spoken word album

Music Collaborations and Swans…

In 2006, at The Permanent Gallery in Brighton, Jay Clifton organised “An Evening With a Theremin” at which three spoken word performers were accompanied by three theremin players. I was paired with Caroline Weeks (formally of Bat For Lashes). Here she is singing about swans:

I was inspired to purchase my own theremin and performed with it on many occasions, putting it through a reverb peddle to create ethereal reverberations:

Here is The Swan played on the theremin:

In 2008, at Brighton’s Phoenix Gallery I performed a monologue and some stories with a live musical saw soundtrack by the excellent multi-instrumentalist Jules Lawrence. Here he is playing the saw:

Here is The Swan played on the saw:

In 2010 at Brighton’s Upstairs at the 3 & 10 venue, I performed a lengthy story with a live soundtrack performed by Sam Walker’s band The Adventurists (harp, double base, percussion, slide guitar). Sam co-wrote and produced the album Zim Zam Zim by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, which I am very fond of so here it is:

In the same year, I organised and compered The Holistic Cabaret at Brighton’s The Hope, during which I performed with Anna Walkenhorst on trumpet and Rosi Lalor on guitar.

In 2020 I worked with Jules Lawrence again when he asked if I would provide some very short stories for various actors to voice over original soundtracks composed and performed by Jules and fellow multi-instrumentalist Mark Wilson. We made an album of 9 tracks. Here is one of them:

The whole album can be listened to here:

https://mrwilsonlawrencescabinetofcuriosities.bandcamp.com/album/strange-sounding-stories

The recordings proved popular so Jules asked to collaborate again. We made two more albums, again with me providing the words, and actors voicing the stories over music composed by Jules and Mark. Here is the second album:

https://mrwilsonlawrencescabinetofcuriosities.bandcamp.com/album/stranger-sounding-stories

And here is the third album:

https://mrwilsonlawrencescabinetofcuriosities.bandcamp.com/album/strangest-sounding-stories

To be continued…