Grand Futurist Concert of Noises

On Sunday I went to the Grand Futurist Concert of Noises at London's Science Museum, an event held by Resonance FM to mark the centenary of the first Futurist Concert staged in Britain on 15th June 1914 in accordance with Luigi Russolo's groundbreaking manifesto The Art of Noises (L'arte dei Rumori).

I wore a dress made of fabric with a print of vintage bus, tram and train tickets (a new creation to be blogged soon) reckoning this would be in concord with Futurist ideas of speed and progress, but later reading Dan Wilson's Art of Noises Centenary Souvenir Supplement in which Marinetti's ideals for futurist clothing are set out I regretted not wearing this dress instead.

Never mind, the concert was brilliant! On hand-built instruments (large scale noise making machines called intonarumori built to Russolo's original designs by Peter McKerrow with modifications by sound artist Daniel Wilson), vintage horns, theremin and playback devices broadcast through Aleksander Kolkowski's immense Exponential Horn, The Luigi Russolo Memorial Ensemble caused a tremendous commotion! It was exhilarating to hear and the audience roared in approval. Afterwards we were invited to try out the instruments and joined the long queue to have a go on Sarah Angliss's theremin.

Instruments included intonarumori, gramophone, 
theremin and the Exponential Horn

The Luigi Russolo Memorial Ensemble

 

The Grand Futurist Concert of Noises is directed by BASCA Sonic Arts Composer of the Year, Ed Baxter and performed by Marcos Gomez, Peter Lanceley, Peter McKerrow, Michael Umney, Dan Wilson plus Aleks Kolkowski (vintage sound effects), Adam Bushell (percussion) and Sarah Angliss (theremin). The ensemble will perform for a final time on Friday 20th June at Cafe Oto, Ashwin Street, London. If you're at all able to travel to London you'd be mad to miss the sonic event of the century!

The Exponential Horn is the UK's largest audio loudspeaker and will be installed at Science Museum until 27th July 2014.

C30, C60, C90, Go!

It's rumoured that cassette tapes are making a comeback. Hard to believe in an age of digital media but I'm one of the people who love listening to music on cassette. Maybe it's the fact that it's a physical medium where sound is recorded directly onto an object that makes listening to a cassette feel more vital than an MP3 file. A well played cassette's sound may distort and sometimes the magnetic tape will snap, but it's so rewarding when you've fixed it with Sellotape (after a fashion), rewound it with a pencil and when played again in a tape machine you can still hear most of the sound!

     My collection of mix-tape treasures includes Lex Luther's Revenge - a gift from DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid, and an untitled compilation of contemporary Czech and Slovak music from Heather Mount of Tamizdat. The inlay card is decorated with a hand painted swirly blob and the track listing is typed onto a folded piece of paper. Both have been played repeatedly over the years and are objects I'd never want to part with.

    So, my third batch of lavender bags this week is dedicated to cassette tape lovers everywhere. They're sachets made from MiniModerns C60 fabric which has images of retro cassettes printed in bright colours. The fabric was bought from Clothkits in Chichester who produce a wonderful sew-it-yourself skirt kit in this material.

Cassette tape lavender bags are available now in the Ivy Arch shop.

Once Upon a Time in the West of Worthing

As I cycled along the seafront this afternoon the setting sun transformed West Worthing into a blazing painted backdrop from a spaghetti western. As I looked on the scene, I recalled the rousing strains of Ennio Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold, imagining bandit Tuco running around the wooden posts and rocks at West Parade's shingle beach garden, searching for the grave of Arch Stanton.

 

Visible music

On Saturday I went to Gone With The Wind at Raven Row gallery in London where in addition to the beautiful sound artworks by Max Eastley, Walter Marchetti and Takehisa Kosugi there was a performance by 74-year-old Esther Ferrer. Ferrer was a member of Zaj along with Marchetti in Franco’s Spain providing a radical artistic alternative to the official (fascist) culture.

She’s still formidable and her brand of humorous but confrontational feminist performance art held a packed audience enthralled, including me and my six-year-old daughter. Ferrer did two pieces, one involving undressing and dressing while balancing a series of symbolic objects on her head. The other a rapid-fire explanation of art theory conducted entirely in gibberish. It really was a case of you had to be there but Esther Ferrer’s warm personality is so palpable I wanted to take her home.