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Neil Luck shares tracks performed by Musarc collective

July 2018

Stream two experimental choral performances from the London based composer's recent album

In 2015, artist Neil Luck, known for his DIY musical theatre productions, worked with the London based choral ensemble Musarc to record and perform four of his compositions in Extra City Kunsthal in Antwerp. These were then released as an LP on the Belgian label Entr'acte and the record was launched at Odradek, a three day event of experimental music curated by Musarc.

Luck explains these tracks below:

“Namesaying”
The title and the sound of the piece reference the tradition of ‘Nanori’, or ‘namesaying’, in Kabuki theatre. There’s a particularly famous play – Shibaraku – where the main (super)hero character, Kagemasa, enters and delivers his namesaying speech. Actually, this got me thinking about the mummers’ play too – something similar happens in that, mainly in an effort to make the plot as clear as possible. That’s a trope in a lot of English folk theatre; you find it in Punch and Judy too.

“Any's Response's”
I think the musical and textual references in “Any’s Response’s” are obvious, and so I don’t know how interesting it is to write about them per se. There’s a mechanism at play; the piece is a machine. Each part relies on the others to operate – it’s sort of symbiotic in a simple sense. Or maybe it’s less precise than that; it just about holds together, just about holds shape. You’ve got to concentrate, got to hold on. The watch is key in this, practically and as a symbol. Humour is strictly, but badly, calculated etc. etc.

Neil Luck was interviewed by Abi Bliss in The Wire 414. Subscribers can access the full article via the online archive

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