I've been doing a little bit of research and discovered that the voice of Life Without Buildings belongs to Sue Tompkins who - post LWB - has been working as a 'sound artist' (wouldn't 'poet' do just as well?).

Above is a YouTube link. Go to http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/artnow/liveworks/suetompkins/
for a much longer dose.

It all makes sense - those lyrics (wouldn't 'poems' do?) for LWB were just too good to have come out of nowhere and then disappear for good. Does she need the music, though? That's a good question. I'm listening to Live at the Annandale as I type and find it astonishing how she veers around, dives within, glides over the rhythms working between drums, bass and guitar. Phrases are like flicks of paint - fully gestural - sense but one component of what the language is doing. You catch onto a sense unit (what did she say?) at the risk of losing another collision of half syllable stutterings or a lullaby cadence. The same phrase but different intonations seems to open up words within words, adjacent vowel sounds, slurrings, a sudden discovery and another direction. She stalls on a line - as if the needle's stuck - but it sets up a counter rhythm to the band. Really exciting stuff. I've read a lot about Schoenberg's sprechstimme and failed to get through Pierrot Lunaire several times. It sounds just too damn cerebral for my ears. Whereas LWB - why not say it? - rock. Here's spittle cheekiness pazazz - the style's catching. 

Watching her perform in a more 'art' context I'm reminded of my daughters: pure uninhibited vocal play. Hums, half-remembered song lines, little jigs, the body and voice working before poise and self-image set in. Glossolalia.

The 'visual' work looks interesting too: kind of Bob Cobbing meets Eva Hesse's notebooks.

One of Belgianwaffle's 2008 highlights. For sure.

"If I - if I - if I - do - do - do - do - gee - gee - gee ... "