, is
finished! Hurrah. I am rewarding myself by hot-tailing it to New York via
Toronto and Washington D.C.: full report to come!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-40322755438208094622013-04-15T15:30:00.003-07:002013-04-15T15:30:54.840-07:00Terror-Rave, Soundwalking and Leek TartletsLevel of conviction in own genius: 6.9<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved in last 24: 5, if making instrumental parts from a score counts, urgh<br />
Reading: Sped through the wonderful <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/08/londoners-craig-taylor-review" target="_blank">'Londoners' by Craig Taylor</a>, a birthday book from Andy; now weeping hopelessly at every other page of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testament_of_Youth" target="_blank">Vera Brittain's amazing 'Testament of Youth'</a>, 80 years old this year.<br />
Hair Day: Needs Serious Cutting Soon<br />
<br />
As is my wont, I packed in a few cultural things into my birthday last week. I was in Cambridge the night before to collect my joint winnings (along with fellow Yorkie and all-round fab lass <a href="http://www.stefconner.com/" target="_blank">Stef Conner</a>) from the Incorporated Society of Musicians' inaugural choral prize, hurrah! The Queens' College Chapel Choir sang my SATB version of the trad. song (which I do as a You Are Wolf number) 'All Things Are Quite Silent' in a very pure, super-perfect version, as well as singing Stef's and other winner, talented whippersnapper composer <a href="http://www.tobyyoungcomposer.co.uk/" target="_blank">Toby Young</a>. We were then ushered into the ostentatiously Arts and Crafts-y Queens' College Hall for a posh meal, complete with slightly weird, archaic graces in Latin and toasts to the Queen and that sort of thing. The Oxbridge ways seem pretty damned sniggersome to the likes of progressive -'60s-university-going husband and I, and even more so as I'm reading about Vera Brittain's (see above) breathless recounting of her debut at Oxford in 1914, complete with through-the-night cocoa parties with equally lofty, serious fellow studentettes. Still, it was nice to chat to Toby and also to meet gregarious, uber-gifted clarinettist/composer and voracious reader <a href="http://www.boosey.com/composer/Mark+Simpson" target="_blank">Mark Simpson</a> over tenderised beef and leek tartlets...<br />
<br />
It was back to Queens' for a lunchtime concert from Mark, Melvyn Tan, Guy Johnston and Jack Liebeck; there was no better day than my birthday for my first live performance (shocker!) of one of my favourite pieces of classical music, Messaien's 'Quartet For The End of Time'. It's so masterfully and transparently constructed and with such craft: chamber music as filigree jewellery. The final movement - though the 'cello and piano is my favourite - with its ever-soaring violin line, was enough to make me fall apart. After a brief schlepp about Cambridge, it was back to the safe heartlands of Dalston for a hang-out in a new tea shop, dinner at Mangal II with friends (and Gilbert and George, naturally), and we mopped it all up with some punishing terror-rave at Cafe Oto from the likes of Birthday: BAM!<br />
<br />
It's been a packed concert-going schedule: the next night we went to Wigmore Hall to support Team GB, otherwise known as seeing some of the George Benjamin celebrations, with a concert version of his first, chamber, opera, 'Into the Little Hill', which was pretty marvellous, though even seated right at the front below the bellowing/shrieking soloists I still thought that the words could have had more space. The highlight for me though was David Sawer's 'Rumpelstiltskin' suite, which whilst not exactly ground-breaking in soundworld, was a brilliantly-orchestrated, deeply delightful affair.<br />
<br />
This week, juice were busy in Sussex, recording and filming a new music-film piece for composer Paul Robinson, and we were filmed by a chap who is usually to be found shooting the likes of 'Frankenweenie' and 'Fantastic Mr Fox'. We also did initial workshops for four composers as part of the Sound and Music 'Embedded' scheme, trying out loops, hockets, vocal white noise and medieval erotic letter-settings, and discussing being wheeled around in shopping trolleys to represent Jupiter's orbiting moons. This is quite, quite normal for juice...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static.bbci.co.uk/programmeimages/528xn/images/live/p00pmz0m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://static.bbci.co.uk/programmeimages/528xn/images/live/p00pmz0m.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Juicette Anna was also part of Brit composer and hair arch-rival Tansy Davies' UBS Eclectica series retrospective at LSO St Luke's, singing her song cycle 'Troubaritz' with our percussionist/composer buddy Damien Harron. The night was packed full of halting riffs and broad genre references - the highlights being violinist Aisha Orazbeyeva's solo scratchy, glitchy piece, influenced by the Bach partita that preceded it, and the closer, 'Neon', complete with Tansy standing up to piledrive in a bit of electric guitar. It was quite a sceney night, and good to mingle with new musicky types in the pub afterwards.<br />
<br />
Thank god for the sun today! <iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F87832375" width="100%"></iframe>I was not so lucky at <a href="http://www.theschooloflife.com/about-us/faculty/faculty-members/a/andrew-kerry/" target="_blank">The School of Life</a> recently, when running my first workshop, in the art of listening and soundwalking. We'd planned for it to be April so that the birds would be tweeting merrily, the zephyrs balmy, etc; instead we got air so cold it practically scalped you, and a sound-palate of cars and people shivering. STILL, a successful night was had by all, and I got the class of clever adults thinking about their sonic environment and composing soundwalks, inspired by the likes of my walk-art hero Richard Long, John Cage, Chris Watson and many more. The next one will be in sunnier climes!<br />
<br />
Lots of radio recently! I went into the Resonance FM offices in Borough to record a little session for Sam Lee's Nest Collective Hour (<a href="http://www.folkradio.co.uk/2013/04/the-nest-collective-hour-feat-you-are-wolf-in-session/" target="_blank">also to be found on Folk Radio</a>); it's a very marvellous, old/new/no-folk show, and a pleasure to be on, though frankly my performance was a mitigated disaster of loop station confusion and general calamity, urgh! STILL, even James Blake accidentally left a sliver of yelpy loud loop in his <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p017nmkb" target="_blank">recent 6Music session</a>, so the loop station gremlins get about a bit. Curses upon them! It was also rather lovely to turn on Jazz on 3 and find myself singing on it - a second album track from Metamorphic opened the show, yay!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-84068654332535217162013-04-01T11:34:00.001-07:002013-04-04T04:58:57.398-07:00Falcon Conclusion<div>
Level of conviction in own genius: 7</div>
<div>
Creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 4</div>
<div>
Watching / Listening: Pining after finishing 'Boardwalk Empire' Season 3 / The traditional song Molly Bawn as sung by a 93-year old man</div>
<div>
Hair Day: SERIOUSLY considering coppertop in order to maintain standards as quoted by Sam Lee (see below)</div>
<div>
<br />

It's all go as usual here, all while battling with the evil maggoty-looking infection that keeps hanging around in my throat (URGH!). But I have still managed to fit in some birding of various varieties.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
First: a visit to the <a href="http://www.birdsofpreycentre.co.uk/" target="_blank">English School of Falconry</a> in Bedfordshire! I got to fly a big ole owl, a harris hawk, hold a three-week old baby owl (looking remarkably like an infant gremlin to me), hold a 9lb juveline bald eagle, and my favourite, the very gorgeous Peregrine/Lanor falcon cross. It makes me think I should get back there, rather more glamourously-clad than in this Battling Winter-look below, and do a photo-shoot for my You Are Wolf birdlore-themed album, all glitter and feathers and faux-nonchalantly attempting to hold up a golden eagle or sumfink. The album is ticking along nicely, with just a few bits to send to MaJiKer before he can get on with mixing. I'm planning to call it 'Hawk to the Hunting Gone'...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgkAOQ7ig1Ya1JWuRB1slQgv0KDFHrIPXl2FGUVcQtqvkEHznFCpQ64FkGrxOZNX9bi_Oc3rgx8YEo7KcYwxvfaY3dA_mpB05boAEgtZmflVF_X5C-0kPddnxTds3PseHjMN-b/s1600/falcon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgkAOQ7ig1Ya1JWuRB1slQgv0KDFHrIPXl2FGUVcQtqvkEHznFCpQ64FkGrxOZNX9bi_Oc3rgx8YEo7KcYwxvfaY3dA_mpB05boAEgtZmflVF_X5C-0kPddnxTds3PseHjMN-b/s320/falcon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="text-align: center;">I've thus been cramming some bird field recordings to possibly add into the album, though finding the perfect sonic environment has been tricky. It's either too noisy (Ruskin Park on Easter Sunday, Hampton Park on Easter Monday under a flight path), or too damned quiet (</span><a href="http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/r/rainhammarshes/" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">Rainham Marshes</a><span style="text-align: center;"> in Essex). In the secret garden at the back of Brockwell Park, it was like flippin' Snow White or something: as I quietly sang 'The Bird's Courting Song' into my Zoom recorder, a dunnock hopped across my path, a robin perched on the bench to listen, a squirrel climbed the trellis above my head and sat looking down at me, and two doves sputtered down on the grass. And none of them made a GODDAMNED PEEP.</span></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYeZiZGozW2EMvIn-8wDv-sq00WetF23XPRNHKvARXdgLehhnzMCLu10coz0wqpf_fbTKyKHDKyb52UtAxEiKodWneUItcLmQjgyiCyJHox0FsaEQITSb1JOHxTHd1VANKKCAT/s1600/IMG_4122.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYeZiZGozW2EMvIn-8wDv-sq00WetF23XPRNHKvARXdgLehhnzMCLu10coz0wqpf_fbTKyKHDKyb52UtAxEiKodWneUItcLmQjgyiCyJHox0FsaEQITSb1JOHxTHd1VANKKCAT/s320/IMG_4122.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
</div>
<div>
It was lovely to sing some of the 'birdlore' songs at <a href="http://samleesong.co.uk/" target="_blank">Sam Lee</a>'s <a href="http://thenestcollective.co.uk/" target="_blank">Nest Collective</a> night at the Old Queen's Head in Islington this week (I'm going to be on <a href="http://thenestcollective.co.uk/resonance-fm/" target="_blank">his Resonance FM show</a> this Tuesday 2nd April, 12pm!). Sam very kindly (and rightly) introduced me as possessing 'the finest hair in contemporary classical music' - ha, take THAT, <a href="http://www.stormmodels.com/EricWhitacre.html?boardId=1009" target="_blank">Eric Whitacre</a>! I was mostly there to sing as part of <a href="http://majiker.com/NORTH.html" target="_blank">MaJiKer's ongoing NORTH project</a>, exploring the traditional folk songs of Scandinavia through new English lyrics, looping, much vocals and projections. It was a GOOD excuse to get a new dress (an all-white maxi t-shirt dress that looks a bit like a net curtain, since you ask) and I have really thrived on exploring different characters in my voice when taking the lead. We hit the <a href="http://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/north-majiker/default.aspx" target="_blank">Albert Hall with it (and with Sam) on June 11th</a>!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikqEiNtfo4k_53kxHpk0hurldObGXYFHTdW6oI3BOFef_Dxn3Ehq3xBapK-g2cEez9JszopVgBwzSBDvcC3j7NAFgZqtqfImlMDwl5YeOJ1gSbdNcluiNid59TMn-PE-68aMvC/s1600/Majiker+NORTH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikqEiNtfo4k_53kxHpk0hurldObGXYFHTdW6oI3BOFef_Dxn3Ehq3xBapK-g2cEez9JszopVgBwzSBDvcC3j7NAFgZqtqfImlMDwl5YeOJ1gSbdNcluiNid59TMn-PE-68aMvC/s200/Majiker+NORTH.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
</div>
<div>

Whilst most people (judging by Twitter, anyway) were watching 'The Voice' on telly (HONESTLY! The ADHD-editing in the first minute made me feel SICK), Andy and I donned extra layers and headed up to Clapton for a hipstertastic-sounding event: a shadow puppet theatre play; with live improvised violin, electric guitar and electronics; in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/33ChatsworthRd" target="_blank">a former dentist's</a>. YES! In truth, the prospect of the night far outweighed the actual show itself, as it started over an hour late, the rest of the (tiny) audience were friends on the guest list, the shadow puppetry was distinctly underwhelming, not least because there was often 5-10 minutes of darkness between each tableau vivant, and the venue seemed to be MORE cold than it was outside, meaning my legs lost all hope of feeling after about 10 minutes. STILL, we giggled our way home on the bus, imagining that we were probably there right at the start of something big, y'know, like the Sex Pistols at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>

In other news, <a href="http://juicevocalensemble.net/" target="_blank">juice</a> are two recording sessions down, one to go, with our <a href="http://nonclassical.co.uk/" target="_blank">Nonclassical</a> chum Gabriel at the helm, and have really noticed the difference between this and our last album recording, since working with MaJiKer. We are much more interested in and aware of the colour of our voices, which is lovely. We are recording lots of love songs, original (by Jim Moray, Dai Fujikura, Michacu and more) and arrangements of Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Kraftwerk and much more. I'm refining my community chamber opera score, <a href="http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/woodwose-project" target="_blank">Woodwose</a>, and am making plans for a NEW chamber opera. On wild swimming. Hurrah!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-33892905304651596402013-03-18T07:57:00.003-07:002013-04-01T11:35:51.469-07:00Attack of the Fallen WomenLevel of conviction in own genius: 6.5<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 3<br />
Watching / Listening: 'Boardwalk Empire' Season 3 / suggestions for my radio show<br />
Hair Day: Floppity, moppity<br />
<br />
<a href="http://nonclassical.co.uk/" target="_blank">Nonclassical</a>, my label (<a href="http://juicevocalensemble.net/" target="_blank">juice</a> have started recording their second album, woo hoo!) have just held a big festival of pioneering electronic music, so Andy and I made it along to a bit at XOYO, where the demographic was almost entirely men in their 30s with beards. I sadly missed Raymond Scott and the final set by The Orb man Alex Patterson, but did catch the bludgeoning percussion/electronic piece by Stockhausen, Kontakte, plus, much more soothingly, two Messaien pieces for ondes martenot and synth/piano. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondes_Martenot" target="_blank">ondes martinot </a>is a sort of electronic theremin, and is basically a hopeless romantic of an instrument, espeically when playing the achingly meandering phrases of Messaien's 'cello and piano duo from <i>Quartet From The End of Time</i>. There is no more beautiful piece! And did you know that Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood is the only owner of an ondes martinot in Britain, fact fans?!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdZCZ_e2BOTVxfM3LjgSrNXRbFGOU39dvroZpzgQ4GxmBCceBtWgz87Db7mbuiKmUQCArY8tj_9alqzGOsT3uxGj7yI9RSi5GksQsDVeNJp9Oa1v7BbYgkEmuW-wDTy7707dS4/s1600/skin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdZCZ_e2BOTVxfM3LjgSrNXRbFGOU39dvroZpzgQ4GxmBCceBtWgz87Db7mbuiKmUQCArY8tj_9alqzGOsT3uxGj7yI9RSi5GksQsDVeNJp9Oa1v7BbYgkEmuW-wDTy7707dS4/s1600/skin.jpg" /></a></div>
To the gods at the Royal Opera House for George Benjamin's much-lauded (a new opera! With contemporary music in't! That everyone LIKES!) <i style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.796875px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/written-on-skin-by-katie-mitchell" target="_blank">Written on Skin</a></i>, with George, or 'team GB', as I rather too loudly and excitedly shouted jst before he lifted his baton, conducting. The set was excellent, these contrasting rooms of clinical heaven/archeologists' lab with rough-edged medieval-ish chambers. The orchestral writing was mostly glorious, especially with the slightly sci-fi-sounding glass harmonica for the bit where everyone suddenly moved in slow motion; all lush and filigree and delightfully detailed, though I sometimes thought it burbled along in too unrelated a fashion underneath the singers. I thought it started slightly sluggishly, dramatically-speaking, but the slow-burning tension was ratcheted up from act to act to proper Greek drama/Shakespearean tragedy-style heights by the end, and complemented in a way by the scoring that I'm sure would be easy to take for granted but is in fact highly skilful. I didn't really see much need for the modern-day bit - it was all about the central ferocious love triangle for me. Barbara Hannigan was storming as Agnes, the young wife whose lust is awakened by the visiting Boy/Angel who comes to write an illuminated manuscript: rolling around, or being thrown around, usually whilst singing perfectly controlled, pure high notes. But therein lies the rub for me: here's yet another opera with a central female character who is another fallen woman - what a BORE! It made me REALLY want to write The Descent: The Opera (if you don't know the film, 5 super-cool pot-holing lasses fight terrifying monsters in caves, with nary a male in sight), or at least SOMETHING where the girls are MAD REAL, not defined simply by their sexuality, and DEFINITELY winning out in the end.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeZFTIPeEw17kpQhu-WrKjMNOVo9GmZmJzOPSCEdNM3YrC-HCxmNFyyKLScXfex249mMvzh_-wQvZjdfsyfzBWoZbj7ox7vm3dn5k9ml-go4xrTP29QlOYQFW5FxxVRCBlHL9I/s1600/cast-pic1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeZFTIPeEw17kpQhu-WrKjMNOVo9GmZmJzOPSCEdNM3YrC-HCxmNFyyKLScXfex249mMvzh_-wQvZjdfsyfzBWoZbj7ox7vm3dn5k9ml-go4xrTP29QlOYQFW5FxxVRCBlHL9I/s320/cast-pic1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Finally, my career as a radio DJ has begun. Well, in a teeny tiny way at least! I am presenting the Strawberry Shortwave Radio Show live on Haggerston Radio on Sundays at 4-6pm and I've done two so far. The idea is to play music inspired by a weekly theme, and play a very eclectic range of tunes. Proof of pudding: this first boat-themed week featured Gavin Bryars, Guys n Dolls, Laurie Anderson, three versions of the traditional English song 'A Sailor's Life', field recordings, poetry, angry postpunk about the NHS,and Iron Maiden. YES! The shows are archived. Here's two to treat your ears to!<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F81778862" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F82839283" width="100%"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-59976524517139052272013-03-18T07:32:00.001-07:002013-04-01T11:40:09.648-07:00You're So Dane Level of conviction in own genius: 6.5<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 3<br />
Watching / Reading: Two excellent films: 'Lore', just beautiful and dark, and the screamingly tense and screamingly '70s 'Argo' / 'The Year of The Flood' by Margaret Atwood<br />
Hair Day: awight<br />
<br />
To venues both big and small as a punter recently. I went to the Rose Theatre next door to the Globe for a short, sharp shock of a 'Hamlet', there to see our friend Jonny Broadbent go all Dane, complete with 'The Killing'-style knitwear. The Rose in the site of Bankside's very first theatre, and this show had the delicious tagline of being the first 'Hamlet' there since 1594. There was a wonderful use of the space: hemmed in by the teeny cardboard box style-set for much of the play, upon a hammy version of the play with the play, the black screen I assumed had a wall behind it was pulled down to reveal, behind a balcony and to audible intakes of breath, a cavernous space with a big pool of water at its centre: the foundations of the old theatre, underneath the canopy of a massive new building! String of red lights suddenly lit it up, and it was then used for Ophelia's mad singing scene, the Yorick scene, complete with brilliant Hamlet-and-skull shadows, and more.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Then it was to the Barbican to finally see Bobby McFerrin, one of our greatest living vocalists, live. It was a very chilled set of spirituals, many recorded by his dad (the first black male opera singer at the Met), with some raspy blues and some typical Bobby-ish chest-hitting and scatting. He leapt about all over his preposterous four-and-a-bit-octave range like a gleeful springbok; commanded his louche players; and introduced his 21-year old daughter as a honey-toned backing singer. Just lovely.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlQs6D8S22bv2UmkCaX0ykAtf9V8PqhS5E0GzHXSgzAZtY_DIvRhQGoU6GEDmC5qdtHV5pTSsKfQUaNK9SInRGiM49DHj2gjhI0jlQTCvFj5NWISBLGtozc-UAMqi5_3fUIlJ-/s1600/bobby-mcferrin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
I had the very touching experience of having my graphic score for recorders, Screech (which you can toy with to <a href="http://screech.handelhouse.org/" target="_blank">create your own video-composition right here</a>!), interpreted by five groups of recorder players aged from about 8 up to 18 at St. George's, Hanover Square, in my final outing as Handel House Composer in Residence. It was so fab to see a class of 20 Year 4s avant-gardely squealing, pipping and hissing, in partly-improvised renditions led by recorder masters Consortium 5. The new music future is kids! With recorders! Here's Yerbury School giving it some:<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F81744460" width="100%"></iframe>
There was a time when my ambition was to play Cargo in East London. Then I did, in 2006, with juice! Then I wanted to play Cafe Oto. And I did! Finally, The Vortex was in my sights; and lo! now I am a regular. I sang with Metamorphic in February, and DOLLYman finally got their foot in the door, having fun playing off-the-dots for the first time as support to the <a href="http://thekandinskyeffect.com/" target="_blank">Kandinsky Effect's album launch. Let's up my targets. Next: The Barbican!</a><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-80949581112608910722013-02-16T08:36:00.000-08:002013-02-16T08:39:47.176-08:00Silent Opera, Foxy Opera, Singing Kate Bush For World-Famous Fashion Designers, etc<br />
Level of conviction in own genius: 7<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 0<br />
Watching / Listening: Daftly enjoyable enigmatic poshos in the new Poliakoff, 'Dancing on the Edge' / recommendations on Gorilla vs Bear blog<br />
Hair Day: pleasingly short; am considering a dyed copper-top. Nice!<br />
<br />
Pah. London's current prescription of cold rain and rainy cold has not been much fun, though the last couple of days have given glimpses of a good-weather renaissance. But how I long for the summer, for freckles and wild swimming! There's nothing for it but to hurl myself not into the warm, chlorinated fug of the municipal pool but instead into much culture...<br />
<br />
Seeing as I'm writing one, I've started itching to see more opera. First up was <a href="http://www.silentopera.co.uk/" target="_blank">Silent Opera</a>'s version of Monteverdi's <i>L'Orfeo</i>, in a brilliant corner of London I've never ventured to before, a mile past Canning Town to Trinity Buoy Wharf. This feels a bit like the north-west docks in Amsterdam, looks south to the O2's startled yellow feelers, and includes super-cool, brightly-coloured live-work containers. The opera was in a lovely big warehousey wharfey space, and we were all handed wireless headphones at the door. The idea was that, with a reduced 5-piece band, we could hear the full orchestra in our ears, along with amplified vocalists and the live players. The singers, with very subtle radio mic clipped about their persons, were free to roam amongst us, and the audience was moved, faintly promenade-like into two different spaces for Acts II and III. I have to say, I found the headphones (and the core idea of silent opera-ing) pretty unnecessary: everything was being gently amplified through a PA anyway, and moreover, it was miles more thrilling to listen to the singers, unadorned, live. And it would have made much more sense to simply pare down the scoring to the harpsichord, harp, theorbo, etc, and be rid of the extra strings completely. It was too much like Renaissance-karaoke for me. The costumes - a sort of Camden-rave-in-1998 - were vile, and the bunch of gurning dancers ineffectual; that said, the singers were marvellous, and it was fabulous to have them sweating and bellowing up close and personal. But a flawed project, I feel.<br />
<br />
To the Southbank, and a weekend amongst their epic <i><a href="http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/classical/2012-13/the-rest-is-noise" target="_blank">The Rest Is Noise</a></i> season. I caught the Aurora Orchestra doing George Antheil's very-ahead-of-its-time <i>Ballets Mechaniques</i>, which smacked barnstormingly of the fear and wonder of encroaching technological onslaught. And it was good to catch Barbara Hannigan showcase her duo role as soprano and conductor in an afternoon of, if I'm honest, soporific Satie and rather more zingy Stravinsky, in his mini-opera <i>Reynard</i>, performed with puffed-out glee by the likes of Roderick Williams. The aim with the season, as in the Alex Ross book, is to place 20th-century music in socio-political context; I'm not sure that, so far, this has been the most successful part of the concerts I've seen: pre-cursing the Antheil was a jazz singer rather uncomfortably attempting to seduce a Saturday afternoon crowd including an impressive amount of avant-garde-loving under-10s with Josephine Baker songs, and a too-slight cubist film of the Aurora. Harriet Walter read from diaries by the Russian princess who commissioned Satie and Stravinsky, which was fascinating, but too long.<br />
<br />
To my own shizz!<br />
<br />
juice have performed with MaJiKer in Wigmore Hall to an excitable crowd including many Tower Hamlets teenagers who screamed with sugar-high abandon at our Rihanna cover. I debuted by little suite of songs on London's forgotten rivers, <i>lostriversongs</i>, with loop station and killer acoustic improvising trio 7 Hertz at Handel House. Most recently, I did another hymn-leading stint at <a href="http://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/classroom/sunday-semons/" target="_blank">The School of Life's Sunday Sermon</a>, fulfilling a personal and flatteringly insistent request for my services from the day's lecturer, high-art fashion designer/filmmaker/artist <a href="http://chalayan.com/" target="_blank">Hussein Chalayan</a>! He also wanted a Kate Bush song, so I learnt 'The Man With The Child In His Eyes', to sing to the 500-strong intellectual massive. Hussein casually informed me before the show that he'd told Kate I'd be singing it today. WARGH! I tired to dismiss daydreams of Hussein providing me with clothes for all award-going occasions for the rest of my life, passing my number along to Kate, etc. Just another usual Sunday for moi, then!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-36221361341850236402013-01-23T11:12:00.003-08:002013-01-23T11:31:30.367-08:00January Do's!Level of conviction in own genius: 7<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 8<br />
Watching / Listening: Have soared through <i>Breaking Bad</i> Season 2 and <i>Mad Men</i> Season 5 already this month. Middle-class Guardo-reading box-set perfection. / <i>Peter Grimes</i>, for inspiration.<br />
Hair Day: crammed under a pink beanie. Brrr.<br />
<br />
Yeah, screw that ole January-is-the-crappest-month-Blue-Monday nonsense. I love January! New projects, new resolutions (I have sensible ones that I have to complete at some point in the year, rather than any stupid read-every-day-eat-alfalfa-do-zumba sort of ones) and cultural fun. You've got to stomp through that snow in your most unashamedly nerdy stout walking boots (I have new ones - they are old-fashioned brown leather ones, like Wainwright would have worn on his travels. Fashionable if you're in Keswick. Not so much if you're in Camberwell.) and DO STUFF.<br />
<br />
<b>CREATIVE STUFF</b> has included laying down a lot of material with producer maestro and 2013 collaborator of choice, MaJiKer, for my debut You Are Wolf album, featuring the <i>birdlore</i> set. I have a got a truly special guest to sing a little something for it too. Excitement!<br />
My big project for the next few months is my community chamber opera <i>Woodwose</i>. I wrote the libretto whilst snuggled in front of a log fire up in the Yorkshire Dales at Christmas, and now am knuckling down to it at home. I'm quite proud of my ability to not look at the internet until mid-afternoon - I really CAN live without cat videos and Fantasy Football League after all!<br />
<br />
<b>SOCIAL STUFF </b>has included being jostled at Brixton's Hootenanny, as is par for the course, and enjoying rather more the lovely vibes up the road at Mango Landin', which is ten times less skanky. DOLLYman had a very fun time playing a charity gig there and went down a storm. We're extremely excited about our <a href="http://www.wegottickets.com/event/200772" target="_blank">gig at the Vortex on Feb 21st!</a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbAYDWiihEddzdz01C86A4g9X083iPiXr7EaIVp0XBqwnJZBP3dzqEDgn7i9ZmLDPvIOuMPIPbvUejGzH_ZltcSK0s2Khe3qGUQsaF56BR-L5Mu2dpWOId-XVjLf4rn1ZGItYz/s1600/sam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbAYDWiihEddzdz01C86A4g9X083iPiXr7EaIVp0XBqwnJZBP3dzqEDgn7i9ZmLDPvIOuMPIPbvUejGzH_ZltcSK0s2Khe3qGUQsaF56BR-L5Mu2dpWOId-XVjLf4rn1ZGItYz/s1600/sam.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I popped to the PRSF party earlier in the month; it wasn't quite as fun as last year's - the Scala was a bit soulless really - but it was nice to see (a slightly sleepy) Sam Lee and band play, as well as Ayanna Witter-Johnson. Speaking of Sam, I am proud, and a little sheepish given the company, of having done a remix for 2012's Folk King, which is part of a<a href="https://www.facebook.com/samleefolk?sk=app_128953167177144&app_data" target="_blank"> free and downloadable EP here!</a></div>
<br />
Last weekend, Platform 33 had their 1st birthday party in a cool (and COLD) railway arch in Waterloo. The night, always designed to be super-eclectic, crammed in a brass ensemble, South African township funk, sword dancing, and razor-sharp recorder quintet Consortium 5, who played my <i>badluck birds </i>pieces. <a href="http://culture-capital-blog.com/2013/01/21/review-platform-33-first-anniversary-the-nursery/" target="_blank">Here's a lovely review</a>!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdDGgfiS2tzlMibCPe9AtlhrxkmerO2Pg5FShrFsEb-GAUVbPIvZTKAPXdgX7PTAf1xcM6h0UO2J6jaDwijOyhx2noLm_xR4ROTwkm-6hN3OeNzLi4LGrkYRRURJ3VMNTxeAD6/s1600/C5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdDGgfiS2tzlMibCPe9AtlhrxkmerO2Pg5FShrFsEb-GAUVbPIvZTKAPXdgX7PTAf1xcM6h0UO2J6jaDwijOyhx2noLm_xR4ROTwkm-6hN3OeNzLi4LGrkYRRURJ3VMNTxeAD6/s320/C5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="text-align: center;">Speaking of </span><i style="text-align: center;">badluck birds</i><span style="text-align: center;">, check out my </span><a href="http://screech.handelhouse.org/" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">online composing/video/webgame</a><span style="text-align: center;"> of one of the movements, <i>Screech</i>. See if you can make your own version of the piece...</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbSxn9LW0aK2J0jE3UTr_5LpM7ATkNlzHSPLtMPf2sP8aKvrZlFF-lIEi7maVt6-wiIBoFEfbwrdpfWj_jpfty61vrdFa0qA4PiKvQ5z5PldebFfzCvG1ZCDF7pNrYbPCKJDlx/s1600/Screech+%7C+Kerry+Andrew+%7C+Handel+House.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbSxn9LW0aK2J0jE3UTr_5LpM7ATkNlzHSPLtMPf2sP8aKvrZlFF-lIEi7maVt6-wiIBoFEfbwrdpfWj_jpfty61vrdFa0qA4PiKvQ5z5PldebFfzCvG1ZCDF7pNrYbPCKJDlx/s400/Screech+%7C+Kerry+Andrew+%7C+Handel+House.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>ACTIVE STUFF</b> has been on the QT, BUT I reckon I redeemed myself slightly by going to Covent Garden's Oasis and swimming very, very fast in their outdoor pool with a temperature of -1 outside and many gulpfuls of snow. YES!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVF4F8gujfce5UdS96LMzxYmTuSdbStYjsmQtocIpPIgh5fesDgF2b4d-fybHaDimcoWU0SGwdB4YqIIGARrB6om9NuSlXeoxp9xq_9R_2jUCTJYfGolDOh79cc4i8iy0vUdyv/s1600/20130120_131735.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVF4F8gujfce5UdS96LMzxYmTuSdbStYjsmQtocIpPIgh5fesDgF2b4d-fybHaDimcoWU0SGwdB4YqIIGARrB6om9NuSlXeoxp9xq_9R_2jUCTJYfGolDOh79cc4i8iy0vUdyv/s320/20130120_131735.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-23794509019209298162012-12-09T03:14:00.000-08:002013-06-26T03:35:09.927-07:00Buy New Music For Christmas! Kerry's rundown of her pals' releasesLevel of conviction in own genius: 7<br />
Hours of creative activity in last 24: 2<br />
Watching /Listening: 'The Killing', like the predictable middle-class artsy boxset-loving Guardo-reading lass I am / Cerys on 6Music, who has just played excellent <a href="http://drownedinsound.com/releases/17348" target="_blank">National Jazz Trio of Scotland alternative Crimble EP</a><br />
Hair Day: APPALLINGLY long, by my standards. Which is very short by most other people's.<br />
<br />
I thought I'd compile a list of friends' releases this year, that you should really consider buying as Christmas presents for your most discerning nearest and dearest. What better way to give than by supporting some of the UK's finest alternative musicians? YES.<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://firefly1.bandcamp.com/album/lightships" target="_blank">Firefly Burning - Lightships</a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWj0epTvV-J8jd-POMoZJ4FGIPMjfR9-Bt3wtiFcyq3W4DVFMDUeiNpXcnYldryLO8PG0P_SlAH83HXyQpA-Q-lNzdmoqp2nHekvXURO5Ne9cID1S4F0sBaXSD59H2J5c7cgsL/s1600/firefly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWj0epTvV-J8jd-POMoZJ4FGIPMjfR9-Bt3wtiFcyq3W4DVFMDUeiNpXcnYldryLO8PG0P_SlAH83HXyQpA-Q-lNzdmoqp2nHekvXURO5Ne9cID1S4F0sBaXSD59H2J5c7cgsL/s200/firefly.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Easily one of my favourite live bands, this Portico Quartet-meets-Arcade Fire-meets-Fleet Foxes produce totally sublime, folky and complex music that makes you slightly weep.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://routenote.com/r/yoyo/5051813893230" target="_blank">Jimmy Rosso - 32:32</a></b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ErBquj6GZ2q2Qw1OFSxI0cWTHVOqBlW8vIT3ESsQCkVYxbVzXkXZ43jjI5y1eky_tAV3PoPG0TT64HiwvSt0n1bfjPpAM44rGEtMN55RceBB4Sg_i1kmjfxV9Tgy6mTMcUhy/s1600/jimmy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ErBquj6GZ2q2Qw1OFSxI0cWTHVOqBlW8vIT3ESsQCkVYxbVzXkXZ43jjI5y1eky_tAV3PoPG0TT64HiwvSt0n1bfjPpAM44rGEtMN55RceBB4Sg_i1kmjfxV9Tgy6mTMcUhy/s200/jimmy.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
My DOLLYman compadre Jimmy in his solo debut, which is a more experimental, spooky, glitchy mixture of James Blake, Bon Iver and Panda Bear.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/slightly-peculiar/id570973154?ign-mpt=uo%3D4" target="_blank">Tom Hewson - Slightly Peculiar</a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUDYJzd-hurHC0UzMPdSCD6_0FlbqVQyngIY4mncXRzgYr2QaMETHm9-QAI3MVSgiQmT2kvRYvjcojnKWxljL2RycYyeixwKU9jWze-CVsWP0YReR7J1YXZetDd_zx907Q2qGV/s1600/slightlypeculiarsmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUDYJzd-hurHC0UzMPdSCD6_0FlbqVQyngIY4mncXRzgYr2QaMETHm9-QAI3MVSgiQmT2kvRYvjcojnKWxljL2RycYyeixwKU9jWze-CVsWP0YReR7J1YXZetDd_zx907Q2qGV/s200/slightlypeculiarsmall.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Blissed-out solo jazz piano debut, inspired by Messiaen, Bill Evans and John Taylor.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://samleesong.co.uk/buy/" target="_blank">Sam Lee - Ground of Its Own</a></b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijfg6RkbMh5a-NlVAfWPDTDJyBDk3b5PtMz1evF_8927znMQJ35YkCH3QYFi_AdQkKP14UJgVk_l8HlpUpml7oo3tLJzZQ3WEM_FGeq_JbZY4XwM8NXCz0cBa1m2jAV74QLCXw/s1600/sam+lee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijfg6RkbMh5a-NlVAfWPDTDJyBDk3b5PtMz1evF_8927znMQJ35YkCH3QYFi_AdQkKP14UJgVk_l8HlpUpml7oo3tLJzZQ3WEM_FGeq_JbZY4XwM8NXCz0cBa1m2jAV74QLCXw/s200/sam+lee.jpg" width="133" /></a>2012 was a runaway success for folk troubadour Sam, who was hardly been off the radio or awards circuit since the summer. Beautiful arrangements including shruti box, Japanese koto, jew's harp, wound around Sam's melting croon on a bunch of traditional songs.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.kudosrecords.co.uk/release/GEO023/Roshi_Don_t_Breathe_It_to_a_Soul_Remixes.html" target="_blank">Roshi Feat. Pars Radio - Don't Breathe It To A Soul</a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfLFfwhgav_wZANLNpClNdijkgURZmbtMVkSLshDfHW7A06xcvKlwZpe1ZL2TLYTx83HiHObNylCt-68BqshqUwxOtgqDY5gB8mzaIv7Kl8aD5_wTNBF9LMgJygaUED429CsNr/s1600/roshi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfLFfwhgav_wZANLNpClNdijkgURZmbtMVkSLshDfHW7A06xcvKlwZpe1ZL2TLYTx83HiHObNylCt-68BqshqUwxOtgqDY5gB8mzaIv7Kl8aD5_wTNBF9LMgJygaUED429CsNr/s200/roshi.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Ethereal electronica inspired by a silent movie, with digital remixes from Pere Ubu's David Thomas, Gargarin, Now, and ME, in my Fisher-Price first remix (under my You Are Wolf moniker)! <a href="http://www.kudosrecords.co.uk/release/GEO022/Roshi_Feat_Pars_Radio_Dont_Breathe_It_to_a_Soul.html" target="_blank">Also available as a limited edition 7" vinyl.</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://lazyhabits.co.uk/store/products-page/physical/lazy-habits-debut-album-deluxe-limited-edition-cd/" target="_blank">Lazy Habits - Lazy Habits</a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdq2-qGg_l3qiPIUgSrvBbwiYmzfkr1oGmNahm4fZOG0J_GZMc3wjE72VPXggt9jXdqQdR9u_FsilVEbweYKiRY7LGEXRzSLJf-eZnwkPx73U6ZqkjclFRCuqjX8fo6MXkEFE9/s1600/habits.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdq2-qGg_l3qiPIUgSrvBbwiYmzfkr1oGmNahm4fZOG0J_GZMc3wjE72VPXggt9jXdqQdR9u_FsilVEbweYKiRY7LGEXRzSLJf-eZnwkPx73U6ZqkjclFRCuqjX8fo6MXkEFE9/s200/habits.jpeg" width="199" /></a></div>
If you haven't seen these chaps live, you've not lived! The Habits' UK hip hop/brassfunk finally lands in their long-awaited debut.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.vasarisingers.org/cd-info-gabriel-jackson-requiem-vasari-singers/" target="_blank">Gabriel Jackson/Vasari Singers - Requiem</a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-_m_sZ_8HTUwuydrhzPbP9ImZtbzsLh6TqNQ_1G0Sih0Z3BetAcGWRcQy41e9Pb5rbAzLfjFWuOei9OQlMS8AJfMBzGBZzWH3oHhBWjHIE9bg8xTG5JdGeoB__AnfsDtWhZ8Q/s1600/jacksonrequiem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-_m_sZ_8HTUwuydrhzPbP9ImZtbzsLh6TqNQ_1G0Sih0Z3BetAcGWRcQy41e9Pb5rbAzLfjFWuOei9OQlMS8AJfMBzGBZzWH3oHhBWjHIE9bg8xTG5JdGeoB__AnfsDtWhZ8Q/s200/jacksonrequiem.jpg" width="200" /></a>Wicked choral composer, BBC Singers Associate Composer and British Composer Award-winning Gabriel Jackson celebrated his 50th birthday this year. Here's the Vasari Singers in the first recording of his <i>Requiem.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://moshimoshi.greedbag.com/buy/black-prince-fury-ep-0/" target="_blank">Anna Meredith - Black Prince Fury</a></b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghljpM8aeSiH_iWSpzJLduz2qDv2Y5-w4S6wwEgjInFeUBb_oA_8DD5Xt_cuG1YZN2q7M5Z_T5HN0MoN6a3pH12qlFlvlMIouZWn8R9V5Wsudg3IW2O80vetmH3twXCN0T4qyj/s1600/anna+m.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghljpM8aeSiH_iWSpzJLduz2qDv2Y5-w4S6wwEgjInFeUBb_oA_8DD5Xt_cuG1YZN2q7M5Z_T5HN0MoN6a3pH12qlFlvlMIouZWn8R9V5Wsudg3IW2O80vetmH3twXCN0T4qyj/s200/anna+m.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div>
Re-released on the Moshi Moshi label, this is brilliantly edgy composer Anna's electronica debut.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/have-yourself-dolly-dolly/id576828738" target="_blank">Have Yourself a DOLLYDOLLY Christmas</a></b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTlIXWEUkAShiJT7VepnQgiZBVHu79kMgaEB_UD7xWbWcAIUF5DFTl5J2dAZPfYvTrVj_3KLecxT_a5__9PkHwUmc5MQZUPigjdmICBARu3F5U_Hidr_-JYO5yJuckIECbHq9/s1600/dollyxmasepcover0001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWTlIXWEUkAShiJT7VepnQgiZBVHu79kMgaEB_UD7xWbWcAIUF5DFTl5J2dAZPfYvTrVj_3KLecxT_a5__9PkHwUmc5MQZUPigjdmICBARu3F5U_Hidr_-JYO5yJuckIECbHq9/s200/dollyxmasepcover0001.JPG" width="200" /></a>And I'll squeeze in one of my own: DOLLYman's rather alternative Christmas EP. From wild squealy 'O Come All Ye Faithful' to fall-over-lovely medleys, you KNOW it makes sense!<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-26139888080521274362012-12-03T16:18:00.001-08:002012-12-03T16:26:10.342-08:00British Composer Awards: EXCLUSIVE! Kerry's acceptance speech that never was<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">Level of conviction in own genius: 6</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">Hours of creative activity achieved in the last 24 hours: 5</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">Reading / Watching: 'Electric Eden' by Rob Young / 'The Hour', lovely classy stuff from the Beeb </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">Hair day: Not bad actually, especially after emergency hairspray run in town</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><br /></span></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">So I'm just back from this evening's <a href="http://www.britishcomposerawards.com/news.php?idn=770&p=1#i770" target="_blank">British Composer Awards</a> (the 10th, and going strong), held this year at the supremely blingtastic Goldsmith's Hall next to St. Paul's Cathedral (and I mean blingtastic: displaying flagons once quaffed by Charles II, rugs bigger than the floorspace of my entire flat, chandeliers with real candles that took 45 mins to light, and a ceiling the height of about 15 composers stacked on top of each other...). I have managed to get in the door for the third year running, this time in the shortlist for the Education and Community Award for my work on the <a href="http://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/detail/3527/" target="_blank">Art on the Underground project 'A Lock Is A Gate'</a>, which I was cheered to hear a track from played on Radio 3 this week - all those rum Hackney kids, singing little solos on the wireless!</span></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKyvxD0rOj8aDKxtogIPFwqUZzklY4dLQ7-z6_LksNSKzSMzI2KjI4LTfAa9x60eM3I28p4igxkxQ8HjMeF4M0fAZMDVDzLKjjr3I4O-DJjfk8c9Uc2wlhMbAvUnNjuPxYVzSc/s1600/a-lock-gate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKyvxD0rOj8aDKxtogIPFwqUZzklY4dLQ7-z6_LksNSKzSMzI2KjI4LTfAa9x60eM3I28p4igxkxQ8HjMeF4M0fAZMDVDzLKjjr3I4O-DJjfk8c9Uc2wlhMbAvUnNjuPxYVzSc/s320/a-lock-gate.jpg" width="283" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">The after-awards drinkies and after-party (when I say after-party, I mean 10 of us sloping off to a deserted posh city bar for a final drink. NEXT YEAR I'm hosting it, Elton-John-at-the-Oscars style) was fun enough. I rocked up with Gabriel Jackson and Sarah-juicette. Good to chat to John Barber and his lovely Firefly-lass Bea, Simon Speare, Stuart King and Claire Shovelton from CHROMA, Richard Barnard (who refuse to break throughout intense questioning as to which category he had judged, PAH), various publishers, and I got some Oxford University Press gossip from super-sweet Alan Bullard. Amusingly, composer Gavin Higgins had his photo taken with Andy, insisting that he was his hipster glasses/side-parting/Top Man jacket-wearing doppelganger. Hee hee. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">I had never really thought I stood a chance of winning (though was gratified to hear that there was a skirmish over my piece in the final judging; I like to imagine that there was proper fisticuffs and bloody noses, and much using of bad words, interspersed with 'but she's a GENIUS!', hur), especially with music animateuring/composering wunderkind John Barber in there with me, but you know how these things go. You start thinking there might be a ghost of a chance, and that ghost morphs into near-future visions of getting up on that stage and making the speech of your life. So I did indeed prepare a proper, tub-thumping speech, which seemed especially right following on from last week's rather more <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/arts/theatre/stage-stars-blast-madness-of-cuts-in-arts-funding-at-evening-standard-theatre-awards-8352362.html" target="_blank">high-profile Evening Standard Theatre Awards</a> and the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/nov/30/nicholas-hytner-arts-are-on-knifes-edge" target="_blank">ongoing spat between Maria Miller and Nicholas Hynter</a>. This truly was the reason I was gutted not to win (congrats though, Paul Rissmann!); I REALLY, REALLY wanted, as John Barber also told me he'd planned, to give a verbal two fingers up to Michael Gove. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">The all-round cultural hero (and overseer of the Cultural Olympiad) Ruth MacKenzie gave a simple, succinct and powerful speech about the state of the arts in this country and the EBacc proposals. I planned to do just the same: to say how fantastic it was that the Education and Community category existed at the BCAs, because there's such a rich history of music education and amateur music-making in this country, as well as a history of professional composers and performers working with various ages and abilities, from Britten and Maxwell Davies to, well, John Barber and Paul Rissmann for starters! And the reason I find it so rewarding is to see the palpable joy and sense of achievement from participants in creating their own music. And that, of course, is the key term: <i>creating</i>. Whether it's writing a love poem, stringing a few chords together on guitar, crafting a present for someone, or doing a sketch, there is nothing more wholly beneficial than expressing yourself through a creative medium. Which is why it's so worrying that we are in a climate where the government seem to regard the arts with such disdain. The Culture Secretary says that she agrees with Nicholas Hynter that the arts is very beneficial for the British economy; yet the cuts keep coming. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20424898" target="_blank">Newcastle Council have cut their ENTIRE arts budget</a>! The Education Secretary says that <i>of course </i>the arts is an important subject, yet flagrantly omits this sixth pillar of learning in his proposed EBacc, saying it can be taught as an optional, more extra-curricular subject. How can he not understand that the arts is not an accessory, it's the freakin' dress (and mine was an Asos exclusive Lauren McCalmant design tonight, thanks very much)! While Hynter focused last week on British artists' contribution to the economy, it's important to remember that arts education in schools isn't JUST there to produce fantastic, exportable, tourist-magnet style artists; it's there to help send into the world imaginative scientists, creative engineers, and everything in between. We MUST keep making music, with and for <i>everyone</i>; I might suggest, for starters, two radical reworkings of songs, perhaps with 100 Year 4s on violin and an adult djembe ensemble, and send the recordings to my two least favourite departments of government: 'Crazy Man Michael' by Fairport Convention for the Education Secretary, and, obviously, 'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?' for the Culture Secretary.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"> </span></span><br /><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">Ha, and there's my speech practically in full. </span></span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">I was pretty disappointed that no-one, apart from Ruth, stuck it to the man a bit in their speeches (not even Harrison Birtwhistle!); it was all rather bland and apolitical. It's a teeny niche we contempo musicians live in, but one with at least a Radio 3 profile and some press coverage, and surely it's worth making the most of the limelight to say your piece and stand up for music in this country.</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;">Mega-congrats to everyone tonight. <a href="http://www.britishcomposerawards.com/news.php?idn=770&p=1#i770" target="_blank">Here's the list of winners in full!</a></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilM0jh2Xhmw07-hqdR4M5kjBmsUzytdskTr5UnC4oWTIov4fPbqIamL_gCKNEODHZXet5mdz4-hXMljr6RVMHkwggBlQnDJPYKWbl5VjYYsm1YM-ZgPUgRxxPX6i69MeZ92Ffh/s1600/goldsmiths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilM0jh2Xhmw07-hqdR4M5kjBmsUzytdskTr5UnC4oWTIov4fPbqIamL_gCKNEODHZXet5mdz4-hXMljr6RVMHkwggBlQnDJPYKWbl5VjYYsm1YM-ZgPUgRxxPX6i69MeZ92Ffh/s320/goldsmiths.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 20.799999237060547px;"><br /></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-32358522937144404132012-11-18T14:15:00.002-08:002012-11-18T14:22:44.887-08:00JUST FOLKING DO IT<br />
Level of conviction in own genius: 6<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 2<br />
Watching / Listening: 'Homeland'. And 'The Killing'. And 'Fresh Meat'. And 'The Hour'. / Fairport Convention's 'Liege and Lief'<br />
Hair Day: Brassy blonde and overlong. Unsure as to how to resolve the issue.<br />
<br />
I've gone absolutely crazy on folk song, all fuelled by the wondrous writings of Rob Young in his glorious overview of 20th century British folk music, '<a href="http://www.electriceden.net/" target="_blank">Electric Eden</a>'. It has made me realise that the traditional music of this country has been darkly pulsing away in my bloodstream all along, and I'm just starting to <i>really</i> feel it - or as Dave Simpson of Fairport once said 'Nothing resonates like old song'. I don't think I'm happier than when singing these old songs, and am feeling fit to burst with all the things I want to do with them. But one thing at a time. All-round wunderkind <a href="http://www.majiker.com/" target="_blank">MaJiKer </a>will be producing my 'birdlore' songs for some sort of first <a href="http://youarewolf.com/" target="_blank">You Are Wolf </a>album; and I'm working on a wee set about London's lost rivers, whose buried meanderings feel like latent folk songs in themselves, with Leeds music-mash-upping 7 Hertz.<br />
<br />
And so on to spreading the Good Word: I'm bang into my Wigmore Hall community chamber opera workshops, seeking out traditional songs and stories from 9-year olds, elderly West Londoners and a community choir. I've been planting the seeds of the idea of song-collecting amongst them, and some have done beautifully; it was especially lovely to hear a South African lullaby sung by a Year 5 pupil (and learnt from her grandmother) then recognised by two other classmates who remembered it being sung to them by South African relatives. Then there's Robert, a sweet elderly singer who, whilst in the early throes of dementia, just needs the slightest prod before he's off crooning folk songs from his Geordie childhood.<br />
<br />
I went to an evening at the <a href="http://www.efdss.org/" target="_blank">EFDSS</a> to celebrate 80 years since the library opened. Dame Shirley Collins, whose louche, dulcet tones and exquisitely flat vowels I have been sighing over of late (especially in her early album with blues/raga/roots guitarist Davy Graham, <i>Folk Roots, New Routes</i>), gave a talk about Bob Copper's song-collecting, accompanied by archive recordings and photos; then <a href="http://www.thecopperfamily.com/" target="_blank">The Copper Family</a> rolled up for a second half of singing old rural songs from Sussex, which have trickled down through generations of this famous family. It was unbelievably lovely and heartwarming, a robust sound (though I might suggest that every single arrangement being in the same key and in the same arrangement is a little uncreative) sung by two generations of siblings and cousins, and brought a tear to my eye with their last one, belted out as they hugged and kissed each other and swigged their last dregs of beer. You might as well scrape mud off some ploughed Sussex field and shove it in their mouths, such is the authenticity and honesty. It made me want to start a folk clan, made up of friends who can harmonise and are up for singing in pubs, forcing ye olde songs on unwitting hipsters in Shoreditch. I'm going to call it Foxheads. Any takers?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1dysI0Ih9BfT0-A4wauNmMhNccWJxYniFk9ib_RHS4OSxAo1rh9giDc-BVqQ8cyiBVKS87JwPgl6j9mBj5Kmcv45pjVne6-nhKYq6TV7x5XurYt88ytbtmexDTyoQuCHQ91Px/s1600/668x385-aspect-892-Keith-Julie-Tippett_photo+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1dysI0Ih9BfT0-A4wauNmMhNccWJxYniFk9ib_RHS4OSxAo1rh9giDc-BVqQ8cyiBVKS87JwPgl6j9mBj5Kmcv45pjVne6-nhKYq6TV7x5XurYt88ytbtmexDTyoQuCHQ91Px/s320/668x385-aspect-892-Keith-Julie-Tippett_photo+web.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Mix that with the singer I saw last night and voila! That's where I want to be. It's quite ridiculous that I have only very recently come across <a href="http://www.mindyourownmusic.co.uk/julie-tippetts.htm" target="_blank">Julie Tippett</a>, and her performance along with Keith at the prepared piano in a long free improv set at The Vortex made all the dots join up for me, between contemporary classical music, jazz and folk. Seeing her sing for the first time, and go between operatic-ish high notes, hardy chest voice, squeaky pointillist notes, funky vocal percussion and everything in between was an epiphany! She seemed like (NB: for Buffy fans only) The First, the one from whom everything else followed! I'm going to try and get a lesson...<br />
<br />
I had a fun - if a little close to the bone, with my score not arriving til two days beforehand - first bash at performing John Cage's <i>Aria</i> (a seminal solo 20th century coloured graphic score, where the singer needs to choose ten vocal styles to veer between) up at York Uni's monumental Cagefest, <a href="http://www.gettingnowhere.org/" target="_blank">'Getting Nowhere'</a>, along with the other juicettes. My Johnny Cash seemed to melt into my Tom Waits, by Bulgarian into my Camille, my Mariah into my Ella, but I managed to get away with it all by painting my face like a clown and using Anna's kids' toys as my required auxiliary sounds. It's very easy to be funny by holding up a musical fluffy frog and looking a bit grumpy when you look like this: (I'm told with conviction that I have a future in the circus...)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTNL3zDKvjQomQce6SXORGKpLVK_g_XYMivtzE1SIYPZvI7YxlsWMGb0nxhNMCW2re5C6aWsNLE5_AFfvLV6n4aCOo2BRkZvwNdKy6taUz_b1iK7hYcbvUAwesgp5XkivP7BI4/s1600/clownkerry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTNL3zDKvjQomQce6SXORGKpLVK_g_XYMivtzE1SIYPZvI7YxlsWMGb0nxhNMCW2re5C6aWsNLE5_AFfvLV6n4aCOo2BRkZvwNdKy6taUz_b1iK7hYcbvUAwesgp5XkivP7BI4/s320/clownkerry.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12426131.post-7014881876163465582012-10-23T03:07:00.003-07:002012-10-23T03:07:55.051-07:00100% Live Girls!<br />
Level of conviction in own genius: 7<br />
Hours of creative activity achieved in last 24 hours: 2<br />
Watching / Listening: The end of the majestic second series of 'Boardwalk Empire' / excellent Percy Grainger chamber music on Radio 3<br />
Hair Day: Thankfully settling down into a more blondey-blonde. Phew.<br />
<br />
It's been a very folky week. I met musical compadre (and hopefully producer of my first You Are Wolf album) MaJiKer for a Gilbert and George - I mean, a Turkish at Mangal 2 in Dalston, where the artist duo eat nightly - before tracking down the remarkable Dalston Boys' Club for a Nest Collective gig. What a venue! Seemingly a bohemian, near-illicit church hall, it's packed full of slightly risque paintings of nude men proudly displaying their crotches, along with stone cupids and strange dolls; it has an out-of-tune baby grand and tons of dank armchairs and candles. Sam Lee, of the Nest Collective, warned us gleefully in his welcome that it was an illegal (unlicensed) gig, and that the police could bust in at any moment and stop everything. I crossed my fingers all night for the fuzz to burst in noisily to find a load of Dalstonites sitting on the floor listening attentively to Julie Murphy or the Ballina Whalers singing a sea shanty. Alas, it never happened!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbci3I_PQGbI2kjER3OKmzwxYPPrCbF5oDN2S6p2B9T6Q-fjKfJMIGXYE0VRhkHDIEieFdM1cUSB9SkIlzXYeQ50PXmbnoSV1vvAimwCxnceRZjLHX3sqio8Vpph5V3F722ovN/s1600/dalston+boys+club.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbci3I_PQGbI2kjER3OKmzwxYPPrCbF5oDN2S6p2B9T6Q-fjKfJMIGXYE0VRhkHDIEieFdM1cUSB9SkIlzXYeQ50PXmbnoSV1vvAimwCxnceRZjLHX3sqio8Vpph5V3F722ovN/s320/dalston+boys+club.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It was my huge pleasure to have Scottish folk hero Alasdair Roberts come and play in my series at Handel House, and even more so to sing a couple of numbers with him. He is currently performing a lot of his new, epic, characteristically raven-dark material, which belies his very charming and sweet nature, as I found by putting him up in Camberwell that night. I also managed to go to dinner with not just my favourite folk singer but my favourite poet Robin Robertson as well (his friend, and I've set some of his work), in an abrasive evening of grizzled Scots art-kingpins.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8sndKHzjzeNdK5WRcd_AHdO2EZt4_3vsGP0Qgj61r3-GK8dk0Bn1opNa8qsfOwUkWQW1RUayjENQ8Du0rS41NI3Q8wH9VYbb0FLuVid9VcbCBNWbspw3-zbFtwR3_o2RDonUH/s1600/alasdair.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8sndKHzjzeNdK5WRcd_AHdO2EZt4_3vsGP0Qgj61r3-GK8dk0Bn1opNa8qsfOwUkWQW1RUayjENQ8Du0rS41NI3Q8wH9VYbb0FLuVid9VcbCBNWbspw3-zbFtwR3_o2RDonUH/s1600/alasdair.jpeg" /></a></div>
<br />
In a whirlwind weekend, I put on what I called on Twitter <i>100% Live Girls!</i> but was actually 60% live girls and 40% live bassist husband and electronica wizard Graham Dowdall. The Vortex needed a last-minute gap filled, so I volunteered my You Are Wolfing services, plus the fantabulous Laura Moody and Roshi feat. Pars Radio. It turned out to be a pretty magical gig, a lovely crowd that included folk denizens Nancy Wallace, Lisa Knapp and Sharron Kraus. Hurrah! Perhaps this will revive mine and Andy's idea of putting on <i>100% Live Girls!</i> , cutting-edge music by girls, in a strip joint once a month. It certainly helps with my blog audience numbers - I noticed that there was a significant peak of readers in my last-but-one blog, 'Schnittke Hot! And An Incredible Encounter'. Hhm. Expect all posts to sound slightly salacious from now on.<br />
<br />
juice have just launched their first crowd-funding mission: to commission beatboxer supremo (and more recently, composer) Shlomo, and to work/co-write more with MaJiKer. If you're interested in being part of our band of commissioners, please do <a href="http://wefund.com/project/juice-collaborations-with-shlomo-and-majiker/p55825/" target="_blank">visit our wefund site and check out all of the amazing presents and incentives you can earn yourself</a>!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4RLDtQvdxLd92ZkflJmJJqxD6BFC1_DrR-n4UN9iXgUzzcANxEi46GpN12PVYFB6i7J9dbKQ27s1GUsW8tMK7dyAUsbjNEAlqq28FFwGyCyZiG4vheib72KYSwU3aWaeRNJZ8/s1600/Juice+Sholmo+Majiker+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4RLDtQvdxLd92ZkflJmJJqxD6BFC1_DrR-n4UN9iXgUzzcANxEi46GpN12PVYFB6i7J9dbKQ27s1GUsW8tMK7dyAUsbjNEAlqq28FFwGyCyZiG4vheib72KYSwU3aWaeRNJZ8/s320/Juice+Sholmo+Majiker+.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I'm currently starting preparatory work on my community chamber opera for Wigmore Hall. It's in the very early stages, but as it's been commissioned as part of Wigmore Hall's Britten centenary celebrations next year, the themes are folksong/lore and the outsider figure. I am reading Marina Warner's excellent book on the male grotesque figure in folk history, 'No Go The Bogeyman'; did you know that the word 'bug' comes from words such as 'boggle', which meant the Devil, also called the Lord of the Flies in the Bible? Strange that variants on words for bogeymen are now <a href="http://www.bugaboo.com/" target="_blank">leading brands of yummy mummy prams</a>, the very thing parents were supposed to protect against...<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0