On 10th October I am performing with Lauren Redhead and Amy Jolly at the Noise Upstairs venue in Withington, Manchester, in a new trio called provisionally ‘words and music’. Our concert will dedicate itself to interpretations of Lauren’s experimental texts, all of which were released, albeit in different versions on Bandcamp, as feminist pirate broadcasts. These texts are composed from a wide variety of sources, including recipes, texts on digital aesthetics, instructions for action, etc.

Lauren is not only a vocalist, but also plays ocarinas, a mini synth, and electronics, Amy is both cellist and vocalist, while I play the e-violin. Even though most of our (Amy and I) responses to Lauren’s texts are improvised, we did set about making decisions as to texture, density, and character, etc, during rehearsal.

One challenge this work has is that, as soon as text is read out, regardless of the style of the music it immediately comes to fulfil a descriptive role, often verging towards monodrama. To counter this, we decided to find ways in which all forms of sound, whether instrumental, electronic, or vocal, perform in their own right. This may mean that some of the words are missed, or that the instruments play in parallel to each other and to the voice itself. In any case, this approach develops and expands on the earlier Bandcamp recordings, the textures of which comprised solely of voice and e-violin.