When
composer Michael Begg went to see Bertrand's Toys, a production by
Russian physical theatre fabulists, blackSKYwhite, he was smitten. At
that time, east Lothian-bsased Begg was about to release Consolation,
his first album under the name, Human Greed, named after a theatre
production he put on in 1999. The theatre Begg had been involved in
up to that point was very much focused on text-based narratives in a
more or less linear style. Bertrand's Toys and blackSKYwhite changed
everything.
“I
was blown away,” says Begg. “They came in and did it, and it was
the loudest, scariest thing I'd ever seen. It touched me in a deep
way, sand completely exploded what I thought was possible in a
theatrical space. I made a note then that this was a company I'd very
much like to work with.”
Begg
tracked down an address for the company, and eventually met
blackSKYwhite's director and visionary, Dimitri Aryupin, when the
company played in London. A decade on, and Begg is providing the
soundtrack to blackSKYwhite's latest voyage into darkness, OMEGA,
which premieres in Edinburgh following a couple of try-outs at this
year's Glastonbury Festival, where the company are regulars.
Described
as 'a hoochie-coochie carnival for the end of time,' OMEGA presents a
scarifying set of visions involving a roll-call of freaks, creeps and
mythical beasts who appear to have crawled from the darkest of places
in the name of an entertainment that becomes a matter of life and
death.
“They
come out one after another,” says Begg, “in a way that's linked
by these two Russian burlesque dancers, but because it's
blackSKYwhite, it's never anything less than unsettling. There's
never any straightforward narrative, and you're never quite sure
what's going on at times, but it all resonates on a great emotional
level. There are elements of Russian mythology and old testament
bible stories in there.
“As
with all blackSKYwhite shows, there's more of an under-pinning
narrative than they're sometimes given credit for. It goes much
deeper than just terrifying people.”
OMEGA
is Begg's second collaboration with blavkSKYwhite, after Aryupin
approached him “out of the blue” to work on a show called E.S.M.
(the biblically-inclined Eve, Salome, Mary in full).
“Dimitry
asked me to do recorded voices,” says Begg, “which were neither
male or female, and neither child or adult. He would say he wanted
was the voice of a whisper, then to think of holding an apple close
to your face, and that the apple is the word.”
When
Aryupin approached him again to work on OMEGA, Begg “jumped at it.
It's been an unusual one for me. I'm usually happy to just work with
my own obsessions, but here I had to put myself on the back-burner,
and work with Dimitry's obsessions.”
Begg
has released three albums in partnership with Deryk Thomas as Human
Greed, and also provides crucial contributions to Fovea Hex, the
experimental ensemble based around the astonishing voice of Clodagh
Simonds, who once sang backing vocals for Thin Lizzy, as well as
appearing on Mike Oldfield's Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn albums. Fovea
Hex's 2011 Here is Where We used To sing album, also featured
contributions from Brian Eno, as well as Nurse With Wound mainstay,
Colin Potter. Begg collaborated with Potter on Fragile Pitches, a
live sonic installation using treated natural sounds and performed in
St Giles Cathedral as part of the 2009 Edinburgh's Hogmanay
programme. Begg also recently supported David Lynch protégée,
Chrysta Bell, on the singer's debut Scottish date, and will be
playing with her again when she returns this coming Autumn. All of
which makes for quite a pedigree for someone more usually consigned
to the musical margins.
“Back
in the heady days of the 1990s, before I got involved in music, and
before I fell out with text and narrative completely,” Begg
remembers, “I had a theatre company called Cerebus. It was really
hard work doing that, but I always had a sense of what was possible
in a theatrical space. It's so infrequently that you can be in a
space where you get a buzz like that, and it's the only place I feel
comfortable in a crowd,. As you can imagine, Glastonbury was a
nightmare.”
Begg's
soundtrack for OMEGA, which is available on CD, is a typically dark
and moody affair which is punctuated by occasional voices of the
show's characters, as well as a musical saw provided by Irish singer
and Fovea Hex associate, Laura Sheeran.
Beyond
OMEGA, Begg will be working on the forthcoming Human Greed album,
WORLD FAIR: Klosterruine Snow Chapelle,
while new Fovea Hex material is also scheduled for release. Begg also
expresses a desire to do more theatre work, although whether it could
ever top his experience with blackSKYwhite is debatable.
“I'd
like to do something that's a little closer to home than Moscow,”
he says, “but there's a real chemistry between Dimitry and I, which
we spoke about in Glastonbury. We're both so used to working with our
own obsessions, but to find such kindred spirits in this way is rare,
and we both want to work with each other again.”
Regarding
OMEGA, Begg is keen to talk up just how physically arresting it is as
well as philosophically subversive. So devoted to the show do he and
Aryupin sound, in fact that it's as if they have actually entered
OMEGA's all-pervasive end of the world dream-state.
“The
only way to get it to work on equal terms,” according to Begg, “is
to think that this crazy circus made up of thieves and vagabonds from
mythological history that is OMEGA existed before us, and to think
that Dimitry and I are witnessing and recording what they do. The
long-term intention if the will is there is to extend it so that it
runs for a whole day, but after August, OMEGA will continue to exist
in another time-space, and it will continue to kick up dust.”
OMEGA,
Assembly Rooms until August 25th, 2.35-3.45pm. Michael
Begg will play a solo concert at Summerhall on August 24th.
The Herald, August 2013
ends
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