BC Winter Festival 2001
March 29th, 2002 by freddie96
The Big Winter Chill
The British winter can be hard to love, but it definitely has its pleasures. After the excesses and exhilarations of summer, it can be a valuable time for reflection and consolidation, as well as sleeping and feasting. A ying and yang kind of thing, balancing out the rest of the year.
This is but one reason why The Big Chill has organised its second Winter Festival this year. ‘It’s a chance for us to do something a little bit out of the ordinary,’ Pete Lawrence explains. ‘The Big Chill has become known for its large summer events, but there’s a great deal more to us than that.’
Nothing highlights this better than the candlelit Big Chill Winter Concert. If you caught Tom Middleton performing his classic Global Communication material with the Joyful Company of Singers on the Sanctuary stage at Lulworth Castle this summer, you might have an idea of what this will entail, but within the dark wood and stone of the Union Chapel, and with Hexstatic’s midi-triggered visuals (see footnote below), it will be something else entirely. I was there for both performances last year and I found it almost shatteringly intense. Certainly I’ve never been more moved by a single piece of music than ’12:18′, with its deep heart-beat sound, hypnotic analogue arpeggios and piercing soprano solos. Judging by how many other faces were streaked with tears that night, I was not alone in feeling this.
No wonder, then, that this is the track that originally inspired Pete and Katrina to create the Big Chill’s summer festivals seven years ago. Listening to the seminal Global Communication album ’76:14′ under a crystal clear starlit sky – by a campfire in the very same field where the Big Chill’s first festival (the Black Mountains Gala) took place one year later – their vision of outdoor events dedicated to beautiful music, conversation, visual stimulation, art and healing took shape. Having this piece performed with the full choral and visual accompaniment that it deserves is thus a return to the very roots of the Big Chill as we now know it.
The same is true of the all-nighter at Ocean in Hackney that the Big Chill will be holding on the Saturday night of this festival. ‘It takes us back to our roots of doing all-night events at Bagley’s and the Brixton Academy that we used to do years ago,’ says Pete. ‘Only now we have a much stronger mix of live music, DJs and visuals. This one will be special.’
Certainly there is great excitement in the Big Chill camp about having secured one of the most exciting up-and-coming chill-out acts for a headlining live set. ‘Royksopp’s ‘Melody A.M.’ is one of the best albums I’ve heard in a long time,’ enthuses Pete. ‘Every track is a mini-classic in its own right. It’s so full of amazing arrangements and melodies. As yet they haven’t performed much in this country, and my hunch is there can be few better settings for their work than a Big Chill.’
A similar buzz surrounds the Future Sound Of London, who will also be headlining that night with one of their all-too-rare DJ sets. Following Garry Cobain’s tour-de-force set at Lulworth Castle – his first major live outing in this country for five years (Ocean will be his second) – it is clear that FSOL’s days as moody reclusives are coming to an end. On the contrary, Garry’s set that day was probably received with more rapturous applause and excitement than any other of the many talented performers who graced the Sanctuary stage that weekend.
Meeting Garry at Lulworth was something of a revelation for me too. Until then, the only glimpse of the Future Sound of London I had ever managed to get was in Lara Lee’s ‘Modulations’ film (at last year’s Big Chill Winter Festival, as it happens), for which Garry and Brian Dougans were interviewed via ISDN, coming across as warped electronic messiahs. ‘It didn’t do us any favours, did it?’ laughs Garry now. ‘I thought we were getting stitched up there…’ He has found similar misperceptions linger over their music, given that many remember them for the twisted dreamscape that was ‘Dead Cities’.
Since then, however, a great deal has changed. Garry has spent five years travelling, healing and reconsidering his relationship his music. As a result, FSOL has undergone a complete re-orientation towards a warmer, funkier sound, with a strong emphasis on the spiritual and psychedelic inspired by Garry and Brian’s recent journeys through late ’60s music. Garry’s style of DJing is undergoing a similar change: ‘I now prefer to make my DJing an experience and a performance rather than some purely functional, ergonomic thing,’ he says. Judging by these remarks, and his set at Lulworth, Garry’s performance at the Winter Festival should be another landmark in FSOL’s evolution – into what, exactly, remains to be seen…
And that’s only two of the pleasures the Big Chill’s All-Nighter at Ocean has in store for us. Others might say that Fred Deakin from Lemon Jelly could well be the star of the evening, since he does have something of a reputation for scene-stealing cheekiness and brilliance behind the decks. Both Tom Middleton and Pete Lawrence rate Fred’s set in Naxos 2000 one of their all-time top Big Chill moments. Can he pull it off again this winter? Either way, with a certain version of ‘If you leave me now’ becoming such a firm Big Chill anthem this summer, he is sure to have the crowd on his side.
One other act that night you might want to keep your eyes peeled for is AJ and Jony’s audiovisual set, a collaboration between two rare souls. AJ you may well know already from his long-term involvement with the Big Chill as a DJ and MC; Jony Easterby has similarly been contributing site-specific audiovisual pieces to Big Chills since the fire and ice sculpture he created for the Black Mountains Gala in ’95. It was only in Naxos this year, however, that these two finally decided to do something together for the Big Chill. ‘The Big Chill is a great catalyst,’ says AJ. ‘We’d never put music and visuals together in such a way before, yet we got such support from the crowd and our fellow performers that Pete asked us to do it again.’
Fusing AJ’s passion for deep musicality with Jony’s talent for beautiful imagery, this is indeed one of those collaborations in which the Big Chill specialises, with its abiding interest in the meeting of complementary energies. Clearly AJ and Jony are two such. ‘So much of our shared experience is about nature and the elements,’ AJ explains. ‘Jony lives on the side of a hill in Wales and I live by a lake in Worcestershire. We’re both interested in bringing nature indoors, and in the alchemical possibilities of sound and vision. We might rehearse a bit but for the most part we’ll improvise. There are lots of new images to edit and music to listen to – and walks to be taken deep in the forest with a camera and minidisk… Perhaps we’ll find a Yule log somewhere, to bring a bit of fire to the party.’
Those who enjoy this kind of audiovisual work also have the Big Chill’s ‘Total Immersion’ session at Dingwalls to look forward to on Sunday 9th December. ‘We specially chose Dingwalls,’ explains Pete, ‘because it’s a cosy and comfortable venue with lots of seating, and is sufficiently dark to allow the live / audiovisual mix to work at its best. It’s also a venue with a long history of good Sunday events – Gilles Peterson, Norman Jay – so it suits us perfectly.’ And appropriately enough, Norman Jay’s ‘Good Times’ film will be one of the opening attractions of this event. Two special audiovisual sets are also programmed: one from the digital artist Nick Philip, who will be flying in from San Francisco (where he is well-known for his contributions to that city’s vibrant arts scene), and another from Pete Lawrence and Stephen McLaren, who be performing ‘Images of Naxos’. In addition, Muffled Visions, Grainy and the Ombudsman will be screeing their visual work through the evening.
Musically, this Sunday has been programmed to celebrate and launch Lol Hammond’s forthcoming ‘All This Is Bliss’ album (which is set to be released in February now). While Lol will naturally be headlining that night, he has gathered round him two of his former collaborators, Roger Eno, with whom he recorded and performed the ‘Damage’ LP, and Howie B., a long-term friend who has played alongside Lol at countless nights at the Dogstar and Mass. Warming up for them will be Centre Edge, providing another of his fine ambient sets. ‘I’ve had a great year so far playing at all the Big Chill’s summer events,’ says Lol, ‘and with so many Chillers turning up for my Dogstar nights these days, I’m really looking forward to this Dingwalls date. It’s going to be a great way to end a great weekend.’
It will also be bringing one of the Big Chill’s best years to date to a close. As Pete says: ‘Winter is valuable down-time for us, but next summer is still a long way off. So it’s great to be able to have one last party of the year before everyone disperses over the Xmas holiday season.’ I certainly can’t think of a better way of ending the year either. See you there.
Freddie B., November 2001
A brief footnote on Hexstatic
It’s always a challenge writing about the Big Chill, as there are so many telling details in each event that are worthy of attention. And what Hexstatic have up their sleeves for the Friday night Winter Concert is definitely worth explaining a little.
Hexstatic will be using audio and visual samples of the choir and strings taken during the performance, which will be mixed live with a pre-recorded audiovisual backing track created on DV; using a sound feed from the DV, these will be projected together onto two large plasma screens. The backing work will feature pre-recorded video and audio sampling of the Chapel (footage taken at rehearsals of the various soloists from the choir and string quartet), along with soundbites, tunes, and spoken phrases taken at other Big Chill events throughout the year. In this way, Hexstatic will be bringing together the latest means of digital AV production with some of the most traditional acoustic music.
