North Edinburgh Arts, Edinburgh
Four stars
The underworld has long
been the most fertile place for artistic expression inspired by things lost on
higher ground. Just ask Orpheus, the nearest thing Greek mythology has to a
rock star. Ask Eurydice too, whose untimely demise prompts Orpheus to attempt
the grandest of gestures. Things might not end well, but at least they can say
thank you for the music, even if it does become the death of them, immortality
guaranteed.
This is certainly the
case in Nicholas Bone’s Magnetic North company’s album-length rendition of this
classic yarn, which pitches the story through a suite of songs written and
performed by an ad hoc quartet of some of Scotland’s most adventurous musicians
overseen by musical director Kim Moore.
Things begin with the
voices of the future, as young people’s recorded responses to the importance of
music form a kind of spoken-word collage set to a chamber-pop instrumental overture.
This is played with exquisite panache by guitarist Jill O’Sullivan, clarinettist
Emily Phillips, saxophonist Claire Willoughby and drummer Alex Neilson, all of
whom come with an impeccable musical pedigree.
Swathed in psychedelic
apparel and draped around Karen Tennent’s leafy Eden-like set, once the band
burst into song, it is with a nouveau-bardic sense of storytelling driven by
O’Sullivan on lead vocal accompanied by harmonies and monologues by Phillips
and Willoughby. This is illuminated by Gavin Glover’s micro-cinematic images
projected onto the looming moon above and bathed in Simon Wilkinson’s equally
foreboding lighting. Such a display recognises how music doesn’t just go beyond
words in its evocation of life’s deepest and often darkest moments. Sometimes
it goes beyond dear life itself.
This fully breaks on
through to the other side when the ensemble is joined by young musicians from
local schools. In Edinburgh, students from from Craigroyston Community High
School, Amie Huckstep, Ashton Allan, Ella Ferguson, Eve Allan, Sarah Newman and
Xenia Garden found their muse. In Glasgow this week, musicians from Glasgow
Kelvin College look set to do likewise. The sound of the underground, it seems,
lives on.
The Herald, March 4th 2019
Ends
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