Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Jamie McDermott of The Irrepressibles.

Illustration by Paolo Caravello

Illustration by Stephanie Thieullent

Illustration by Alia Gargum

Illustration by Jo Cheung

Illustration by Kellie Black

The_Irrepressibles_by_Helmetgirl
The Irrepressibles by Helmetgirl.

If Amelia’s Magazine had a wish list of character traits that would perfectly encapsulate its personality then you would struggle to surpass those of Jamie McDermott, viagra sale one of the magazines favourite performers. The founding member, page and centre piece of The Irrepressibles, could have tailored his CV to fit the remit of Amelia’s Magazine. The Irrepressibles’ creator, composer, arranger and avant garde curator wears his heart firmly on his sleeve and is intensely protective and proud of his conception, and rightly so. Their mix of love and lust, longing and tragedy is often borne out as cathartic confessionals. Jamie’s vision and passion, which he so effectively channels through his ‘performance orchestra’, were captured brilliantly, earlier this year on his bands debut album Mirror Mirror.
 
The Irrepressibles, Jamie’s very personal labour of love, have been a regular source of fascination for the Amelia’s Magazine, having been previously featured both in print and on-line. Their very original and ground breaking approach continues to push the boundaries of live popular music, as their choice of venue can also testify to. Having performed in places as diverse as Latitude Festival and the V&A, and from the Hackney Empire to a recent guest appearance at London Fashion Week you are unlikely to experience the norm.
 
It was shortly after their recent LFW performance that I managed to hook up with Jamie. With a little trepidation, a youthful excitement and a great deal of pleasure I tracked him down and interrupted his very busy schedule. I was not only hoping to get a little insight into the world of The Irrepressibles but also an idea of who Jamie really is. I wasn’t to be disappointed. Jamie talked vividly and most candidly about how it all began, where his influences have come from and above all what an incredible journey it has all been. (Just don’t mention the Pope, you’ll only be greeted with silence!) Here is Jamie McDermott from The Irrepressibles.

The_Irrepressibles_Cello_Bass_by_Helmetgirl
Cello and Bass by Helmetgirl.

Way back before the formation of The Irrepressibles was there a pivotal moment in your life where you decided that you would be a performer, a musician, a composer? What lead to your epiphany?
I had fallen in love with my best friend – another boy – and we were inseparable. He had a band and I wanted to be around him so I began to sing in it. But one night I explained how I felt. We fell apart as friends. I felt alone, I knew that I was gay and that people didn’t feel it was right… I wanted to throw myself of the cliffs of the seaside town where I lived. But when stood there in the air I heard music. My own. Instead of jumping I decided to explain to the world through music the beauty of being in love with another man in a way that everyone would understand. 

How did you go about creating The Irrepressibles, did you have a defined vision of how you were going to express yourself? Has it changed at all? Do you see it as an evolutionary process and if so what are the triggers to change? How did you all meet?
I had been writing music focused on what I wanted to say and the emotions I needed to express. I wanted to surround this emotion with a world, a soundscape that could explain the depth of feeling, so I began to work with orchestral instrumentation as they could offer the abrasive and the sublime the surreal and the polyphonic. Initially it was me and four others on a course in popular music studies. I had discovered the library and as a working class boy from North Yorkshire I was starving for the words and pictures. I read about Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren, Andy Warhol and the KLF’s work with pop music subculture, about the political force of music in the words of Atalli and Eisler and fell in love with the iconic imagery of film makers Fasbinder and Kenneth Anger. I also read about the work with spectacle by Dali, Meredith Monk with The House and Laurie Anderson amongst others. I had been seeing visions since I was a child that accompanied the music in my head, I wanted to create something and these people gave me the confidence to make my visions real. I was irritated by the manufactured pop music and it’s lack of real emotion but also the boring visual aesthetics of indie music at the time and I wanted to create something fresh and reactionary. 

 The_Irrepressibles_Fluteplayer_by_Helmetgi
Fluteplayer by Helmetgirl.

What do you see as your main influences and inspirations, both musically and personally?
The sounds of the world around me. I am most influenced by non musical elements. The world itself is musical everything from the sounds of laughter to the hum of the bus I’m sitting on now are singing. The movement of people and machines all have a complexity of nature a kind of polyphony in their interaction. My music has this interaction. As do my spectacles where movement meets light installation meets interactive set meets music meets movement to create one being of emotion – one machine of emotion. 
 
Of your contemporaries, are there any that you are listening to, any that you are finding particularly creative or challenging?
Yes Simon Bookish is incredible, I adore Peaches, Broadcast are consistently inspirational, The Knife are wonderful…

Many people have tried to capture the essence of your performance and creation without necessarily being able to convey the whole experience adequately on paper. How would you describe your music and performance?
It is an organic machine of emotion. 

The drama and theatre within your music and shows is clearly crucial and only serves to heighten the experience for the audience. At what point in the creative process does this become a consideration? Do you have a structured way of writing a song? How does it all work for you as the writer/composer?
I write automatically i.e. from my subconscious. I let my decisions be as spontanious and uncontrived as possible in order to explain fully the depths of my subconsious. I then see visions of how I can present the music in a space working with the parameters of lighting and set installation, movement and feeling. 

The_Irrepressibles_Violin_by_Helmetgirl
Violin player by Helmetgirl.

There have been comparisons drawn with your style of music to Antony Hegarty and David Bowie among others. For me there is are also the theatrics of early Marc Almond solo work such as Vermin In Ermine as well as a sympathy and empathy with a lot of New Romantic sensibilities. Where do you see your musical style?
I am very much influenced by what I would call the leneage of gay artists. I also believe that gay artists create a slightly different aesthetic of sound and visual generally – a very varied one when you consider Grizzly Bear, Owen Pallet, Patrick Wolf and Me at this time – but there is an aesthetic. I am also massively influenced by female artists like Meredith Monk and Kate Bush of course. I believe like Kate I see music and performance as innately another world a fantasy world were emotions can be better expressed – a dream. 

Many of your songs, such as In This Shirt, are very personal and clearly connect with your audience. Do you find that laying yourself bare, so to speak, gives a song more truth, depth and sincerity and as such it is more credible and infinitely more appreciated? Is that what you strive for?   
I only ever write honestly and cathartically – I am completely open but I was bullied throughout all of my schooling you get to the point were you feel pretty much naked to everyone anyway. Sometimes you wont believe it as the songs sound melodramatic but when you consider that My Friend Jo was in fact about looking in the face suicide at a time of hysterical emotions it does make sense. Why does everything have to be simple in music? Life of course is complex and polyphonic and so I believe music should be too. Sometimes my music is more simplistic because the emotion is, other times it’s like a mad person you can’t understand. We are all mentally ill in some way. 
 
Both the 2009 release, From The Circus To The Sea, and this years album, Mirror Mirror, have been very well received garnering much critical acclaim. Do you now feel the swell of expectation and public consciousness rising as your audience grows ever bigger?
It’s been nothing short of incredible. I spend most of my time talking to fans all over the world. I always feel awful when people complement my work and I don’t get back to them. I have become a whore to Facebook and Myspace… ha ha! 

You have played some decidedly different venues this year from The Roundhouse and The V&A to three shows at Latitude. How were they for you and what can everyone expect from the forthcoming shows that are due to start at the end of this month? 
At the Roundhouse the orchestra performed 10 meters in the air on moving seats, at Latitude we opened the festival with ‘Gathering Songs’ which consisted of several pieces for different parts of the orchestra that were performed desperately all over the forest over 2 and a half hours which accumulated in a spectacle on the water, the year after I created the Light and Shadow spectacle with lighting installation. The V&A commissioned me in 2009 to create a spectacle for their Baroque Exhibition then came the chance to create my Human Music Box installation which was then taken to Latitude the same year. This year I created the Mirror Mirror Spectacle which began with a commission for the Queen Elizabeth Hall. We are touring this internationally now and present it again in London at the Scala tomorrow.  

The Irrepressibles are touring into 2011, are there plans after that to record any new material or are you working on other projects, if so what are they?
I am working on my new AIR spectacle which will be premiered in Modena Italy next week. I am then going to begin work on music for a Manga Opera with Hotel Pro Forma who famously created the opera with The Knife. The next album is now half written and we should begin recording this soon. 

Thank you so much for this, I really appreciate you taking the time. Best of luck for your forthcoming shows.

Categories ,Andy Warhol, ,Antony Hegarty, ,Atalli and Eisler, ,Broadcast, ,David Bowie, ,Fasbinder, ,grizzly bear, ,Hotel Pro Forma, ,Jamie McDermott, ,Kate Bush, ,Kenneth Anger, ,KLF, ,latitude, ,Malcolm McClaren, ,Manga Opera, ,Meredith Monk, ,Mirror Mirror, ,Owen Pallet, ,Patrick Wolf, ,Peaches, ,Roundhouse, ,Simon Bookish, ,the irrepressibles, ,The Knife, ,va, ,Vivienne Westwood

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Amelia’s Magazine | Album Review: Emily Jane White – Ode to Sentience

Mary Katrantzou A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Emily Jane White by LJG Art & Illustration
Illustration by Laura Godfrey, ed LG Illustration

I know that folk music isn’t all organic, this web whole foods, and love – or indeed deep lust – buried in a haystack. Happy all day, before campfires and passions at night. No, folk musicians don’t spend their days wearing slightly grubby lumberjacks or floaty, ethereal frocks. See evidence: Grizzly Bear aren’t happy all the time and Bon Iver is a delightfully melancholy chap. And then just listen to Nick Drake and young Laura Marling. To be honest I’m not really sure where I got the skippy, clappy, dancing in the hazy afternoon sunshine vision from. Perhaps it’s because folk artists tend to sing about the earth, nature and love in one breath. There is no chat of ‘honeys’ or ‘bling’. Gah, And of course, folkers may be generally creative and appreciative of the natural world, but it in no means leaves them exempt of sadness, hurt and darkness. I wonder, does it in actual fact make them more open and adept to describing their feelings than the blingers? Regardless, folk is often as rhythmic and warming as the grandfather clock that my 40s’ Grandpa chopped the bottom of, to fit in his house. Tick, tock. Folk is cosy and true, which is why it feels so pure – which is why it makes me want to reside in a yurt.

Emily Jane White - Sarah Matthews
Illustration by Sarah Matthews

Let me introduce you to Emily Jane White. The PR sheet in-front of me says that her album is: ‘a collection of ten opulent, uncluttered and captivating ballads.’ A friend asked me other day, “If you had to only use one adjective for the rest of your life, what would it be?” If I was a news writer, I would say: “Peh, what even are adjectives?”. As a PR I would pass out. Whilst as a writer of my own devices, I would say – ‘blissful’. Then I could put ‘anti’ in-front of a word perhaps. Awkward. Anyway, off on a tangent again: Emily Jane White’s music is BLISSFUL.

See:

She is melancholy. But in the way that makes you feel perhaps strangely, very contented. Maybe it is because in a sense Emily is making peace with herself and her thoughts through the act of writing her music. She said that she found writing her latest album, Ode To Sentience, out now on Talitres Records, cathartic to write: “They speak to the emotional simplicity and complexity of human relationship. I chose to call the record Ode To Sentience because it is the capacity to feel that creates a share human experience of music. We all share the potency of music by having the capacity to feel, and I found the simplicity of this fact very beautiful.”

‘Tis true.

emily Jane White
Illustration by Laura Godfrey, LG Illustration

Her album is about leaving home, her’s was California – I Lay To Rest (California) – the drawn out strings longing to leave. The sharper notes; the sadness of leaving it. Clipped Wings is ghostly and full of yearning, reflections of love’s passed. The Cliff holds classic American twangs, whilst Oh Katherine, is a string filled heaven of a song. Her voice is as soft and delicate as a peach, whilst her fearless approach to singing from the darker depths of her consciousness matches the strings perfectly.

She is much like a Californian Kate Bush, but less obviously ethereal and screaming. Or she could be a gentler Alela Diane or singular Mountain Man. Black Silk has to be my personal favourite. The Law is guitar based, slow and… actually quite a lot like my Grandpa’s Grandfather clock. It wraps you up. Says it’s all ok. For a little bit of this, here we have ‘The Law’, for you to download for free: here. Download it now.

emily

Emily Jane White’s Album, Ode to Sentience is available now on Talitres Records.

Categories ,album, ,Alela Diane, ,california, ,Cathartic, ,Contented, ,Emily Jane White, ,Ethereal, ,folk, ,Grandfather clock, ,grizzly bear, ,Helen Martin, ,Kate Bush, ,Laura Godfrey, ,Laura Marling, ,Melancholy, ,Mountain Man, ,music, ,Nick Drake, ,Ode to Sentience, ,Relationships, ,review, ,Sarah Matthews, ,strings, ,Talitres Records, ,Yurt

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Amelia’s Magazine | Festival Preview: Latitude

Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Viveka Goyanes
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Kim Seoghee
All photography by Amelia Gregory.

Kim Seoghee may not be Flemish (I’m gonna bet he isn’t) but his work sure as hell feels the touch of Belgium. With a team of skinny stoney faced pretty boy models and ethereal girls, visit web Kim showed us a classic example of the sulky European genre. Eyes emphasised with kohl, visit this the models lined up to show Another 7th Day, prescription a pick ‘n’ mix collection in black, grey and cream. Amongst the upbeat surroundings of Alternative Fashion Week their cool collective attitude stood right out, but they’d fit right in at Paris or London fashion weeks proper.

Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Kim Seoghee
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Kim Seoghee
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Kim Seoghee
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Kim Seoghee
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Kim
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Kim Seoghee
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Kim Seoghee
Kim Seoghee with his models.

Laura Panter showed a clever collection – ‘This collection cries adolescent’ – God knows what being a teenager had to do with it though. The clothes were a curve enhancing mix of pastel chiffon and wool with bondage inspired straps and belt features.

Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Laura Panter
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Laura Panter
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Laura Panter
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Laura Panter
Laura Panter.

She was followed swiftly by the work of another Laura. Laura Fox had put together a cute series of outfits inspired by ‘British Heritage, Harris Tweed and Oilskin’ – with the aim of promoting manufacturing in the UK. Her love for classic British designers such as Christopher Bailey for Burberry were clear in what I thought was a sweet and mature collection, and that was before I discovered that Laura is wheelchair bound. She has a good web presence with a Carbonmade website and a twitter feed so she clearly hasn’t let a little thing like a disability stop her from keeping busy. And my friends over at Creative Boom have also blogged on her here. Dead impressed.

Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Laura Fox
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Laura Fox
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Laura Fox
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Laura Fox
Alternative Fashion Week Day 5 2010 Laura Fox
Laura Fox had business cards to hand: the way it should be done!

Sarina Hosking showed a couple of pieces titled Beauty and the Beast. I have to say I’m not surprised by the title – during a week when titles often bore abstract relevance to the collections they were attached to (at best), this did exactly what it said on the tin. The girl that really got all the photographers salivating was a sexy grown-up version of Little Red Riding Hood, complete with red lacy veil. An elegant gent in wolf mask looked on. They were a distraction from the rest of the collection but heck, why not mix and match your fairytale references? According to her myspace Sarina is principally a theatrical designer, so it all begins to make sense.

Transform by Elizabeth Wilcox was described as ‘Sportswear creating capsule wardrobe’. It was certainly sporty but I am not sure I was feeling the marl grey highlighted with neon sculptural thing.

Viveka Goyanes put together cutesy cream printed shirts with carefully styled black and white tailoring to present a mature collection called Brummella the Dandella. I particularly loved all the little touches, like the ripped and accessorised socks. It always pays to look down!

The first festival I ever had the fortune to attend was Latitude 2007. Still a fresher at university, page still fresh-faced and just a little naïve; a small hatchback, viagra order four friends, and every nook and cranny jammed with our camping equipment. We were green, and we didn’t know that you wouldn’t need six sets of clothes, nor a full foldable mattress, nor (as one of our group, bizarrely, thought) a full set of crockery. It was only due to our general keenness that left us arriving early and managing to snag a camping spot both close to the site entrance and (crucially) within 600 yards of the car park. That was, I discovered, exactly the limit of my stamina for being able to carry my own weight in paperbacks and camping stoves (three!) and several pairs of shoes. Oh, idle youth! These days I can take five nights of living in muddy squalor like a medieval serf in my stride, but that’s only down to training myself; I had to ween myself off such modern luxuries as soap, razors, and fresh underwear.

But I digress – this is meant to be a preview of Latitude 2010. The background: Latitude occurs every year in July in Southwold in Suffolk, and operates under the banner of Festival Republic (formerly Mean Fiddler), that gargantuan promotions company with fingers in many pies and still perhaps best know for the carnival of the damned that is the Reading and Leeds Weekender. Latitude is something of a pet project for Festival Republic, who felt that British festivals had lost track of what made them so culturally important in the first place – not just the bands but the atmosphere, the vibe, the performers on stilts and the chance meetings in the dark under the boughs of some off-to-the-side willow. Glastonbury has become something of a behemoth, but it used to be a small and intimate affair; Latitude’s raison d’être is to mimic what Glastonbury is suppose to once have been. My verdict, taking my experiences of 2007 into account, is that they have succeeded admirably, though it would be churlish to say that it’s exactly as the same. Many of those ideals that the hippies celebrated at the solstice three decades ago – appreciation of the earth, appreciation of humanity – have arguably seeped into the larger (regular) festival-going public, but these days we’re much, much better at recycling.

Capacity is relatively small, as far as festivals go these days, capped at 25000 since 2008, and the wondrous thing about Latitude is that you can go the whole weekend without seeing a single band. There’s a strong lineup of comedy acts, theatre performances, literature talks and other cultural oddities that mark it out as unique in the British festival scene. I’ll run through some of the things to look forward to this year, for those that are going, and if you’re not then be quick, because it’ll sell out soon.

There are several music stages scattered about the site. The largest is the main Obelisk Arena, this year headlined by Florence & the Machine, Belle & Sebastian, and Vampire Weekend. Other artists worth seeing include folkster Laura Marling, indie legends Spoon, insanely talented Mexican acoustic duo Rodrigo y Gabriela, gorgeous melody act Dirty Projectors, and even a recently-reformed James. They’ll probably sing that song about sitting.

Move across to the second stage and you’ll find the Word Arena, headlined by the National, the xx, and Grizzly Bear. The first is one of the best bands in the world, without question, and if you go you’ll probably find me there too, undergoing some kind of trembling transcendental spasm attack. I love that band. Oh god how I do. The xx are an interesting choice of headliner as their music, so heavy with meaning and yet so utterly minimal, might struggle to hold a headlining slot on a festival stage. I’ve seen them live before and they were bloody fantastic, so I’m sure they’ll be fine; I won’t be seeing them at Latitude, though. My reasons involve a broken heart, a worn mixtape, and shattered promises – I won’t burden you any further than that, but know that it was horrid. Grizzly Bear are sick, and will absolutely suit the beautiful site that Latitude is situated within. Also playing the Word Arena are Wild Beasts, Richard Hawley, the Horrors, and Yeasayer, etc. etc..

Then you’ve got your Lake Stage, which is (no surprises here) situated next to a lake, as well as the Sunrise Arena deep in the woods on the edge of the site. Exactly who shall be playing where on these stages hasn’t been announced yet, but what is know is that artists and bands such as the Big Pink, Black Mountain, Girls, These New Puritans, Tokyo Police Club, and a bunch of others. I’ve been looking back through past years and Latitude 2010 looks like being potentially the best ever with regards to the music acts (though 2009 was also pretty sick – Nick Cave!). But it’s not all about the music, of course, otherwise it wouldn’t be quite as sweetly unique as it is.

In the Comedy tent there are sets from Richard Herring, Emo Philips, Rich Hall, Phill Jupitus, Mark Watson, but also many smaller acts such as Mark Oliver and Doc Brown. In previous years this tent has had a propensity towards overcrowding when the bigger names have appeared, but hopefully they’ll have ironed out the creases there. We’ve already covered the Literature tent on Amelia’s Magazine, somewhat, but I’ll add that Jon McGregor is also giving a talk. He’s the author of If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things, a novel that is in itself extraordinarily remarkable and one of the finest examples of prose-poetry I’ve read in the past decade. Also of note here is that Dan Kitson, who probably blushes when he gets described as, “perhaps the finest standup comic of his generation,” all time, will be telling a story for an hour every night at midnight on the Waterfront Stage. His work is rarely available on video as he doesn’t like the idea of his shows being pirated, so please take this opportunity to see him in the flesh.

John Cooper Clarke is in the Poetry tent – one of the towering figures of modern performance poetry in this country should be reason enough to raise some curiosity there, but there are also appearances from important figures on the British poetry scene like Luke Wright and John Stammers. Eddie Argos, of Art Brut fame, will also be doing a set – if you’re familiar with the man then you’ll know that’s an intriguing prospect.

I’ve barely scratched the surface here – there’s a Cabaret tent that parties on into the early hours of the morning, there’s the Film & Music Arena showcasing some unique new audiovisual shows (as well as more irreverent stuff from the likes of Adam Buxton and the Modern Toss crew), and there’s also a chance to wander into the woods to find both the opera performances and the In The Woods area, a woodland clearing set up for late night raving. There are numerous plays put on at the Theatre Arena, including performances from the Royal Shakespeare Company and Everyman Playhouse. There’s a huge childrens’ area that’s almost like a playground.

Hell, the whole thing is like some gaudy carnival from the middle ages transported through time for our enjoyment. There’s a parade at some point, there’s giant painting projects, you can row boats in the lake, you can watch a jazz band play all day on a floating stage on the lake, and so on, and so on. The beauty of the site just completes the package, and thankfully the Latitude team are very good at maintaining it. They’ve got a well-developed set of environmentally-friendly policies that have managed to recycle most of the waste from past festivals, including designated recycling bins, bags handed out to campers for sorting their recycling, and everything you can buy on site is sourced so that it won’t damage the environment both getting there and if it’s thrown away. Sorted.

So that’s Latitude 2010. Three days almost doesn’t seem enough, does it?

Categories ,2010, ,Adam Buxton, ,Art Brut, ,Arts, ,Belle & Sebastian, ,Black Mountain, ,Cabaret, ,comedy, ,Dan Kitson, ,dirty projectors, ,Doc Brown, ,Eddie Argos, ,Emo Philips, ,environment, ,Everyman Playhouse, ,festival, ,film, ,Florence & the Machine, ,girls, ,glastonbury, ,grizzly bear, ,ian steadman, ,James, ,John Cooper Clarke, ,John Stammers, ,Jon McGregor, ,latitude, ,Latitude Festival, ,Laura Marling, ,leeds, ,Luke Wright, ,Mark Oliver, ,Mark Watson, ,Modern Toss, ,music, ,Nick Cave, ,opera, ,Phill Jupitus, ,rave, ,Reading, ,Rich Hall, ,richard hawley, ,Richard Herring, ,rodrigo y gabriela, ,Royal Shakespeare Company, ,Spoon, ,Standup, ,the big pink, ,the horrors, ,The National, ,The XX, ,These New Puritans, ,Tokyo Police Club, ,Vampire Weekend, ,Wild Beasts, ,Yeasayer

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Jamie McDermott of The Irrepressibles.

The_Irrepressibles_by_Helmetgirl
The Irrepressibles by Helmetgirl.

If Amelia’s Magazine had a wish list of character traits that would perfectly encapsulate its personality then you would struggle to surpass those of Jamie McDermott, one of the magazines favourite performers. The founding member, and centre piece of The Irrepressibles, could have tailored his CV to fit the remit of Amelia’s Magazine. The Irrepressibles’ creator, composer, arranger and avant garde curator wears his heart firmly on his sleeve and is intensely protective and proud of his conception, and rightly so. Their mix of love and lust, longing and tragedy is often borne out as cathartic confessionals. Jamie’s vision and passion, which he so effectively channels through his ‘performance orchestra’, were captured brilliantly, earlier this year on his bands debut album Mirror Mirror.
 
The Irrepressibles, Jamie’s very personal labour of love, have been a regular source of fascination for the Amelia’s Magazine, having been previously featured both in print and on-line. Their very original and ground breaking approach continues to push the boundaries of live popular music, as their choice of venue can also testify to. Having performed in places as diverse as Latitude Festival and the V&A, and from the Hackney Empire to a recent guest appearance at London Fashion Week you are unlikely to experience the norm.
 
It was shortly after their recent LFW performance that I managed to hook up with Jamie. With a little trepidation, a youthful excitement and a great deal of pleasure I tracked him down and interrupted his very busy schedule. I was not only hoping to get a little insight into the world of The Irrepressibles but also an idea of who Jamie really is. I wasn’t to be disappointed. Jamie talked vividly and most candidly about how it all began, where his influences have come from and above all what an incredible journey it has all been. (Just don’t mention the Pope, you’ll only be greeted with silence!) Here is Jamie McDermott from The Irrepressibles.

The_Irrepressibles_Cello_Bass_by_Helmetgirl
Cello and Bass by Helmetgirl.

Way back before the formation of The Irrepressibles was there a pivotal moment in your life where you decided that you would be a performer, a musician, a composer? What lead to your epiphany?
I had fallen in love with my best friend – another boy – and we were inseparable. He had a band and I wanted to be around him so I began to sing in it. But one night I explained how I felt. We fell apart as friends. I felt alone, I knew that I was gay and that people didn’t feel it was right… I wanted to throw myself of the cliffs of the seaside town where I lived. But when stood there in the air I heard music. My own. Instead of jumping I decided to explain to the world through music the beauty of being in love with another man in a way that everyone would understand. 

How did you go about creating The Irrepressibles, did you have a defined vision of how you were going to express yourself? Has it changed at all? Do you see it as an evolutionary process and if so what are the triggers to change? How did you all meet?
I had been writing music focused on what I wanted to say and the emotions I needed to express. I wanted to surround this emotion with a world, a soundscape that could explain the depth of feeling, so I began to work with orchestral instrumentation as they could offer the abrasive and the sublime the surreal and the polyphonic. Initially it was me and four others on a course in popular music studies. I had discovered the library and as a working class boy from North Yorkshire I was starving for the words and pictures. I read about Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren, Andy Warhol and the KLF’s work with pop music subculture, about the political force of music in the words of Atalli and Eisler and fell in love with the iconic imagery of film makers Fasbinder and Kenneth Anger. I also read about the work with spectacle by Dali, Meredith Monk with The House and Laurie Anderson amongst others. I had been seeing visions since I was a child that accompanied the music in my head, I wanted to create something and these people gave me the confidence to make my visions real. I was irritated by the manufactured pop music and it’s lack of real emotion but also the boring visual aesthetics of indie music at the time and I wanted to create something fresh and reactionary. 

 The_Irrepressibles_Fluteplayer_by_Helmetgi
Fluteplayer by Helmetgirl.

What do you see as your main influences and inspirations, both musically and personally?
The sounds of the world around me. I am most influenced by non musical elements. The world itself is musical everything from the sounds of laughter to the hum of the bus I’m sitting on now are singing. The movement of people and machines all have a complexity of nature a kind of polyphony in their interaction. My music has this interaction. As do my spectacles where movement meets light installation meets interactive set meets music meets movement to create one being of emotion – one machine of emotion. 
 
Of your contemporaries, are there any that you are listening to, any that you are finding particularly creative or challenging?
Yes Simon Bookish is incredible, I adore Peaches, Broadcast are consistently inspirational, The Knife are wonderful…

Many people have tried to capture the essence of your performance and creation without necessarily being able to convey the whole experience adequately on paper. How would you describe your music and performance?
It is an organic machine of emotion. 

The drama and theatre within your music and shows is clearly crucial and only serves to heighten the experience for the audience. At what point in the creative process does this become a consideration? Do you have a structured way of writing a song? How does it all work for you as the writer/composer?
I write automatically i.e. from my subconscious. I let my decisions be as spontanious and uncontrived as possible in order to explain fully the depths of my subconsious. I then see visions of how I can present the music in a space working with the parameters of lighting and set installation, movement and feeling. 

The_Irrepressibles_Violin_by_Helmetgirl
Violin player by Helmetgirl.

There have been comparisons drawn with your style of music to Antony Hegarty and David Bowie among others. For me there is are also the theatrics of early Marc Almond solo work such as Vermin In Ermine as well as a sympathy and empathy with a lot of New Romantic sensibilities. Where do you see your musical style?
I am very much influenced by what I would call the leneage of gay artists. I also believe that gay artists create a slightly different aesthetic of sound and visual generally – a very varied one when you consider Grizzly Bear, Owen Pallet, Patrick Wolf and Me at this time – but there is an aesthetic. I am also massively influenced by female artists like Meredith Monk and Kate Bush of course. I believe like Kate I see music and performance as innately another world a fantasy world were emotions can be better expressed – a dream. 

Many of your songs, such as In This Shirt, are very personal and clearly connect with your audience. Do you find that laying yourself bare, so to speak, gives a song more truth, depth and sincerity and as such it is more credible and infinitely more appreciated? Is that what you strive for?   
I only ever write honestly and cathartically – I am completely open but I was bullied throughout all of my schooling you get to the point were you feel pretty much naked to everyone anyway. Sometimes you wont believe it as the songs sound melodramatic but when you consider that My Friend Jo was in fact about looking in the face suicide at a time of hysterical emotions it does make sense. Why does everything have to be simple in music? Life of course is complex and polyphonic and so I believe music should be too. Sometimes my music is more simplistic because the emotion is, other times it’s like a mad person you can’t understand. We are all mentally ill in some way. 
 
Both the 2009 release, From The Circus To The Sea, and this years album, Mirror Mirror, have been very well received garnering much critical acclaim. Do you now feel the swell of expectation and public consciousness rising as your audience grows ever bigger?
It’s been nothing short of incredible. I spend most of my time talking to fans all over the world. I always feel awful when people complement my work and I don’t get back to them. I have become a whore to Facebook and Myspace… ha ha! 

You have played some decidedly different venues this year from The Roundhouse and The V&A to three shows at Latitude. How were they for you and what can everyone expect from the forthcoming shows that are due to start at the end of this month? 
At the Roundhouse the orchestra performed 10 meters in the air on moving seats, at Latitude we opened the festival with ‘Gathering Songs’ which consisted of several pieces for different parts of the orchestra that were performed desperately all over the forest over 2 and a half hours which accumulated in a spectacle on the water, the year after I created the Light and Shadow spectacle with lighting installation. The V&A commissioned me in 2009 to create a spectacle for their Baroque Exhibition then came the chance to create my Human Music Box installation which was then taken to Latitude the same year. This year I created the Mirror Mirror Spectacle which began with a commission for the Queen Elizabeth Hall. We are touring this internationally now and present it again in London at the Scala tomorrow.  

The Irrepressibles are touring into 2011, are there plans after that to record any new material or are you working on other projects, if so what are they?
I am working on my new AIR spectacle which will be premiered in Modena Italy next week. I am then going to begin work on music for a Manga Opera with Hotel Pro Forma who famously created the opera with The Knife. The next album is now half written and we should begin recording this soon. 

Thank you so much for this, I really appreciate you taking the time. Best of luck for your forthcoming shows.

Categories ,Andy Warhol, ,Antony Hegarty, ,Atalli and Eisler, ,Broadcast, ,David Bowie, ,Fasbinder, ,grizzly bear, ,Hotel Pro Forma, ,Jamie McDermott, ,Kate Bush, ,Kenneth Anger, ,KLF, ,latitude, ,Malcolm McClaren, ,Manga Opera, ,Meredith Monk, ,Mirror Mirror, ,Owen Pallet, ,Patrick Wolf, ,Peaches, ,Roundhouse, ,Simon Bookish, ,the irrepressibles, ,The Knife, ,va, ,Vivienne Westwood

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Amelia’s Magazine | The story of LOVE. Shown through music.

Valentines Georgia Coote
Illustration by Georgia Coote

I’m not going to lie to you. Valentine’s Day didn’t start as well as some people’s obviously did. The flaunting has been hard to avoid. I don’t know how I feel about these hearty couples. Jealous/sick/admiring/touched. For me, information pills all I can say was that there were certainly no freshly squeezed orange juice glasses on the side table, sildenafil and croissant crumbs left in the bed. For one; it was 6.30am, for two; we ‘don’t do’ Valentine’s Day, and for three; we have smashed all our glasses (not through venom). Thus I give you 6.30am – 6.32am: Me: “Meh, I’m sick, knives have fallen into my throat and got stuck.” Him: “Huh, oh no.” Me: “Feel my forehead, there’s fire I tell you, fire.” He puts palm on my forehead: “Yeh you’re a bit warm. You look a bit sick. Have a lie in.” Me: “Ummm so Valen..” Him: “No, Hels *chuckle*, there’s no Valentine’s here. Now, see you later. Be productive!” Me: “Oh yeh.” He puts his forefinger out for the double forefinger touch (because he blatantly thinks I am horrid and contagious), and he’s gone.

Mine and Charlie’s own seriously overplayed song: Van Morrison, Sweet Thing

It’s not that I care. But I care. 30% of me was hoping for a card on the kitchen table. 70% of me knew there wasn’t. This morning I have moaned about it on twitter (low points) in between work and cups of tea. And now I am listening to my love songs. Because I wanted to write this post on the mighty songs of love. Darn it! And I still hold hope that old Charlie comes back with some garage flowers. Not that I care. I have Francois, my cat, always ready for hugging action. His card is sitting here on my desk. Charlie’s, not the cat’s. Sorry, I can’t stop the cheese today.

Loved up! Woo, YEH! :D EMOTICON USE time. 4Hero, Les Fleur

As much as I may not admit it. I just can’t get enough of love, feelings and emotions. If I had a bath, I’d sit in it. Musing for a lifetime on everything from the beautiful bliss to the horrifically heartbreaking. Alliteration accepted in such instances, it’s Valentine’s Day after all. It’s just the best thing ever. As are sweeping generalisations. I speak the truth! This is a post about love in its many stages. Unpredictable blighter it is. Respect the ticker. Your heart is YOURS.

1. So, let’s start with the date. Oh and it is magical. Hearts are drumming and the colour’s are bright. Everything looks beautiful. Even twigs. The blood’s rushing so much you can hear it. And. You. Can. Feeeeel, your heart beats pulsating in your lips when you kiss. Four Tet, Angel Echoes.

2. Oh and we’re fully on the merry-go-round now aren’t we? Are you falling in love? Yep, I think you might be. Lykke Li, Little Bit.
LykkeLibyRusstyBrazil
Lykke Li Illustration by Russty Brazil

3. And it feels like nothing else huh? Like you’ve been born again and now it all, as in life; the world; your purpose – makes sense. So do days in bed, massive breakfasts, log fires, roll top baths and footsie in the pub. You didn’t? Yeh, you did. Bon Iver, Stacks.

4. Kisses etc. Bit almost anti-feminist with Bob taking the dominant position here, but you can’t deny this is a special song. And I’d like a big, brass bed. Bob Dylan, Lay Lady Lay.
Bob Dylan Avril Kelly
Bob Dylan Illustration by Avril Kelly

5. …Days together…. Incredible man, Nick Drake, Place To Be.

6. It’s just intense huh? Does anyone else even exist? Who cares, let’s dance, run around mazes and have loads of baths together. Nat King Cole, Love.

7. YES, no, I mean – I definitely do love you. I love you. Decoder Ring, Somersault.

8. WOW. Percy Sledge, When A Man Loves A Woman.
percysledge by daria h
Percy Sledge Illustration by Daria Hlazatova

9. Everything just feels so great, doesn’t it? I mean… JOY. Devendra Banhart, Santa Maria De Feira.

10) Post six months of so. Ah love, aint it grand, yet also very scary? Real love will have you going up, down and around. It will always be changing, sometimes thrilling your socks off, other times leaving you in despair. But it’s super. Just super. Grizzly Bear, Alligator.
grizzlybear by daria h
Grizzly Bear Illustration by Daria Hlaztaova

For those that have recently split. I’m sorry. This man is a superstar and this song is fantastic. Roy Harper, Me and My Woman

For myself and Francois, The Cure, Lovecats. I’ve basically forgiven Charlie now. I’ve listened to so many love songs and gone through a harangue of emotions doing so. Love to you all. Love, love, love, LOVE!

Categories ,4Hero, ,Avril Kelly, ,baths, ,Bob Dylan, ,Bon Iver, ,cats, ,Daria Hlazatova, ,Devendra Banhart, ,Emotions, ,Four Tet, ,Georgia Coote, ,grizzly bear, ,Helen Martin, ,Love, ,Lykke Li, ,Nat King Cole, ,Nick Drake, ,Roy Harper, ,Russty Brazil, ,the cure, ,twitter, ,Valentine’s Day, ,Van Morrison

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Amelia’s Magazine | The story of LOVE. Shown through music.

Valentines Georgia Coote
Illustration by Georgia Coote

I’m not going to lie to you. Valentine’s Day didn’t start as well as some people’s obviously did. The flaunting has been hard to avoid. I don’t know how I feel about these hearty couples. Jealous/sick/admiring/touched. For me, information pills all I can say was that there were certainly no freshly squeezed orange juice glasses on the side table, sildenafil and croissant crumbs left in the bed. For one; it was 6.30am, for two; we ‘don’t do’ Valentine’s Day, and for three; we have smashed all our glasses (not through venom). Thus I give you 6.30am – 6.32am: Me: “Meh, I’m sick, knives have fallen into my throat and got stuck.” Him: “Huh, oh no.” Me: “Feel my forehead, there’s fire I tell you, fire.” He puts palm on my forehead: “Yeh you’re a bit warm. You look a bit sick. Have a lie in.” Me: “Ummm so Valen..” Him: “No, Hels *chuckle*, there’s no Valentine’s here. Now, see you later. Be productive!” Me: “Oh yeh.” He puts his forefinger out for the double forefinger touch (because he blatantly thinks I am horrid and contagious), and he’s gone.

Mine and Charlie’s own seriously overplayed song: Van Morrison, Sweet Thing

It’s not that I care. But I care. 30% of me was hoping for a card on the kitchen table. 70% of me knew there wasn’t. This morning I have moaned about it on twitter (low points) in between work and cups of tea. And now I am listening to my love songs. Because I wanted to write this post on the mighty songs of love. Darn it! And I still hold hope that old Charlie comes back with some garage flowers. Not that I care. I have Francois, my cat, always ready for hugging action. His card is sitting here on my desk. Charlie’s, not the cat’s. Sorry, I can’t stop the cheese today.

Loved up! Woo, YEH! :D EMOTICON USE time. 4Hero, Les Fleur

As much as I may not admit it. I just can’t get enough of love, feelings and emotions. If I had a bath, I’d sit in it. Musing for a lifetime on everything from the beautiful bliss to the horrifically heartbreaking. Alliteration accepted in such instances, it’s Valentine’s Day after all. It’s just the best thing ever. As are sweeping generalisations. I speak the truth! This is a post about love in its many stages. Unpredictable blighter it is. Respect the ticker. Your heart is YOURS.

1. So, let’s start with the date. Oh and it is magical. Hearts are drumming and the colour’s are bright. Everything looks beautiful. Even twigs. The blood’s rushing so much you can hear it. And. You. Can. Feeeeel, your heart beats pulsating in your lips when you kiss. Four Tet, Angel Echoes.

2. Oh and we’re fully on the merry-go-round now aren’t we? Are you falling in love? Yep, I think you might be. Lykke Li, Little Bit.
LykkeLibyRusstyBrazil
Lykke Li Illustration by Russty Brazil

3. And it feels like nothing else huh? Like you’ve been born again and now it all, as in life; the world; your purpose – makes sense. So do days in bed, massive breakfasts, log fires, roll top baths and footsie in the pub. You didn’t? Yeh, you did. Bon Iver, Stacks.

4. Kisses etc. Bit almost anti-feminist with Bob taking the dominant position here, but you can’t deny this is a special song. And I’d like a big, brass bed. Bob Dylan, Lay Lady Lay.
Bob Dylan Avril Kelly
Bob Dylan Illustration by Avril Kelly

5. …Days together…. Incredible man, Nick Drake, Place To Be.

6. It’s just intense huh? Does anyone else even exist? Who cares, let’s dance, run around mazes and have loads of baths together. Nat King Cole, Love.

7. YES, no, I mean – I definitely do love you. I love you. Decoder Ring, Somersault.

8. WOW. Percy Sledge, When A Man Loves A Woman.
percysledge by daria h
Percy Sledge Illustration by Daria Hlazatova

9. Everything just feels so great, doesn’t it? I mean… JOY. Devendra Banhart, Santa Maria De Feira.

10) Post six months of so. Ah love, aint it grand, yet also very scary? Real love will have you going up, down and around. It will always be changing, sometimes thrilling your socks off, other times leaving you in despair. But it’s super. Just super. Grizzly Bear, Alligator.
grizzlybear by daria h
Grizzly Bear Illustration by Daria Hlaztaova

For those that have recently split. I’m sorry. This man is a superstar and this song is fantastic. Roy Harper, Me and My Woman

For myself and Francois, The Cure, Lovecats. I’ve basically forgiven Charlie now. I’ve listened to so many love songs and gone through a harangue of emotions doing so. Love to you all. Love, love, love, LOVE!

Categories ,4Hero, ,Avril Kelly, ,baths, ,Bob Dylan, ,Bon Iver, ,cats, ,Daria Hlazatova, ,Devendra Banhart, ,Emotions, ,Four Tet, ,Georgia Coote, ,grizzly bear, ,Helen Martin, ,Love, ,Lykke Li, ,Nat King Cole, ,Nick Drake, ,Roy Harper, ,Russty Brazil, ,the cure, ,twitter, ,Valentine’s Day, ,Van Morrison

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Amelia’s Magazine | ATP Film – A Review

atp montage1

All Tomorrow Parties, clinic a music festival that largely happens at out of season holiday camps, try celebrates it’s tenth year in 2009 and part of that anniversary celebration sees the release of this film, edited from fans and filmmakers footage on equipment ranging from super 8′s to mobile phones, the viewer is let in to the world of All Tomorrow’s Parties. The ensuing montage, of performances and backstage vox pops, is a cross between a really great music documentary and an advert for the music festival.

The documentary side of this film’s personality informs the viewer that the premise of ATP started with Glasgow’s saccharine indie pop makers, Belle and Sebastien. Along with visionary ATP promoter, Barry Hogan, they originally had the idea of putting on a festival in a holiday camp, curated by artists and did just that for the ATP pre-cursor, Bowlie Weekender in Camber Sands. The viewer also learns that ATP manages to exist independently, without the help from corporate sponsors, adhering to a punk rock ethic.

karen_o_live_by_leigh_johnson2668_8

The advertisement side shows you just how much fun a festival in a holiday camp can be with footage of holidaymakers looking like the cat who got the cream whilst dancing to Micah P. Hinson, or playing a rendition of ‘Maps’ on the chalet kitchen sink.

nick_cave_in_crowd_by_shannon_mcclean_8

I’ve alluded here to some of the musical footage that belies the rockumentary. If Kitsune is the indie electro rave that you have to be young to get into, ATP is where you retire, where you give up on pretending to keep up with the rapidly changes fads of NME and resign to sticking to what you know best. And if what you know best hits the Richter scale somewhere between alternative and experimental, then you’ll be familiar with a fair few bands that frequent the ATP line-ups. Not only are there fantastic show-stopping ATP performances from YYYs, Nick Cave’s Grinderman, Gossip, and Mars Volta, you also get to see the spontaneous performances that may not have been billed, like the Grizzly Bear beach a capella and Daniel Johnston regaling his insecurities via music in the grass and from his chalet.

grizzly_bear_playing_to_crowd_on_the_beach_-_credit_sophie_8

These elements of the film are weaved together with a cinematic collage of artists backstage, like Bat For Lashes dancing down the stairs of her accommodation. And just to remind you where you are, there are also vintage stills and clips of Camber Sands as it is known best, as a holiday camp, including what looks like a dance competition whose contestants could rival anyone down the front of a moshpit.

bat_for_lashes_credit_jack_paddington_and_millie_harvey_8

Having never been to ATP myself (but always having wanted to), I wonder whether this has captured the essence of the festival. But with enough music and merriment to keep you entertained, it really doesn’t matter.

patti_smith_8

Patti Smith closes the film and I’ll close this article with a quote in the film from her, which is in line with an underlying message of ATP, “rock and roll belongs to the kids and not the big companies.”

Categories ,Animal Collective, ,atp, ,Bat for Lashes, ,Daniel Johnston, ,festival, ,film, ,gossip, ,grinderman, ,grizzly bear, ,mars volta, ,Nick Cave, ,patti smith, ,review, ,yeah yeah yeahs

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