We have been asked to contribute something to this year's Liverpool Light Night. We're been working on a new 30 minute video + live soundtrack based around the theme of Liverpool / Merseyside life. It's been great to work on something that has inevitably become quite politically charged and (hopefully) sonically and visually adventurous.
We were originally asked to produce something around the story of the RMS Lusitania but the work quickly blossomed into something wider reaching.
It feels really good to be working on something that has organically come to be about some quite specific things (the history of Liverpool as a place rich in industrial / creative / anarchic energies - which is quite in-keeping with the "forward-thinking, renegade, democratic, naughty kind of spirit of the Everyman" as Everyman Theatre's Gemma Bodinetz puts it.
So we've been researching, physically exploring and sampling the landscape of the Merseyside dunes, docks, backstreets and secret spaces. And we've come up with something that sounds like us, but it's not a set of pop songs (even by our standards). The opaqueness is still there, but beneath the surface you can hopefully glimpse some sharp details...
Water Flowing Up a Hill will be performed three times at Everyman Theatre (upstairs in Ev 2, next to the Theatre Bar) as part of Liverpool Light Night, Friday 15th May 2015.
Performance / Projection times will be at 7 pm, 8 pm and 9 pm. Everyman Theatre, 5-11 Hope Street, Liverpool L1 9BH
A short talking-heads piece created by Kim Ryan from Picture Palace and voiced by Alex Cox will also accompany our performance.
There are currently no plans to record or release the material.
I see water flowing up a hill 1
The blush of dawn
Fire blooming in the ruins
Salt for wounds 2
We never learn
We never forget
The sin of indifference and
The glory of blame
A cool breeze of regrets
The dark warmth of shame
Downtrodden for decades gets you underground, underground
Hidden depths, secrets, walkways tunnels leading down and out, down and out
They are painting you pictures while you lie bruised and beaten down.
They'll hang portraits of your wounds in great galleries for you.
Written and produced by The Mekano Set. Visuals by The Mekano Set, Jo Stapleton / BeatnikSoup, Victoria Junashko.
S. Tschackert: voice, keyboards
A. Habsburg: voice, percussion
M. Taylor: voice, baritone guitar
Special thanks to Thomas Lang, Catherine Odita and The Gregson Institute.
We have produced work of this nature in the past (video collage / live soundtracks) and it's always great to have the opportunity to do more.
1. Chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe said reinvigorating Liverpool life / industry would be like "trying to make water flow uphill" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16361170
2. "It was like salt was
being rubbed into our wounds," http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-22073199
