MUSIC | BEYOND OPERA

I was fortunate enough to experience opera from a young age, from a candle lit courtyard in Limousin to Paris Opera House to the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro in Lucca. This may sound boastful but my point is that people are often surprised when I tell them this. A working class northerner with a Manc drawl so greet people with ya arrriyate and have a penchant for a cheeky Greggs pasty (who doesn’t?) likes opera, yup sod the stereotypes, live music is great and opera is beautiful live music with a story. It's all just music at the end of the day from Gold Panda at St John to Smegma at Otto, live music is good whatever the genre (or lack of). 

I am pretty excited about catching LaTraviata at The Kings Head in Islington and tempted by Wozzek at The Royal Opera House but what really turned me on recently was seeing that Ben Frost is composing an opera based on Iain Bank’s The Wasp Factory. What’s not to love about that?!

                      

It’s no secret that I adore Iain Bank’s and previously talked about the effect The Wasp Factory had on my life. The really interesting this is that Ben Frost is composing this so it's likely to be a pretty experimental affair since Frost is influenced by minimal, punk and industrial sounds. For those of you who don’t track his work *cough* Ben Frost is an Iceland (country not frozen food shop) based Australian composer who’s worked with the likes of Tim Hecker and Bjork, composed Music For Solaris with Daniel Bjarnason (based on Andrei Tarkovsky’s rad 1972 film adapted from Lem’s equally rad 1961 book) and he’s currently working on an album that features Swans. Yes, FML! 

Anyhow, I could go on about him a bit more but probably should stop at risk of embarrassing myself. Here’s a video of Ben Frost talking about his work on The Wasp Factory. 

Kerry Flint

                    

Books Reviewed

Hands up who likes books? The smell of the paper, all those lovely covers, that type, the flicker of the pages and the context to explore by starting with the publishing details...books are pretty good. 

In the age of the kindle and the availability of so much information on the web (I am not anti either of these and part of the latter) it's great to see that independent publishing is still very much alive. London is full of bookshops and markets where you can find books to suit any taste from secondhand treats on the Southbank to rare and first editions in Charing Cross, academic titles at Skoob and all kinds of art books and publications at Artwords on Broadway market. 

One of my personal favourites is the selection on offer at lc-nn in Dalston. Amongst an exciting array of cutting edge design lie a consistently inspiring selection of books on a range of topics - art, counterculture, photography, music, fashion... There's just so much here to get your teeth into, it's a veritable treasure trove of inspirational images and information for those who like to read and research. Geek it up!

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