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 ... "
2 comments:
Hi Jonathan -- Sue was writing and performing long before she was in the band. In fact, we asked her to join after having seen one such performance (we'd seen plenty before and been friends with her for a while, but had a bit of an epiphany that what she was doing could work in a music context after one particular performance). She's also been making visual art alone and with her sister Hayley (who made artwork for many of our sleeves) since the mid 90s. The band was really something of a hiatus in Sue's visual and performance art career, rather than the opposite.
Just wanted to clear that up, and cheers for writing such nice and insightful things about Sue and the band.
Robert Johnston (ex-Lwb guitarist)
Hi Robert
Many thanks for your Comment post - I'm amazed you tracked me down. And I hope you don't mind the YouTube links. I suppose I'm initiating an unofficial LWB fan site!
You'll have gathered that I've recently discovered your music & love it. It's a bonus to then discover that Sue Tompkins has her own body of work which - as you'll gather from this Blog - relates to my interests in poetry and sound and image.
I work at an International school in Belgium and we run regular artist shows / installations by way of encouraging students to explore and develop their own work. Do you think Sue would be interested? I reckon her performance work might kick start some students into poetry and open up new possibilities to a generation whose aesthetics are defined by Adobe Photoshop.
If you have a contact address that'd be great. However, I also understand if this isn't a good idea.
Cheers
Jonathan
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