The South-West tour of The Fleet comes to the Isles of Scilly
The Fleet - SOUTHWEST TOUR
Drifters (1929) Live + Seiners (premiere)
An atmospheric double bill of film + live music and spoken word
Featuring Jason Singh and Sarah Acton, plus Julie Macara
A critically acclaimed double bill of film and live music, plus spoken word, is coming to St Mary’s next month - part of the 2024 Culture on Scilly programme, a series of events and projects that will become part of our Cultural Centre and Museum offer.
Sound artist, nature beatboxer and composer Jason Singh performs his live soundtrack to John Grierson’s monumental silent documentary film Drifters at venues across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in March - and can be seen at The Lantern at the Old Town Inn, St Mary’s on Thursday 21 March.
Premiering alongside Battleship Potemkin in 1929, Drifters follows North Sea herring trawlermen through their dramatic daily routines as well as the industry’s struggles between tradition, modernity, and nature.
Originally commissioned by BFI, Jason’s critically acclaimed, and totally unique solo score combines live vocal sound effects, beatboxing techniques and live sampling to create a thrilling cinematic experience. The South West tour takes place in partnership with Carn to Cove in Cornwall and The Old Town Inn on St Mary’s.
Renowned film critic Mark Kemode said: “It was so powerful and so beautifully done. The soundtrack was every bit as big as the image you were seeing and it’s very, very hard to do that – to get the sound as powerful as the film. It felt like it was drawing everything out of the images. I thought it was thrilling, genuinely properly thrilling. I loved it.”
Weaving ghostly fragments of the South-West fishing heritage alongside atmospheric visuals by Common Ground, Sarah and local guest artist Julie Macara open the evening with the premiere of specially commissioned work Seiners.
The double bill can be found at the following venues:
21 Mar 19:30 The Lantern, Old Town Inn, Isles of Scilly TR21 0NN
22 Mar 19:30 The Centre, Newlyn Cornwall, TR18 5AR
24 Mar 19:30 St Michael’s Church Hall, Newquay, Cornwall TR7 1RA
Real conversations, records, walks and memory talks form inspiration for this series of sketches that remember fishing communities, seine boats and everyday life along the coast to link the story of these communities to the wild coastal seasons and cycles of mackerel, salmon and pilchards once fished in Dorset, Devon and Cornwall; where voices and music drift into the memory sea.
Jason Singh
Inspired by the Soviet montage movement, Drifters is a ground-breaking portrayal of the dramatic life of herring fishermen.
Jason Singh was commissioned by British Film Institute to create a new soundtrack to Drifters in 2012 for a Blu-ray version of the film issued with Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.
Jason’s score is a totally unique performance combining live vocal sound effects, voice manipulation, beatboxing and live sampling to create an exhilarating cinematic experience drawing on the original intention of Grierson: to portray the lives of the working man and woman in 1920s Britain.
Film credits: Director: John Grierson, Country / Year: UK / 1929, Classification: PG
About the artists
Based in South Devon, Jason Singh is a sound artist, nature beatboxer, producer, DJ, facilitator and performer. His work is an ongoing exploration of the natural word, voice, spatial audio and music technology which includes live performance, installations, sound walks, radio broadcasts, music workshops and DJ sets. Referred to as the “human sampler” by Cerys Matthews (Radio 6), his immersive soundscapes have been called “beautiful, strange, calming music” by nature writer Robert Macfarlane.
Singh’s collaborations and commissions include a diverse range of organisations and artists including BBC, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, V&A Museum, Kew Gardens, Chester Zoo, RNLI, National Trust, Tate Britain, Sir David Attenborough, George Ezra, Big Narstie, Yazz Ahmed, Shabaka Hutchings, Natacha Atlas, Sarathy Korwar, Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh and Rokia Traore. jasonsinghthing.com
Sarah Acton’s work includes collaborative performances, community theatre, myth-making and socially engaged arts projects. She has received commissions from Dorset AONB and Stepping into Nature and long-standing partnerships with local museums, Dorset libraries, and Alzheimer’s memory cafes. Her recent book, Seining Along Chesil (Little Toller, 2022) captures memories, voices and stories of Dorset Seine fishing traditions. She is founder of the Heart of Stone oral history project about quarrying on Portland. She lives in Devon. http://sarahacton.co.uk/
Adrian Cooper is a film-maker, producing and directing work for Channel 4, BBC Films and the BFI. He is also the executive director of Dorset arts and environmental charity Common Ground, for which he conceived and co-produced ARCADIA BFI (2017). Alongside this, he is editorial director and co-founder of Little Toller Books, a library of classic books on landscape, place and natural history plus new and debut nature writing. https://www.commonground.org.uk/
Julie Macara is a multi-media visual artist, composer and musician living in West Cornwall. she writes both classical and electronic music, focusing on the contrast between urban and nature. Her most recent works include a composition for RE-Voice, performed at the Tate St Ives; and a musical score for We've Been Here, exhibited at the Hall for Cornwall. www.juliemacara.com
