My name is Dave Pickering and I run a night called Stand Up Tragedy. We're taking a show up
to the PBH's Free Fringe this year. As our show is also a podcast and we have
lots of audio experience, we agreed to put together an album to celebrate and
fundraise for the spoken word line-up at the Free Fringe, which our tragic
variety show is proud to be a part of.
A Maze of Breaths: Spoken Word at PBH's Free
Fringe is the result of our efforts.
It's a selection of live and recorded tracks, bringing to
your ears the spirit of the spoken word line-up at the PBH Free Fringe. We bring to you the
variety and energy of the festival, making you laugh, think, feel and move with
this collection that combines poetry, storytelling, music, comedy and
everything in between.
All the tracks were donated by people who are either taking
a show up to PBH's Free Fringe or who have done so in the past. Performers
either sent in tracks or arranged for us to record them live. We had lots and
lots of amazing submissions, which I whittled down to this selection. I've
tried to order it so that it flows as an album, but also to highlight the
contrast between the types of spoken word that are contained in these 19
tracks.
The quality of the work submitted really took my breath
away. There are a lot more songs and soundscapes than I'd expected. There are
also some brilliant live performances, some of which were captured by the Stand Up Tragedy team. Shout out to
Bryony Hawkins (who produces the SUT podcast) and our sound technician Steven
Harvey, who also mastered this album and set up the bandcamp site.
The artwork was donated to us by another Free Fringe spoken
worder, Max Scratchmann.
Track By Track:
1. Katherine McMahon
with Fiona Keenan – Blackberries
This track is as sweet and tasty as its title suggests. It
gives me a warm feeling inside and seemed the perfect track to ease the
listener into the album with its combination of gentle music and wonderful
words.
2. Dan Simpson –You
Make My Flesh Crawl
This is a romantic and macabre story set against the
backdrop of the zombie apocalypse. I recorded it live earlier this year at Richard
Tyrone Jones' spoken word event, Utter
Shite! For me this is one of those poems where the last line blows you away
and gives you a new understanding that you can't quite explain. I chose it as
the second track so that people would get used to the way the tracks switch between
live and produced sound. And also because it meant a transition from relaxed
energy to tension; from sweet to bitter sweet.
3. Fay Roberts –
Blissful Chance
Inevitably an album showing the range of what spoken word
can do will also show the range of what the human voice can do. This is the
first of two tracks from Fay Roberts, the current director of spoken word for
PBH's Free Fringe, which mixes speech and song. It's also another take on the
topic of relationships. Love has, of
course, been a preoccupation of poets and singers through the ages and this
album is no exception.
4. Flea Circus:
Superbard – Brixton’s Afloat
This tremendous track is the first longer form set-piece of
the album. It's also our first straight up story. The relationship element this
time is a subplot for the main narrative as Superbard imagines what would
happen if a man who thinks Brixton will be flooded is proved "right".
Beautiful vocals form a stirring chorus. Powerful and dramatic electronic scoring
and a sad and funny tale give us something to really get our teeth into.
5. Isadora Vibes –
Lady V
This track takes an often neglected and historically ignored
part of the female anatomy and anthropomorphises it to a thought-provoking and
often comic effect. Sex, like love, is perhaps one of the timeless topics of
poetry, and it’s great to hear so many different voices and perspectives on
this subject in the album. A range of sexualities are explored, so hopefully
there’s something for everyone.
6. Friends of Friends
(Vera Chok, stephenmcaines and Pascal Barras) – Victor Lou (Sequin Edit)
This track is a wonderful piece of music. The spoken word element
is almost secondary. The voice functions as another instrument and a texture
which helps create an engaging musical atmosphere.
7. Sophia Walker –
Around the World In 8 Mistakes
This track was recorded live at a Stand Up Tragedy event. It was written on the day of the
performance and is fresh, surprising and thought provoking. It takes you in all
sorts of directions and has a strong ending. This is the first track that focuses
on another age-old preoccupation of poets: the self. It expresses the interior
emotional journey through a series of challenges and experiences.
8. The Morris Quinlan
Experience feat James McKay– The New Bali Ha'i
This piece makes me think of Joy Division or Depeche Mode. It’s
a poetry and music collaboration that fits strongly into the tradition of John
Cooper Clark. Its lyrical content is surreal, ambiguous and evocative. And at
track 8, we have the first meta track(!) which examines what it is to be a poet
or make spoken word. But this isn't empty naval gazing in any respect. It
explores the external as well as internal. To me, it’s about half connections,
the unexpressed, and everything in between. It's pretty epic.
9. Alan Wolfson – Love
Sickening
This was another track I recorded live at Utter Shite! It's a mix of the funny and
profound, and is an example of what can happen when you force yourself to force
the rhymes.
10. Richard Tyrone
Jones – Visiting Time
This is a new poem from Richard Tyrone Jones, who is
currently taking a sabbatical from being the Director of Spoken Word at the
Free Fringe so that he can tour his poetry all over the world. This track is
part of a live performance he gave at a Stand
Up Tragedy event, and it focuses on his grandmother’s dementia. It really
is a beautiful collection of observations and feelings. The context he gives
the poem is as profound and poetic as the poem itself.
11. Catherine Scott –
That Fucking Cockerel
To liven the mood, we go from personal sadness to the frustration
of having a cockerel crowing outside your widow. This is a fun poem, which is
also a kind of love letter to the swears we scream and things we think when we
run out of patience.
12. Mellor and Steele
– Beat 'n' Trachea
This is another longer form set-piece. It examines the voice
itself, how we make sound, what sounds we make and how we choose to use them. It's
part science lecture, part song, and part manifesto. I was so impressed with
the cleverness and execution of this track.
13. The Antipoet with
percussion by Mark Gordon – Hanging with the Poets
Some more self-referentialness as The Antipoet sings a song
about hanging out with poets. It's a camp and humorous take on the spoken word
performer’s lot in life.
14. David Lee Morgan –
DUH-MOCKRACY
We go from a farce to a powerful and sincere piece from
David Lee Morgan in the tradition of political performance poets like Gil Scott
Heron. An evocative piece of wonderfully delivered rhetoric that considers what
democracy is.
15. Mel Jones – Porn
This track from Mel Jones' album, Fuckin' Mel, takes a look at the state of modern pornography. It's
an earthy and funny discussion of pornofied culture, which posits an
alternative approach to the one that currently dominates much of the Internet.
16. Stand Up Tragedy –
An extract from a true story by Andy Bodle
This is the submission from my show, Stand Up Tragedy. It's an extract from a longer true story told by
ex-stand-up and core member of the SUT team, Andy Bodle. It gives you an idea
of the tone we go for at our night. A sad and thought-provoking story of a
teenage suicide attempt that will make you laugh.
17. Jem Rolls – I know
what the birds are thinking and I understand that look in their eyes
This was recorded by Bryony Hawkins at a Bang Said the Gun night in London. Jem's
performance style made his set hard to capture as he moves around the stage a
lot and doesn't use a mic. But I'm so glad we did capture it, as this is one of
my favourite tracks on the album. Its delivery combines a wonderful mix of
humour and anger and it will make you think about birds in a completely
different way.
18. Marcel Lucont –
The Tits Of The Brits
Marcel Lucont is a comic character that affectionately
parodies both poetry and French people. It's a bawdy, ironic piece which
playfully provokes, and it was performed live to an appreciative audience.
19. Fay Roberts
(featuring Gav Sirisena) – Turn Again
This is the second track donated by our current Spoken Word director,
Fay Roberts. Like many contributors, she gave me a few tracks to choose
between; in this case I decided to use both of them. I think they both give different flavours of
what spoken word can be. This track is backed by music and forms, with the
first track, Blackberries, a set of
mellow musical bookends. The title for the album was taken from this track,
although the shortlist included lines from many of the other artists.
Anyway those are my thoughts. Hope you enjoy the album that
we've put together for you. Some of it is rough and ready, some of it
beautifully produced, and all of it brings you some of the spirit and flavours
of PBH's Free Fringe.
With love both spoken and unspoken,
