Aurelie and Cardboard Lung at the Merzbarn

Aurelie's Glenn Boulter and John Hall (the Cardboard Lung) made their way up the A590 last Saturday to discuss the upcoming FON Festival at the annual Kurt Schwitters Herbst-Schule. The art/architecture conference took place in and around Kurt Schwitter's 'Merzbarn' at the Cylinders Estate near Elterwater. The event included a seminar on artist led learning projects, performances and discussions on the future of the Merzbarn.

Glenn and John performed on Saturday evening at the Merzzzoom Cabaret, employing laptops, amplified mixing bowl, buddha machine and a mangled Patti Smith cassette. Other acts included the Lakeland Fiddlers and East Lancs. band Funnel whose set featured rousing renditions of Ursonate and Anna Blume.

Kurt Schwitters and David Medalla presides over the closing buffet at Cylinders Estate.

We'd like to thank Ian and Celia of Littoral for inviting us along to KS09 and look forward to collaborating in the future!

Post-Grimeborn Musings

Aurelie members convened in the capital this Monday for a performance of their football drone opera 'An Unorthodox 1-2'. Sharing the bill with composer Jenni Roditi, the piece was selected for the gala night of the Arcola Theatre's annual festival of alternative opera, Grimeborn.



Regular members Glenn Boulter, Dave Dhonau and Euan Rodger were joined by Barrow-based actor Damian Rose and artist/musician John Hall who was responsible for commissioning the piece as part of a residency at Barrow AFC in 2008. Endgame's Jim Tetlow was also on hand to document the performance.



The show played to a sold-out audience (including Swiss Aurelie fan Aurélie Emery and long-time anti-guitar campaigner Leon Cole) and featured some dextrous live looping from Damian accompanied by cello, crowd samples and electronics. The piece was warmly received, with the only dissenting voice coming from the Independent's hilariously ill-informed theatre critic Michael Coveney:

'Sounds of the terraces have twice been excitingly evoked by Andrew Lloyd Webber in Evita and The Beautiful Game, but Boulter and his gloomy half-hour serial score concentrates on the anomie of an abandoned pitch, wind rustling in the grass, a reiterated litany of unknown players, a solitary fan. We see all that on film while Damian Rose sits hunched over his paper in Barrow's blue-and-white strip and four musicians mix cello and percussion scratching with taped fragments.'

As Euan put it: "If we'd only had a glossy programme and someone ex-eastenders-now-secondary-character-in-the-Bill as the lead. Or perhaps we should try a bio-opera of Madonna in bronze age Britain?"

Luckily the North West Evening Mail were on hand to big us up:
(Click here to read)

Watch this space for news of further performances at the Royal Opera House 2 in November!

Aurelie woud like to thank to Alex Sutton and the Arcola for all their hard work in organising this event. Special thanks go to Nick O'Donnell Smith for his pre-show demonstration of the iPod trombone.

Aurelie at Grimeborn 09

Aurelie's 'football drone opera' An Unorthodox 1-2 has been selected for the opening night of a London opera festival. Grimeborn 09 takes place at the Arcola Theatre during August and September. More information to follow.

More from the Roxy

An evening of audio visual performances in the surroundings of Ulverston's immaculately preserved art deco cinema.



Andrew Deakin opened the proceedings screening John Cage's film 'One11' alongside a meditative electro-acoustic composition. Aurelie were up second with an outing for their piece 'Silence is Twice as Fast Backwards' in which a series of film subtitles are stripped of their images, providing the starting point for 5 group improvisations. Third was a song-based laptop and guitar set from Mondo Bongo (alias actor and musician Damian Rose) accompanying his own Barrow AFC-inspired visuals. The event culminated in a visceral performance by Good Noise Bad Noise that took Italian horror classic 'Suspiria' as the raw material for a series of intense audio-visual improvisations.



Dave Dhonau and Endgame's Jim Tetlow brave the crowd of pensioners for a quiet moment with Ulverston's finest ... followed by post gig ramblings in search of impressive lichen.

Aurelie: Documents from the Roxy Cinema, Cumbria 22_04_09

 Images: Argañaraz Lumen.

             

I'll gladly play the role of Mephistopheles. Requiem.

Ikiru. A visual extract from 'Silence is twice as fast backwards' - which

we played live in 04/2008 at the Phoenix Arts centre - Which is now

regrettably closing down at the hands of ill informed councillors in the

name of 21st Century culture regeneration.

Delta Golf & Foxtrot at the Brudenell

Our travel & imagery gratitude to Jim Ultima Thule.

Live Music and Video at the Roxy

An evening of experimental music and visuals from Good Noise Bad Noise, Aurelie, Andrew Deakin and Mondo Bongo.

*Rescheduled from January.

25.03.09 :: Aurelie play live at the Brudenell Social Club

An Unorthodox 1-2 at Last FM

A full-length preview of An Unorthodox 1-2 is now available
at www.last.fm

Click here to listen to tracks from An Unorthodox 1-2

Or contact aurelie@aurelie.org.uk to order a copy of the CD in a limited edition,
hand-finished sleeve.
(Priced at £8 inc. P+P within the UK)

‘An Unorthodox 1-2’ combines field recordings, spoken word, and instrumental material to explore the aural environment of the ground from the physical sounds of the game to the emotional response of the crowd and the acoustics of the site. Inspired by his visits to the Holker Street ground, Glenn Boulter produced a series of texts that he later recorded with Barrow-based actor Damian Rose. Drawing on early radio dramas, these fragmentary monologues collage together adverts for defunct local businesses, found text from programmes and elements of local geography.



Edited and looped, the spoken texts form the starting point for three instrumental pieces, performed by Aurelie members Francis O’Donnell Smith (guitar, laptop, production), David Dhonau (cello, bass), Euan Roger (percussion, electronics) and Ola Szmidt (flute). Combined, the two elements attempt to capture the unique aura of match day in a Cumbrian town and to make explicit the idea of the game as a performance in its own right.

Aurelie / Mogwai Live at the Canteen 19/11/08

Amidst howling winds, fierce blizzards and malfunctioning fire alarms, Aurelie performed at the Canteen in Barrow-in-Furness last Saturday, completing a lineup that included Canadian ambient doom-metal duo Nadja, Manchester's Spokes and a DJ Set from Mogwai.

Above: Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite and Barry Burns get their hands on Aurelie's recent Barrow AFC drone opera An Unorthodox 1-2 and artist John Hall's book, The Al Mobility Story. The Scottish band are no strangers to mixing art with football having contributed the soundtrack to video artist Douglas Gordon's Zidane: a 21st Century Portrait in 2006

[ [ nadjaluv.ca ] ]

Spokes
Mogwai.co.uk

BAFC Night at the Canteen Cinema Room 13/11/08

Work from the Barrow AFC Digital Residency received a second showing last Thursday at the Canteen Cinema Room on Barrow Island. The evening included presentations of research materials and documentation from throughout the project as well as film screenings, a 'Bluebirds' DJ set and live performances.

Francis O' Donnell Smith's video installation based around an interview with life-long BAFC fan Geoff Payne screened to a live accompaniment from Glenn Boulter, Damian Rose and project organiser John Hall that reworked material from the spoken word and music piece An Unorthodox 1-2. This was followed by a live set of Bluebirds inspired music and video projections from Damian performing as Mondo Bongo. Each set was interspersed with scenes from two silent films from 1920's Germany (both amongst the first football feature films ever produced).

Tracks from the Bluebirds DJ set:
Jandek - Blue Blue World
Sun City Girls - Blue Mambo
Captain Beefheart - Dirty Blue Gene
Cocteau Twins - Bluebell Knoll
Gastr Del Sol - Blues Subtitled 'No Sense of Wonder'
Mayo Thompson - Good Brisk Blues
Neil Young - Birds / Danger Bird
Diamanda Galas - Birds of Death
Smog - Blood Red Bird
Public Image - No Birds
The Residents - Birds in the Trees

Aurelie Live at the Gateway

Francis O Donnell Smith, Dave Dhonau and Euan Rodger perform live at Leicester Gateway as part of the Arena Contemporaary Art Festival, 25/11/08.

Aurelie at the Norwich Festival of Literature

Dave Dhonau and Ola Szmidt perform with poet Lydia Towsey in Norwich 24/11/08.

Aurelie Live at Barrow AFC

Aurelie performed live at Barrow AFC on Friday 17th October as part of an exhibition presenting work from their residency at the club.



On display were selections from Francis' video installation Unbridled, prints, hand-packaged Unorthodox 1-2 CD's, tracks made by Glenn with local schools using graphic notation and project organiser John Hall's edition of books charting the career of fictional Barrow player Al Mobility.



The live section of the event consisted of a talk by Francis and Glenn about their work, followed by a live performance of Unorthodox 1-2. This used a series of recorded texts as a starting point from which to improvise a series of drones based around the notes BAFC.



Differing considerably from the recorded version, the set featured Dave Dhonau on samples, thumb piano, radios and drum machine, Francis on laptop, guitar and effects and Glenn on prepared guitar.

Look out for further posts on how to order the CD and upcoming performances.



Shiny: Aurelie in BAFC mode (clockwise from top left), Actor Damian Rose, Francis O'Donnell Smith, David Dhonau, Glenn Boulter.