To Kill A Mockingbird - Christopher Sergel

Many will remember holding copies of To Kill A Mockingbird in class many moons ago. Outside the Theatre Royal this evening, a large crowd of teenagers were being assembled by teachers; a new generation exposed, getting ready to see what they have been reading in class reimagined in Christopher Sergel’s now-touring stage adaptation.
   
    As all are finding their seats, the stage is bare, except for a sturdy tree with a rubber-tire swing hanging from one of the branches, and some chairs and a bed tucked to the right hand side. The conversation is lively and loud on this well-attended opening night but a firm whistle from one of the actors raises the attention to the full cast now at the front of the stage, each holding a copy of Harper Lee’s novel, and the play begins.

    Each taking turns to read an opening passage of Scout’s account from the original text, the play outlays a device it will use throughout, helping to move each scene to flow into the next, and to narrate this tale of courage, prejudice and hope for justice with the eyes and innocence of a young girl’s perspective.

    This production benefits from being seen from a balcony, as the cast quickly build the town in a two-dimensional map on the floor in chalk and set the locations that various characters will visit throughout the story, including Mrs Dubose’s and Boo Radley’s homes, and the jail where Tom Robinson awaits his fate. The first half of the play runs quickly from scene-to-scene, introducing various tensions and relationships, each being presented like a miniature fable within this larger essay on humanity. Luke Potter adds a further depth to the spirits in this town with light accompanying music from a tenor ukulele or steel-string guitar, and singing too.

    In the second half, the story is played out in an extended courtroom scene where Atticus Finch (whose enduring strength throughout is portrayed excellently by Daniel Betts,) unravels the lies and prejudices of the prosecuting witnesses, including the drunk and abusive Bob Ewell, whose villainy is instantly palpable the minute Ryan Pope swaggers the character on stage. By the time the wrongly-accused Tom Robinson relays his perspective on the events, the whole theatre was hanging on to Zachary Momoh’s understated and powerful delivery.

    As the original story is given heart and strength from its strong youthful characters, the future of theatre is given light for the acting quality of its cast’s younger members. It’s hard to believe that this is Jemima Bennett’s debut role acting in professional theatre as she confidently moves within Scout’s skin, showing us all of the character’s cockiness and confusion. The chemistry between the actors playing the three childhood companions is wonderfully natural, with each also making individual moments memorable too; Harry Bennett as Jem tearing up the flowers, and Leo Heller as Dill telling his exaggerated stories.

    Though rich in moments and detail, the show flew by and as the lights faded on Atticus and Scout, the audience pounced into applause before the blackout. As the clapping went long and beyond any social formality, each member of the cast humbly raised their copy of the book to show their debt to this brilliant story. 

[2015.04.21] for NARC Magazine.

Martin Gore - MG - Album Review

MG is an assertive set of sixteen short instrumentals from Depeche Modes’ Martin Gore; a follow-up record to the techno-inspired album Ssss, which he made with fellow Depeche Mode member Vince Clarke. Here, Gore takes full control and produces a setlist just short of an hour, portraying many unique spirits and painting lots of contrasting moods. You will be exhausted by the end, but in the best possible way; like when the house-lights come up after a wild, late-night thriller. 

This electronic odyssey pings into action with the plinky syncopated broken-chords of Pinking. Around the clockwork progression rough scrapes build and intensify. As quickly as this sense of urgency has blossomed, Swanning follows, like a darkness below the drains, a beast lurking in the sewer. Gore has created an album of moments, often just two-to-three minutes in length, with a rounded central character, each memorable and intense. I could elaborate on all of them, but that would take away the fun for the first-time listener.

A few distinguished mentions: The swaggering limbs of Stealth, with its EQ constantly stretching in the unrest, Europa Hymn, using pulled pitching to bend sorrowful melodies, and the confident Crowly, bold and shining with various colours as its croaking pulse ceases to relent. 

Though there is nothing in the labelling of the tracks or artwork to indicate a narrative or concept to the record, the mind cannot help but recall or invent images to marry with what the ears are hearing. It would be a mixed blessing to have to create a video with this music; a luxury because these sounds would amplify a scene, being so vivid and exciting, but also a curse, for it would be a huge responsibility to compliment these tracks with images that further expand their already multidimensional world.

By titling this record with his initials, this experienced musician outlays a considered confidence by presenting this new phase of musical direction, for all intents and purposes, in his name - as he did, compounding it with his collaborator’s for the previous outing - VGMG. This confidence is demonstrated in the material, which balances continual enthusiasm with tasteful clarity. The album cover image of a hand-drawn potentiometer gives a hugely understated hint of the apparatus that will be supplying the sounds manipulated within, however, it also fairly communicates the focus and love that Gore has for these electronic instruments.

What makes the tracks on MG so striking is the efficiency of their design; each is orchestrated with only the necessary timbres. Often snippets of melodies and motifs highlight negative space in the linear parts. This kind of melodic construction invites your mind to imagine motion beyond what is being told to your ear, in the same way an author might offer clues to a characters path, leaving you to imagine what might have happened. This unpatronising style of composition welcomes the listener inside, creating the opportunity for a much stronger emotional connection and investment. It is clear from this cornucopia that Gore’s goat’s horn is far from drought, and I, for one, would relish in a further instalment from this sonic-cinematic direction.

[2015.04.12] for NE:MM Magazine.

Richard Dawson / Vibracathedral Orchestra / Phil Tyler - Live at The Star & Shadow, Newcastle

Having launched his incredible album, Nothing Important, at the Star & Shadow in the winter of last year, Richard Dawson returns tonight to play the first gig of his UK Tour once again on this homely stage.

The two supporting acts shine through the evening’s sky like the sun and moon crossing Dawson’s soul. First on, Phil Tyler stands steady and loyal as he retells melodies from both sides of the Atlantic using his banjo for divination. As the opening instrumental ‘No Wealth But Life’ draws focus from the spirited audience, many new eyes and ears fill into the room until it is packed full. Tyler’s performances are always modest, with his presence on stage almost bashful. This allows the instrumentals and songs to be witnessed and understood apart from the person playing them. By seeing such devotion, it is important to recognise Tyler as not just an excellent and skilled musician, but as someone committed to his passions for their own virtue.

As a styrofoam head presented at the front of the stage is adorned with headphones, and an A4 photocopy picture of Lou Reed is casually taped to the back curtain, the signs are set that Vibracathedral Orchestra’s performance will be abrasive, but boy, few were prepared! From a stage littered with instruments, The Leeds quartet took few moments to arrive at a torrent of sound which they then joyously improvised around and within for close to an hour. Phil Tyler’s considered approach is now balanced by this uncertainty and wilderness. Childhood curiosity was ever present in their eyes as each band-mate explored different instruments; from guitars, to synths, to percussion, to recorders. A fake severed hand lay on the floor throughout but was not utilised. Though their faces were lined with a million stories, these men were growing younger as they played. Though some members of the audience were defeated by the power of the sound, this unapologetic tirade was a strangely fitting purifier for the ears about to listen to tonight's headliner.   

With ale gleaming in his cheeks, Richard Dawson takes merriment in being a few minutes early onto the stage and enjoys joking with many characters in the crowd. Though clearly excited by this christening date in his calendar, friendly support in the audience is palpable and Dawson rides the waves with grace. As the opening motif to Man Has Been Struck Down By Hands Unseen is recognised, excitement curls in the faces watching and whatever has lead up to this moment has passed - the night now belongs to this music. 

Perhaps because of the heat in the room, or exhaustion, our singer’s voice is more strained than usual, with some of the falsetto notes falling into breath. This huskier and angular quality in his vocals however helped make tonight’s version of The Vile Stuff as violent a march as it has ever been. The fire in this performance was lapped up as one of the evening’s highlights, with the crowd singing favourite lines loudly, and laughing with its humour.

The setlist was a rich tribute to his album The Magic Bridge, filled predominantly with songs from that record with a few inclusions from the two following albums. 

When Dawson removed his jumper for the final portion of his set to reveal a Thelonious Monk T-shirt, there was something wonderfully childlike about how blushing he was of this item of clothing. Though depicting one of his heroes, he indicated it was an arbitrary clothing decision. Maybe so… 

A plethora of surprises made the denouement anything but formal. From an improvised verse of song playfully mocking his idiosyncrasies, to performing lines of dialogue from the Pacino/De Niro movie Heat, to putting the guitar into standard tuning! and then fumbling his way through Roy Orbison’s In Dreams. To finish he resurrected I Will Make It Up To You from his 2007 album, Sings Songs and Plays Guitar and the song’s bold romance capped the night perfectly.

As goodbyes are said, Dawson gives thanks to The Star and Shadow. Though the rooms now full of life and history are sadly soon to be relinquished, the community that built such a vibrant place, as our troubadour correctly identifies, will start a new lease of life in their next settlement. Long may they live! 

[2015.02.07] for NE:MM Online Magazine.

Group Of The Atlos - R U Person Or Not - Album Review

Group Of The Atlos is the name of a society of musicians that has grown around its five original members that formed in 2006. As a whole, they display traits common to post-rock practices, operating as a flexible set of players servicing the songs they compose with individual egos not rising above the resonating character of the work. Various vocalists and instrumentalists may be given a moment of focus in a track, but such displays do not provide the listener with evidence of what a future composition might be constructed from.

    Following a project scoring a film in 2013, the Wisconsin collective returned to recording this eight-track LP, R U Person Or Not. Throughout this new album, much of the music is weighty and sombre. Learning To Share opens with a slow waltz of guitar octaves. From this introduction, the texture crescendos as many guitar and brass counterparts are added. This building passage instantly supports their instrumental-rock influences. We hear similar building sections later, too - (the endings of News From Wino and On Wreck for example.)

    to: Saviour follows up, incorporating a soulful and wailing lead rock-vocal, roaming around the pentatonic scale, as the other instrumentation effectively peddles the route note. Such a style of singing is unusual within an album of more progressive arrangements like this one, for often such ornamentation and flamboyance in technique is considered immodest and individualistic amongst the post-rock purists. That kind of attitude is a lazy stereotype, and it is to Group Of The Atlos’ credit to include this vocal sound: a welcome additional timbre, giving a rich colour to this record’s rainbow.

   

    Fucks With Us presents one of the album’s most surprising sonic inclusions: a Jamaican-accent-inflected sung rap, leading a slow minor-skank. Out of delirious repetitions of ‘forgive me, forgive me,’ a manic stream of lyrical confession breaks out, resilient through to the song’s conclusion.

    Coplight uses it penultimate position to patiently wind together the roads of the record, carefully unfolding a melancholic duet. A true moment of intimacy is carved out (away from the earlier storms) by blending a solo male and a solo female’s vocal over soft instrumentation.

    The album concludes in a wonderfully farcical fashion with the spooky flash-groove of Forgiveness Rules. The paralleling vocals with guitar wails, and the celebratory energy perfectly off-setting the ernest resonances of the penultimate track.

    With the deliberately naive title of the record, and altered-skull artwork, we are given clues that, as listeners, we might experience an album focussed on some aspects of humanity (existentialism perhaps?,) and though each track is quite unique sonically, it is for this philosophical focus that the set forms as a coherent collection.

    R U Person Or Not certainly contains unique sounds, thoughtfully chosen and performed. The use of overlapping various voices throughout cleverly supports an idea of unity as an antidote against existential isolation considered in the lyrics: From the various vocalists occupying different frequencies within the crowd-chanting of Gun, and On Wreck, to the lyrical phrases completed from the gendered voices, hand-in-hand on Coplight. The variety of colour and influence throughout stimulates imagination in the listener’s mind. Such a display of so many styles, from track-to-track, makes it an enigmatic record as a whole, with certain portions resonating at different sittings.

   

[2015.02.01] for NE:MM Magazine.

Sebastian Beurkner - The Chimera Of M.

As you approach the recently constructed third floor space of The Tyneside Cinema (The Gallery) staff hand out 3D glasses and direct you to enter the room where Sebastian Buerkner’s movie-installation is showing. The film plays out on a large screen at the end of the black room. It is in constant rotation throughout the day (with a brief five minute interval after each run.) 

The twenty-five minute first-person exploration (The Chimera of M.) is made up of separate scenes from the perspective of a character journeying home to visit two people from their past with which they have been intimately acquainted. Apparently this narrative was inspired by a passage in Buerkner’s own life. Each visitation is unwound through alternating scenes, and with each framed moment, the audience is challenged to imagine, both the rest of the scene, and what past may have informed the current situations and behaviours.

Buerkner’s use of 3D technology is much more provocative than its common application to enhance realistic imagery. Though the content of the scenes is routed in a world we would know, moving two-dimensional shapes and vibrant colours are layered in a three-dimensional space to give a more symbolic representation of artefacts. By presenting images which require closer inspection to understand and relate to, as an audience member you feel immersed in the perspective of the character and the intimacy of their interactions. 

Though the piece is a celebration of how to engage an audience in 3D visuals in an unpatronising and sensual way, The Chimera of M. suffers for its supporting dialogue, which often lands half-way between naturalistic exchanges and pretension. With such imagination present in the visuals, to explore more suggestive speech elements (or vocal sounds) might have deepened the emotional connection with the audience. The other sonics enhancing the scenes (bubbles, clinking glasses etc.,) flesh the experience well.

Within a mostly ernest experience, the artist pokes occasional fun at the medium he has utilised: For example, an opening slide of an opticians eye-test chart draws attention to the limitation of our focus as viewers, and later, our character tries to thread a pen back into its lid, which the visited person is holding. Here, our hand holding the pen is shown missing the hole of the lid because, as the visited character explains, we have one eye shut. This scene acknowledges how simple relationships become problematic when the third dimension is missing. 

With works like Buerkner’s The Chimera of M., The Gallery is already proving itself a worthy compliment to the other spaces within this wonderful cinema, offering visitors the chance to explore other visual art forms relevant to cinema and film. The place where you have previously enjoyed a more traditional movie outing now offers a space to experience more experimental constructions. Once more, the Tyneside Cinema’s curators continue to inspire.

[2015.01.20] for NARC Magazine.

of Montreal - Aureate Gloom - Album Review

March welcomes another album from Georgia State’s finest purveyor’s of streaming introspections and musical erections, and once again, with Aureate Gloom, of Montreal treat us to a wall-to-wall sprawl of ideas, visiting a seemingly impossible amount of influences across the ten tracks.

Their familiar style of funk kicks off the record; firstly, with the single, Bassam Sabry, a rebellious groove lyrically set within the environment of the Egyptian Revolution, and following that up with Last Rites At The Jane Hotel, a song reflecting upon Barnes’ recent stay in Greenwich Village. Empyrium Crown is driven by a smooth pumping bassline, leaving our singer’s trademark self-harmonising vocals exposed in the foreground; as ever dreamy, melancholic and sensual. The pace of the record is intermittently broken with the slow-motion solid air of Aluminium Crown, before the energy returns.

In general, the softer folk and blues influences of Lousy With Sylvianbriar are left behind to give room for more rock’n’roll revelling, such as the likes of Monolithic Egress, bold with its four-to-the-floor drumming, and Chtonian Dirge For Uruk The Other raging against its leash, ripping with distortion and discords.

Barnes’ song titles once more relish in the less used areas of the English lexis and his lyrical phraseology is as ever scenic around its central points. Though seemingly sincere in trying to capture the chaos in his mind and relaying it, Barnes’ use of volatile juxtaposition in his lyrics (along with similar musical variation) walks that wonderful line of communication: At any one point, should this be taken earnestly or with a pinch?

Continued audacity and perfectionism keep their catalogue free from any potholes. Though False Priest flourished for its perverse sonic meanderings, both Lousy With Sylvianbriar and this latest release are exciting for the songwriting.

[2015.01.19] for NARC Magazine.

Darren Hayman - Chants For Socialists - Album Review

With his new album ‘Chants For Socialists,’ Darren Hayman once again utilises wisdom from British History, this time imagining songs from the poetic works of socialist William Morris to create a focussed LP, illuminating hope through community in these times of economic disparity.

A gorgeous a cappella song opens, outlining the records key lyrical themes, performed with a sturdy energy and unity that matches the philosophy. Though this excites the possibility that the whole album could be arranged for voices, Hayman breaks back into familiar guitar-based orchestration, with brass and snare-drum inflections referencing politically charged marches throughout. 

It is encouraging amongst a sea of songwriters with their eyes elsewhere, that there is someone bravely facing this immediate political situation with wisdom and care.

[2015.01.19] for NARC Magazine.