Skint & Demoralised and Byron Vincent are the latest acts to be confirmed for Phrased & Confused’s festival tent at the Summer Sundae Weekender (August 14-16).
Byron is your perfect festival poet. Not only does he look as if he’s fallen out of the Arctic Monkeys’ tour bus, his poems and performances contain just the right mix of self-deprecating humour and poignancy.
Meanwhile, Skint & Demoralised blend with seemingly effortless ease John Cooper Clarke-inspired poetry with Beach Boys pop sensibilities to joyous effect. Enjoy!
After working through some 75 proposals from poets around the country, we’re really pleased to announce that we’ve commissioned Joshua Idehen, Sifundo & Jamal Msebele, Hannah Silva & Alexis Kirke and Sound of Rum to create new material for the Phrased & Confused stage at Summer Sundae Weekender (14-16 August 2009). Find out more about them and their work here.
Yay! We’re excited to be heading back to Leicester’s finest music festival this August, where we’ll be pitching our tent and dishing up our signature blend of poems, songs, conversations and the not-to-be missed Fridge Poetry. Oh yes.
So what delights do we have in store for you this year? So far the line-up includes Beth Jean Houghtons, Woodpigeon, Jeremy Warmsley, Joshua Idehen, Inua Ellams, Sound of Rum, Francesca Beard, Salena Godden, Ross Sutherland, Tamsin Kendrick, Stephanie Leal and John Osborne. More programming announcements to come, including our new commissions but it’s already shaping up to be one of our best-ever line-ups!
We caught up with Murray Lachlan Young and Woodpigeon’s Mark Hamilton a few weeks ago to find out what they were most looking forward to about this May’s Phrased and Confused tour. To hear what they had to say, click on the links below!
We’re really excited to be able to commission four spoken word artists to create new material for this year’s Summer Sundae Weekender in Leicester (thank you Arts Council England!) Each commission is worth £1000.
We’re looking for new work which responds to the question, Which Came First, The Music or the Words? and which will appeal to a music festival audience. The festival takes place between the 14th and 16th August and the deadline for applications is the 22nd May. If you’re interested in applying you can check out the full application details.
The first rehearsal for this year’s Phrased and Confused tour happened last week at our London venue, The Cross Kings. It was a great chance for all for four acts to meet, discuss their work and see if there are any possibilities for new collaborations to develop for the tour. We all sat around in the dark and atmospheric downstairs bar and everyone gathered to listen and perform their ideas and creations for the tour. The exchange of spoken words and music between each artist was the hot topic. A few hours later, we had a vegan lunch which was awesome, with as much soup, bread and apples anyone could want. All the artists went away well fed and excited about possible collaborations and hitting the road. Looking forward to seeing what develops at the next rehearsal!
The Phrased and Confused tour bus makes its merry way to venues in Bracknell, London, Norwich, Derby, Stockton and Exeter this May, with its signature mix of spoken word and lyrical music.
The tour pitches together Canada’s beautiful folk collective Woodpigeon, satirical wordsmith Murray Lachlan Young, the atmospheric poet Aoife Mannix and accordianist Janie Armour and laugh-out-loud Dead Poets, a mash-up of MCing and poetry, courtesy of MC Mixy and poet Mark Grist.
As they’re about to head into the rehearsal studio to work together on new material for Phrased and Confused, we asked Murray and Woodpigeon’s Mark Hamilton what they were looking forward to most about the tour:
“Doing what I do is a very solitary business. So I’m looking forward to working with other - very different - artists, sharing views and hearing what they’ve got to say about performance, poetry and music. When you have new material there is always a raw excitement to it for you as a performer; bringing that to an audience adds an extra thrill on both sides.” Murray Lachlan Young
“Collaborating with a group of artists we’ve not worked with before is going to be really exciting. It’s going to be fun I think. Unexpected things are bound to happen.” Mark Hamilton, Woodpigeon
So, a unique chance to hear brand new material in an intimate setting – what are you waiting for? For more information, visit the Phrased and Confused Tour 2009 pageor join us on Facebook
Phrased and Confused is off on tour again in May 2009, taking our irresistibly playful offer of spoken word and lyrical music to venues in Bracknell, London, Norwich, Derby, Stockton and Exeter.
Vying for the best seat on the tour bus will be: Woodpigeon, Canada’s ‘most unjustly overlooked band’ according to The Guardian; the playfully satirical poet Murray Lachlan Young; the root-you-to-the-spot-because-her-words-are-so-honest poet, Aoife Mannix, and the her equally spell-binding musical counterpart, Janie Armour, and – definitely claiming the back seat for their sheer exuberance and passion for all manner of spoken words – Mark Grist and MC Mixy.
Roll out the red carpet and pull back the velvet curtains, we present you the first Phrased & Confused film! This short feature showcases our work at the Summer Sundae Weekender in Leicester 2008.
It contains everything from some stunning snippets of the live music and spoken word performances we enjoyed to some back stage interviews with the key players. With no holds barred we’ve got live and direct feedback from the punters. In three words – not ours but a real life punter’s - “it were quality” – take a look for yourself. Big thanks to the producer and director of this film, Stuart Silver and to everyone who agreed to take part.
