Amelia’s Magazine | Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl: a review of the Mime Festival 2011 show at the Barbican

She and Him
She and Him

She and Him are cool eh? Zooey Deschanel in the vintage clothes I would love in my collection and marvelous fringe, approved and Matt Ward, information pills wearing his sunglasses and nonchalance. They’re also very happy sounding, buy which is great when strolling along a beach or beetling about in an open top car. But also when our beloved month of January is upon us, and we don’t reside in the Southern Hemisphere. Joyous music can be very important for SAD (seasonal affective disorder) fighting. Like Angel Delight, oh so sweet, it’s a joy to surround ourselves with sunny sounding high notes and chorus ‘badadadaaaas’. Ah swimming in a dessert bowl. Together these two create dreamy, poppy, nostalgic music that’s gentle, pleasant and cute as a button.

So, as a sunny treat, here we have the premiere of the new video for She & Him’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ (Domino Records) directed by Jeremy Konner.

She & Him – Don’t Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Ward says on their website: “There are a lot of people who write music so that they can take their audience to a dark night of their own soul or to get something really heavy off their chest. I don’t think Zooey looks at music that way, and I think that’s a huge part of where her songwriting is coming from. Certain people write songs to make other people feel good. When I think about some of my favorite singers, like Sam Cooke or people of that generation, I think that they saw their gift as the ability to make people feel better, to feel happy. It’s contagious to be around people like that.” Delightful.

She and Him

She and Him are cool eh? Zooey Deschanel in the vintage clothes I would love in my collection and marvelous fringe, adiposity and Matt Ward, link wearing his sunglasses and nonchalance. They’re also very happy sounding, which is great when strolling along a beach or beetling about in an open top car. But also when our beloved month of January is upon us, and we don’t reside in the Southern Hemisphere. Joyous music can be very important for SAD (seasonal affective disorder) fighting. Like Angel Delight, oh so sweet, it’s a joy to surround ourselves with sunny sounding high notes and chorus ‘badadadaaaas’. Ah swimming in a dessert bowl. Together these two create dreamy, poppy, nostalgic music that’s gentle, pleasant and cute as a button.

So, as a sunny treat, here we have the premiere of the new video for She & Him’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ (Domino Records) directed by Jeremy Konner.

She & Him – Don’t Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Ward says on their website: “There are a lot of people who write music so that they can take their audience to a dark night of their own soul or to get something really heavy off their chest. I don’t think Zooey looks at music that way, and I think that’s a huge part of where her songwriting is coming from. Certain people write songs to make other people feel good. When I think about some of my favorite singers, like Sam Cooke or people of that generation, I think that they saw their gift as the ability to make people feel better, to feel happy. It’s contagious to be around people like that.” Delightful.

She and Him

She and Him are cool eh? Zooey Deschanel in the vintage clothes I would love in my collection and marvelous fringe, clinic and Matt Ward, no rx wearing his sunglasses and nonchalance. They’re also very happy sounding, page which is great when strolling along a beach or beetling about in an open top car. But also when our beloved month of January is upon us, and we don’t reside in the Southern Hemisphere. Joyous music can be very important for SAD (seasonal affective disorder) fighting. Like Angel Delight, oh so sweet, it’s a joy to surround ourselves with sunny sounding high notes and chorus ‘badadadaaaas’. Ah swimming in a dessert bowl. Together these two create dreamy, poppy, nostalgic music that’s gentle, pleasant and cute as a button.

So, as a sunny treat, here we have the premiere of the new video for She & Him’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ (Merge US, Domino RecordsUK) directed by Jeremy Konner.

She & Him – Don’t Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Ward says on their website: “There are a lot of people who write music so that they can take their audience to a dark night of their own soul or to get something really heavy off their chest. I don’t think Zooey looks at music that way, and I think that’s a huge part of where her songwriting is coming from. Certain people write songs to make other people feel good. When I think about some of my favorite singers, like Sam Cooke or people of that generation, I think that they saw their gift as the ability to make people feel better, to feel happy. It’s contagious to be around people like that.” Delightful.

She and Him

She and Him are cool eh? Zooey Deschanel in the vintage clothes I would love in my collection and marvelous fringe, stuff and Matt Ward, tadalafil wearing his sunglasses and nonchalance. They’re also very happy sounding, ask which is great when strolling along a beach or beetling about in an open top car. But also when our beloved month of January is upon us, and we don’t reside in the Southern Hemisphere. Joyous music can be very important for SAD (seasonal affective disorder) fighting. Like Angel Delight, oh so sweet, it’s a joy to surround ourselves with sunny sounding high notes and chorus ‘badadadaaaas’. Ah swimming in a dessert bowl. Together these two create dreamy, poppy, nostalgic music that’s gentle, pleasant and cute as a button.

So, as a sunny treat, here we have the premiere of the new video for She & Him’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ (Merge US, Domino RecordsUK) directed by Jeremy Konner.

She & Him – Don’t Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Ward says on their website: “There are a lot of people who write music so that they can take their audience to a dark night of their own soul or to get something really heavy off their chest. I don’t think Zooey looks at music that way, and I think that’s a huge part of where her songwriting is coming from. Certain people write songs to make other people feel good. When I think about some of my favorite singers, like Sam Cooke or people of that generation, I think that they saw their gift as the ability to make people feel better, to feel happy. It’s contagious to be around people like that.” Delightful.

She and Him

She and Him are cool eh? Zooey Deschanel in the vintage clothes I would love in my collection and marvelous fringe, approved and Matt Ward, more about wearing his sunglasses and nonchalance. They’re also very happy sounding, which is great when strolling along a beach or beetling about in an open top car. But also when our beloved month of January is upon us, and we don’t reside in the Southern Hemisphere. Joyous music can be very important for SAD (seasonal affective disorder) fighting. Like Angel Delight, oh so sweet, it’s a joy to surround ourselves with sunny sounding high notes and chorus ‘badadadaaaas’. Ah swimming in a dessert bowl. Together these two create dreamy, poppy, nostalgic music that’s gentle, pleasant and cute as a button.

So, as a sunny treat, here we have the premiere of the new video for She & Him’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ (Merge US, Domino RecordsUK) directed by Jeremy Konner.

She & Him – Don’t Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Ward says on their website: “There are a lot of people who write music so that they can take their audience to a dark night of their own soul or to get something really heavy off their chest. I don’t think Zooey looks at music that way, and I think that’s a huge part of where her songwriting is coming from. Certain people write songs to make other people feel good. When I think about some of my favorite singers, like Sam Cooke or people of that generation, I think that they saw their gift as the ability to make people feel better, to feel happy. It’s contagious to be around people like that.” Delightful.

She and Him

She and Him are cool eh? Zooey Deschanel in the vintage clothes I would love in my collection and marvelous fringe, medicine and Matt Ward, viagra wearing his sunglasses and nonchalance. They’re also very happy sounding, which is great when strolling along a beach or beetling about in an open top car. But also when our beloved month of January is upon us, and we don’t reside in the Southern Hemisphere. Joyous music can be very important for SAD (seasonal affective disorder) fighting. Like Angel Delight, oh so sweet, it’s a joy to surround ourselves with sunny sounding high notes and chorus ‘badadadaaaas’. Ah swimming in a dessert bowl. Together these two create dreamy, poppy, nostalgic music that’s gentle, pleasant and cute as a button.

So, as a sunny treat, here we have the premiere of the new video for She & Him’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ (Merge US, Domino Records UK) directed by Jeremy Konner.

She & Him – Don’t Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Ward says on their website: “There are a lot of people who write music so that they can take their audience to a dark night of their own soul or to get something really heavy off their chest. I don’t think Zooey looks at music that way, and I think that’s a huge part of where her songwriting is coming from. Certain people write songs to make other people feel good. When I think about some of my favorite singers, like Sam Cooke or people of that generation, I think that they saw their gift as the ability to make people feel better, to feel happy. It’s contagious to be around people like that.” Delightful.

She and Him

She and Him are cool eh? Zooey Deschanel in the vintage clothes I would love in my collection and marvelous fringe, page and Matt Ward, wearing his sunglasses and nonchalance. They’re also very happy sounding, which is great when strolling along a beach or beetling about in an open top car. But also when our beloved month of January is upon us, and we don’t reside in the Southern Hemisphere. Joyous music can be very important for SAD (seasonal affective disorder) fighting. Like Angel Delight, oh so sweet, it’s a joy to surround ourselves with sunny sounding high notes and chorus ‘badadadaaaas’. Ah swimming in a dessert bowl. Together these two create dreamy, poppy, nostalgic music that’s gentle, pleasant and cute as a button.

So, as a sunny treat, here we have the premiere of the new video for She & Him’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ (Merge US, Domino Records UK) directed by Jeremy Konner.

She & Him – Don’t Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Ward says on their website: “There are a lot of people who write music so that they can take their audience to a dark night of their own soul or to get something really heavy off their chest. I don’t think Zooey looks at music that way, and I think that’s a huge part of where her songwriting is coming from. Certain people write songs to make other people feel good. When I think about some of my favorite singers, like Sam Cooke or people of that generation, I think that they saw their gift as the ability to make people feel better, to feel happy. It’s contagious to be around people like that.” Delightful indeed.

Flesh and Blood by Stacie Swift
Flesh and Blood by Stacie Swift.

Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl was inspired by photographs of the Ukrainian town of Pripyat near Chernobyl, tadalafil taken many years after the city was abandoned to radiation. They show the buildings and streets overtaken with plants and animals, hospital which have happily returned to build homes amongst the human detritus.

Flesh and Blood office

The impressively depressing (yet realistic) stage set features the interior of an office for Convenience Foods: dead plants and old mugs litter the desks and the walls sprout crumpled charts and post it notes. It is into this nightmarish world that Jerry, played by Geoff Sobelle, emerges, rolling gracelessly out of a dumpster inside which he has presumably spent the night, and hobbling a few steps to his desk.

Office Deer by Sarah Matthews
Office Deer by Sarah Matthews.

The lengthy intro features a zany fight with a buzzing fly that refuses to die, before we’re introduced to his office colleague Rhoda, played with relish by Charlotte Ford. Despite their dysfunctional relationship she’s clearly interested in developing a more intimate arrangement with her middle management foe, artlessly arching her bottom in his direction as she microwaves her lunch repeatedly.

Office Squirrel by Sarah Matthews
Office Squirrel by Sarah Matthews.

The only time they communicate with words is in cringeworthy office jargon against the backdrop of a wonky Leadership poster featuring a lion’s head superimposed over a mountain. It’s all too easily recognisable as the kind of office that litters the business estates of the UK, which is interesting because Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl is performed by Americans.

Office-Bear-by-Sarah Matthews
Office Bear by Sarah Matthews.

Both Geoff Sobelle and Charlotte Ford are trained clowns, adept at using exaggerated body movement and facial expressions to convey repressed feelings that eventually rise to the surface as the theatre set is taken over by a series of stuffed animals and plastic undergrowth.

Mime Festival Rhoda by Sarah Alfarhan
Rhoda by Sarah Alfarhan.

Before long they are mating loudly in the dumpster, from which Jerry emerges disgusted that his animal instincts have at last taken over, immediately spraying his body with disinfectant. As the animals continue to stake their claim over the environment Jerry desperately clings to obsessive compulsive means of control, all of which eventually fail.

Flesh and Blood And Fish and Fowl by Mira Tazkia
Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl by Mira Tazkia.

The programme says very little about the meaning of Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl, preferring instead – in the great manner of mime – to leave the story to unfold through the telling. But it seems clear that this is a tale of human folly, and how, ultimately, our environment will have the last laugh of all. It’s a testament to the performers’ clowning expertise that what could so easily have come across as uncompromisingly depressing is instead one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen.

Charlotte Ford & Geoff Sobelle

Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl is showing at The Pit in the Barbican as part of the London International Mime Festival for the rest of this week. Surreal, funny, disturbing and thought provoking, as I twittered on the night of the performance, this was a brilliant piece of mime: I urge you to grab a ticket now.

The Mime Festival is London’s longest running annual theatre event, encompassing visual theatre of all kinds. It runs from 15th-30th January and features a huge range of performances. Why not check out their calendar of events here?

Categories ,barbican, ,Berny M, ,Charlotte Ford, ,Chernobyl, ,Clowns, ,Convenience Foods, ,Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl, ,Geoff Sobelle, ,Jerry, ,London International Mime Festival, ,Mime Festival 2011, ,Mira Tazkia, ,Philadelphia, ,Pit Theatre, ,Pripyat, ,Rhoda, ,Sarah Alfarhan, ,Sarah Matthews, ,Stacie Swift, ,The Pit

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Amelia’s Magazine | Album Review – Marissa Nadler: Marissa Nadler

Marissa Nadler by Avril Kelly
Marissa Nadler by Avril Kelly.

Marrisa Nadler’s 5th album came out this week. The Massachusetts born singer songwriter has been playing music since she was a teenager, viagra approved teaching herself guitar, viagra dosage 12 string, piano and organ with a little help from her older brother. Swoonsome melodies always come first, followed by metaphor-laden lyrical tales. Marissa studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design alongside a Masters Degree in Art Education, but the self expressive potential of music proved too big a pull to resist. She still creates art and sells watercolours, prints and handsewn pillows on Etsy, using it as a homespun way to raise funds for her music projects.

Marissa Nadler by Fawn Carr
Marissa Nadler by Fawn Carr.

Using online fundraiser Kickstarter to raise cash to record her self titled album proved an unprecedented success, allowing Marissa to make a record that remains true to her creative vision. The album was recorded earlier this year at the Miner Street studios in Philadelphia with producer Brian McTear and self released on Box of Cedar Records, named after a song on her first record. Everyone who helped to fund it received a hand wrapped record parcel in the post as a thankyou.

Marissa Nadler Album Cover
Marissa Nadler Album Cover.

Life, love and heartbreak, loss and death – all fragile human is found in the new album. From the crystal opening lines of In Your Lair, Bear…. ‘Where did you go, when the snow fell about you?‘ it’s obvious that this is an intensely personal album. ‘Like blood through your souls.’ Bears of course, are just a metaphor for human experience. Alabaster Queen tells the tale of a life that’s nearly drowned. The slow mournful strum of a guitar is the only thing that keeps us afloat.

Marissa Nadler by Lea Rimoux
Marissa Nadler by Lea Rimoux.

The Sun Always Reminds Me Of You starts on a more positive note… the sun shining on a familiar walk… but that sunshine is not all good after all ‘there ain’t nothing but love songs on the radio.‘ There’s a cosmic countryish tinge to this, a squealing moog bouncing incongruously through the background.

Marissa Nadler by Sam Parr
Marissa Nadler by Sam Parr.

In Mr. John Lee Revisited cements Marissa Nadler‘s reputation as a ‘mistress of the murder ballad’, singing of seductive red lips. But she’s running away again by Baby I will Leave in the Morning. ‘Baby you need to set me free‘ – key changes straining to get away from the melody. But she’s not leaving yet. ‘Come here… honey I don’t want to go away.’

Marissa Nadler photo by Courtney Brooke Hall
Marissa Nadler photo by Courtney Brooke Hall.

There’s a rollicking undertow to Puppet Master, which was co written with Carter Tanton. Once more the seasons pin the lyrics in time and place. ‘Winter would come and nothing would move. Summer’s undone with all did I choose.’ She won’t ever do him wrong… ‘I was your pearl and I knew that you lied.’

Marissa Nadler by Rukmunal Hakim
Marissa Nadler by Rukmunal Hakim.

Despite her angelic soprano Marissa Nadler will never succumb to what he wants her to be, never a Wind Up Doll. Light as a feather harmonies curl around a sparse wash of sound. ‘she will never be what you want her to be.’

Marissa Nadler by Jo Chambers.
Marissa Nadler by Jo Chambers.

A wobbling wall of synth opens Wedding. ‘I will wait for you to come around.’ Is she really still waiting? Somehow I don’t believe it, I think this album is the ultimate cathartic comeback. Doing things exactly as she would like, Marissa is fooling no one. This album is a masterpiece of that self expression she has spent so long searching for. Little King grew up not afar away. We’re in the autumn now but the suitcase is still being packed.

marissa_nadler_soni_speight
Marissa Nadler by Soni Speight.

Breaking down In a Magazine, in public, but she has moved on – ‘my hands are tied, the rain falls, you look like someone I used to know‘ – maybe, though the memories remain. The album ends on Daisy, Where Did You Go? – Marissa still apparently stuck with phantom limbs in ‘this light of woe‘ but nothing scares Daisy. And thus ends a beautifully elliptical album that I’ve had on repeat for weeks.

Marissa Nadler by Lea Rimoux
Marissa Nadler by Lea Rimoux.

Marissa Nadler plans to tour Europe in the autumn so keep an eye on this space. What a wonderful discovery. Now I just need to listen to the other albums.

Marissa Nadler by Rosie Moss
Marissa Nadler by Rosie Moss.

Categories ,Avril Kelly, ,Box of Cedar Records, ,Brian McTear, ,Carter Tanton., ,Courtney Brooke Hall, ,etsy, ,Fawn Carr, ,Jo Chambers, ,Lea Rimoux, ,Marissa Nadler, ,Massachusetts, ,Miner Street studios, ,Philadelphia, ,Rhode Island School of Design, ,Rosie Moss, ,Rukmunal Hakim, ,Sam Parr, ,Soni Speight

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