Dark Continent: Part 3

Last week I performed part 2 of Tai Shani's piece at The Hayward and the final live instalment will be happening twice on Dec 6th.  Entry is free with a ticket to the exhibition.

http://mirrorcity.southbankcentre.co.uk/tai-shani-dark-continent-performances

MIRRORCITY

For the next three months, you can see the new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, MIRRORCITY, which examines our digital life in the city. Tai Shani commissioned a new music score for her piece, The Dark Continent. It's composed for synths, found sounds, bassoon and harp and exists as part of a headphone based installation featuring video screens through a viewing window and there will be 4 performances, 2 per evening of the 14th Nov and 6th Dec. The exhibition as a whole features some fascinating works, many of which involve multimedia.

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/mirrorcity-23-london-artists-86590

Chrome Hoof and Knifeworld news

Things have been busy.

Chrome Hoof recently played new Hackney venue, OSLO, with Charles Hayward in support.  We had the great pleasure of him joining us on stage to play 'Crimson Drone' with us.

We then ventured to the Midlands for a show at Nottingham Contemporary for the launch of Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and Tala Madani, with support from Aja Ireland.  It was a magnificently packed show and so lovely to play in my hometown.

Next in the pipeline?  For Chrome Hoof, it's booking shows for the rest of the year and for Knifeworld, finishing the new album.

Be, be, the 7 darknesses.

I recently performed at The Moving Museum's 'Open Heart Surgery' as part of Tai Shani's new piece.  It was an interesting collaboration between Tai, actress Gemma Brockis and me and the music was something unlike anything I have done before as it had absolutely no bassoon or sax (other than a pre-recorded fragment) and was scored for clarinet (via harmonist pedal), electric guitar (bowed and looped) and triggered samples.




The piece we made was performed live on 14th November at the launch and was exhibited (recorded form) as an installation or the duration of the show.  Nine of the artists (including Tai) were selected to have their sound pieces released as a limited edition 9-vinyl box set in a perspex box.  You can find it here...

Dodson & Fogg

I recently did some sax playing on 'Mystery' from the new Dodson & Fogg album. They have a rather marvellous video for it which you can see here....

V A L V E live performance

I am rather excited to announce that a V A L V E performance will be happening on Nov 14th at 180 The Strand as part of Tai Shani's new work, 'The 7 Darknesses: A Very Gothic Reading' at Open Heart Surgery, curated by The Moving Museum. Tai asked me to compose and perform a live score to her text, which will be performed at the exhibition. We were delighted to hear that the piece had also been selected to be released on limited edition vinyl.

"TAI SHANI/
Tai Shani will stage a performance that seeks to test the boundary between the solitary and internal experience of read literature and the public and collective experience of performed literature in relation to the imaginary space, taste and tolerance. The 7 Darknesses: A Very Gothic Reading will orchestrate a dramatic reading of Shani’s ‘De Sadian’, explicitly violent and graphic text “Be, be the seven darknesses” originally commissioned by the metal fanzine ‘Buried’, the reading will be accompanied by a live score by Chloe Herington (V A L V E)."

Manning- 'The Root, The Leaf and The Bone'

Guy Manning's new album is now out on Festival Music and I had the pleasure of playing bassoon on track 3, 'Autumn Song'.



You can find a short Q & A about it here

The album is the latest in an impressive discography from Manning and features an array of guests alongside his regular band.