Hello there!
It’s been almost a month since you heard from my initial newsletter and a whole fun festival happened in that time!
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now that we’ve covered that, onto some news:
Manchester International Festival
It’s not every day a £200+ million arts venue opens on your doorstep. So it’s been a lot of fun discovering what they’ve put on this year at MIF (and also to finally commit to going to a lot of the events). Here are some highlights:
KAGAMI
There is, in reality, a virtual me.
This virtual me will not age, and will continue to play the piano for years, decades, centuries.
Will there be humans then?Will the squids that will conquer the earth after humanity listen to me?
What will pianos be to them?
What about music?
Will there be empathy there?Empathy that spans hundreds of thousands of years.
Ah, but the batteries won’t last that long.—Ryuichi Sakamoto, 2023
This was an incredible experience. KAGAMI was a collaboration between the late Ryuichi Sakamato and Tin Drum - a studio that make mixed reality events. We were placed into a large room and given special goggles that would place a virtual Sakamato in the centre of the space, playing his music and inviting the audience to inspect and listen from every angle, as visuals swept around the space.
I’ve got to say, that it was definitely more than a gimmick. I think Tin Drum did a really great job elevating the performances with snow falling through a window, illuminating Sakamato, or a whirlwind of stars ejecting from a tree to fade into a giant milky way galaxy surrounding you at every angle. There were a few moments that inevitably the technology took me outside of the performance from glitches or poor resolutions for the graphics, but it’s a really fascinating harbringer of what could come for the future - especially bearing in mind that Sakamato passed away earlier this year and we were still able to enjoy a powerful performance in something that felt almost live. To end off here’s a funny photo of what it looked like if you weren’t wearing goggles during the performance.
All right, good night & untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play
These two shows delivered a really interesting juxtaposition of what can be interesting and impactful in theatre. All right, good night was the English language speaking premiere from Rimini Protokoll of a story that blends the story of the Malaysian Airlines MH370 flight disappearance, with the director’s experience of losing their father to dementia. It was fascinating to see how the narrative would interchange between these two timelines and find reflection and parallels in their arcs. It was accompanied by a contemporary score from Barbara Morgenstern performed live on stage, and the main way of telling the story came from text overlaid on a translucent screen across the stage. This meant that, combined with the eye-watering runtime of 2 hours 20 minutes without a break, it demanded focus from the audience. Without this, however, it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as impactful, so it’s precisely because of these things that the show was challenging and effective.
On the other side of Manchester, was untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play which parodied the bastardisation of Asian stereotypes through a groundhog day-esque journey through a lot of well known stories. We started with a lot of laughs, especially at the token “mystic east” interpretation of popular tunes such as Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On during scene changes. The tone becomes a lot more serious as the play progresses and breaks its own conventions of interaction between narrators/fourth walls and gives screen time to intergenerational perspectives on tokenisation. What really came out of it though, was a fight for control of the narrative, and an understanding of what that meant to different people. A big hats-off to Mei Mac in the lead role who must feel completely exhausted after the emotional physicality of each performance.
Comet is Coming
This was a really special gig. Comet is Coming is an incredible collaboration between three musicians of tenor sax, live synth and drums to create a hybrid of raw, energetic funky dance. A big mention goes to Shabaka Hutchings on sax who is actually hanging up the saxophone at the end of this year (see post below for reasons why):
but the music was incredible:
Festival Square
Festival square has offered many delights in live music. Here are a few:
Caitlin LM
Caitlin LM wowed the audience with a powerful hit of ethereal vocals and sweeping electronica combined with live strings. Her music lies somewhere between Bonobo and Jon Hopkins. She’s a huge talent and her latest single is out! Check it below.
Agbeko
For those who don’t know them, Agbeko are a 12-piece afro-beat/psych/rock/funk group from Manchester. I’ve not seen them live for a while as they’ve been in an intensive period writing new material with an album on the way, but they absolutely KILLED IT. The performance was vibrant, high octane and tight, and the new music sounded incredible. They’re going to be on tour in October, so sign up to their mailing list here if you want a piece of the action.
Joy Unspeakable
Headed up by Amy Hailwood and her theatre company, Ordinary Glory, Joy Unspeakable is a show that explores disordered eating through four verbatim accounts of women at different points in their journey through theatre, music and dance. I initially came on board as part of the R&D (Research & Development) phase as the composer and musical director a couple of years ago, and now we’re gearing up towards a tour, which is very exciting! As a part of that, I’ve been working closely with Amy to develop the main songs, musical identity and lyrics for the songs in the show, and it has been SO FUN! The songs range from choral, to indie, to riot grrl punk, techno, and even a little bit of Bulgarian folk singing. The powerful thing about all of these songs is that they all present a different relationship with vulnerability through the vocal singing style which reflects back aspects of the characters and script at different moments.
In a truly SNEAK preview that nobody has heard yet, here’s a glimpse of what one of the songs, Mother’s Milk sounds like. It’s about aspects of toxic attitudes that are fed through learnt behaviour in families.
Also, obviously it won’t be me singing and will have live instruments
Here’s also a little video from the R&D.
Originals Project
There’s some good news incoming! Whispers of a single being released in late September and possibly a single-release gig. Keep your eyes peeled as I will be revealing all in this newsletter. I can actually share the album artwork for the first release, Elegy:
Since that’s all I’m going to share right now, here’s a short paragraph on how bloody brilliant my band are. This is my first time actually leading a band and so they’re incredibly patient with me working with versions of parts and the best way to hand music over to them. I am continually humbled by their skill and playing. Some things that they are up to:
Tom Drew is an amazing composer and artist, whilst having just finished a PhD on identity and non-conformism in 1980s Siberia .
David McFarlane plays in several phenomenal bands (Kites, HIPPO), is an absolute wizard with technology, a facilitator and has his own brilliant newsletter that it would make a lot of sense for you to follow now.
Claire Cope is an amazing pianist and composer. Her music is seriously stunning - here’s an album she wrote a couple of years back. She’s also in the process of bandleading a new project (whilst balancing that with teaching AND childcare!) so please keep your eyes peeled.
Dan Springate whilst being a wonderful bassist within my band, is an incredible cellist and regularly plays with Ben Cipolla. In his free time he also co-runs BOTHY which is an organisation focused on creating spaces for classical and chamber music to rehearse and be performed around Manchester.
Will Shaw is a brilliant drummer that has so many projects going on: balo - ia harp/drums duo with some upcoming dates in September (check the insta!), Assembly Trio - a guitar trio playing contemporary jazz originals, and Life Aquatic Band - they have a new album out on Friday called Free Summer, out on bandcamp! and are playing The Old Abbey Taphouse (manchester) if you’re free!
Things I have been enjoying:
Holidays - I’ve just been in Borneo for two and a half weeks enjoying spotting nature, climbing mountains and snorkelling (for the first time ever!). If you’re interested in hearing about what I got up to, then please just pop me a message as I’ve got an informal update from the hols.
Barbenheimer - I actually preferred Barbie to Oppenheimer. I think Barbie was a bit easier to enjoy from the relentless cultural references, vibey soundtrack and jokes. Oppenheimer was a very interesting and well made film, but I do think that sometimes biopics in this way have a tendency to glorify (even if the film doesn’t specifically glorify them) the actions or aura around a person, which I don’t always agree with.
‘Salem’s Lot - I’m a huge Stephen King fan but haven’t actually read a lot of his back catalogue (or you could say, ‘original’), so I’m having great fun discovering it. This was a beautiful homage to Bram Stoker’s Dracula combined with a midwest twist - I wouldn’t say it was that scary though, I think vampires have really been a bit overdone by now.
Something fun and silly:
A couple of months ago I took part in a mini, quickfire geolocation challenge. There’s a YouTube channel I follow called GeoWizard. He’s a guy from Birmingham that made his name from originally playing a lot of a game called Geoguessr (in which you’re placed anywhere in the world on Google Maps Streetview and have to work out where you are), but a lot of the direction moved to real life challenges, many along the lines of traversing countries in a straight line and passing obstacles in the way. It’s great fun. A month or two ago, he posted a small video giving away £1k in cash in a small money box, if you could only work out from the clues in the video, where it was. From some intense Google Earthing, cross referencing landscapes in the video and a pub close to Bakewell, I located the box within about a 100m radius, about a one hour drive away in the Peak District. I had meetings in the morning however, so had to wait until lunch to retrieve it, and when we were twenty minutes away, he announced it had been found! A big shame as it had been in the right area too. Oh well, sometimes it’s fun to try.
That’s it from me, chat soon,
and don’t forget to subscribe if you want to hear more
Pierre