We hear from Charles Hayward on sound is sound is sound, a showcase of unique musical acts from the South London area, followed by afternoon workshops, sound installations and interventions in and around the Albany. The event will be held on Saturday 24 October at 7.30pm. Click here for details and booking information.
There has been a long term South East London music underground that has fed into the mainstream since the days of Mark P’s fanzine Sniffin’ Glue, ATV and This Heat. There is also a committed audience for this, feeding back into the music. Lewisham Arthouse presents SOUND IS SOUND IS SOUND with the intention of building this audience and encouraging Active Listening, which is crucial.
On the night there will be attitudes and sound worlds stretching from the schismatic rock of the Balloons through to the site specific drone meditations of Aine O’Dwyer. Albert Newton will also be playing, the members of Albert Newton are Pat Thomas, John Edwards and me. John and Pat are more from the European improvised music scene, but I am basically about grooves, cubist and fractured, but still groove, so when those two worlds collide it opens up a whole new thing, half Albert, half Newton. We’ve had people hanging off the walls at gigs, so we always start itching to play about now.
The theatre is an intriguing shape, and we plan to use it extensively, moving focus across the space and giving ears a sonic sauna, from acoustic to full on electric. New project Cold As Ice will be making interventions throughout the evening.
In the afternoon we’ve got John Lunn, heavyweight soundtrack composer, in conversation with Frank Byng, who recently scored Channel 4’s The Mill and runs the Slowfoot label. The idea is to share how to work in the media; hopefully people working on their own thing will learn a lot from this and get useful information about commissions, proposals and endless reworking of material towards a finished soundtrack. I’ll be leading a workshop called The Bell Agency, it uses fire alarm bells with no more than 10 players, and there is no need to be able to play. The Bell Agency is about constant change as events unfold, building a musical shape over time, between all of us. Harmergeddon are putting together an installation in the studio, a sort of anti-chill-out room, like a fun fair side show.
After the live performance we’ve got DJ BPM, who plays Grime all over the world on tour with players like Newham Generals and has a regular radio show on Resonance FM. There will also be a techno-edge set from Vince, a young geezer with big ears.
Hope you can make it to SOUND IS SOUND IS SOUND. Active Listening!
The Albany, Deptford 