I Eat Music

Last weekend began in an interesting way. I found myself wandering through derelict tunnels underneath Waterloo Station, where I stumbled upon a small theatre.

Okay, I was expecting the theatre to be there, I’m not generally in the habit of wandering into damp, smelly tunnels in the hope of finding entertainment. No matter what you’ve heard. I was there because the Old Vic has commandeered part of the space deep underneath the train station for a series of events this year.

Last week saw two performances of graphic novel writer Alan Moore’s new spoken word album, ‘Unearthing’, with musical backing provided by Crook&Flail (aka Adam ‘Doseone’ Drucker and Fog’s Andrew Broder).

On paper, it doesn’t sound like much: Alan Moore delivers a biography of one of his friends, writer Steve Moore (no relation), set to abstract electronic music with accompanying photographs by Mitch Jenkins projected on a screen behind the stage. In fact, it sounds quite pretentious. And maybe it was a little, but that was easily diffused by Moore’s fantastic writing and unforced humour, all delivered in his distinct Northampton accent.

The story, told over the course of three hours (with two fifteen minute intervals), was far more grand, epic even, than you could possibly expect of a biography of a comic writer who has lived in the same house in Shooter’s Hill – “where Kent begins and London disappears” – for his entire life, save for a misjudged period of three months. It goes back through the history of the area, treating it as much as a character as anyone or anything else in the story, and through the eventual meeting of his parents before getting on to his travels through the words of comics and the occult.

As Moore spoke, Drucker and Broder’s soundtrack (played with the help of Jeff ‘Jel’ Logan), swooped and swelled behind him, rising up to add to the drama, or falling completely away to punctuate the story. Jenkins’ photography and graphical interpretations added yet more tone and colour, though the focus was always the words.

In fact, perhaps the most impressive thing was the delivery of the words. In three hours, Moore never fluffed one of them. Never stumbled, coughed or even, as far as I could hear, breathed. It was a completely hypnotic, gripping and intense show; that intensity ramped up by the fact that we were sitting in a damp, dark tunnel with rusted corrugated iron hanging from the ceiling and the entire space often shaken around us by the deep rumble of overhead trains. Simply stunning.

Taken from my editorial in this edition of CMU Weekly.

It’s all been about the iPad this week, hasn’t it? Well, not all of it, but certainly some of it. And, in some small part, that has been my fault.

First off, tech blog Pocket-lint asked me to contribute to a feature called How The Apple iPad Will Change The World. I gave my thoughts on what effect it might have on the music industry both before and after the launch.

Then, not content with filling other people’s publications with my words, I went and dedicated my editorial in CMU Weekly to the iPad, as well. Here’s what that looked like:

I do so love an Apple product launch. The hype that always precedes them can only ever mean that the new thing Steve Jobs trots out with will be a big disappointment by comparison.

I suspect that this might be part of the plan, though. People always flock to point out that the latest Apple gadget is pointless, unoriginal and over-priced. And then what happens? Once the products are actually released – with our expectations reduced a little – those devices seem rather cool. And so you have the iPod, the iTunes Store, the iPhone and all the rest. The impact all those things have had is undeniable, despite all the initial naysaying.

Will that be the case with the iPad? Only time will tell. So far its main contribution to the world is to fill Twitter with jokes about “Dom Joly’s new iPhone” and iTampons. It’s certainly not the home computer replacement I was hoping for, and nor am I going to start carrying one around in my bag instead of my iPhone (I’ll still need that for phonecalls, if nothing else). However, if, as I suspect, the iPad turns out to really be the uber-terminal for accessing online content, at home or on the move, it becomes more attractive.

Following their purchase of digital music platform Lala.com late last year, it’s been rumoured Apple might launch a service that would let you store your entire iTunes library online, ready to be accessed from anywhere. If that included films as well as music, and assuming WiFi and mobile internet connections can handle it, you’ve suddenly got a fast, friendly and lightweight way to access all your entertainment content from anywhere.

I’m not entirely sure if that’s something worth having in addition to a laptop. Possibly not. But if you only really use your laptop as an online entertainment centre, well, then why have a laptop at all? And you should never underestimate Apple’s ability to sell something people didn’t think they wanted by the millions. As with all these things, it’s the content that really makes it what it is. All you need is one truly great app to make the iPad a must-have.

Read this edition of CMU Weekly in full here.

Okay, I made a promise yesterday and today I’m breaking it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to start bleating on about another musical. No, this time I’m going to risk what little indie credibility I have left by telling you about the contemporary dance I watched last night.

Zero Degrees is a performance by dancers Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkauoi, with set design by sculptor Antony Gormley and score by Nitin Sawhney (which is how this gets onto a music blog, in case you were wondering). It’s based on an actual experience Khan had on a train in Bangladesh with a dead body and explores the transition between life and death.

The show premiered at Sadlers Wells on 8th July 2005 and it was at the same theatre last night that it was performed for the last time. Although it is often described as such, it’s very difficult to see Zero Degrees as just a dance performance. The unique styles of both Khan and Larbi are obviously the focal point, particularly Larbi’s seemingly inhuman movement in many sections, but there is vocal performance, the sparse set (just two life-sized casts of the dancers) and the haunting score, performed live with violin, cello, percussion and voice.

The spoken word sections are almost, if not equally as impressive as the dances. Performed in unison by Khan and Larbi, they have not only managed to synchronise their voices, but also their mannerisms – something that is developed and used to amazing effect as the show proceeds.

Zero Degrees is an incredibly moving work that constantly excites both visually and sonically. The 90 minute performance sped past in what seemed like less than half that time. I wanted to see it again as soon as it had finished. That isn’t going to be possible, but I’m glad I was able to see it once.

Now, watch one of these videos (or both):

1 minute compilation of clips from Zero Degrees

8 minute feature from BBC 2’s Desi DNA

Akram Khan Company website
Sadler’s Wells

Buy music by Nitin Sawhney