Folk Creativity in the 21st Century: Embracing a Playful Life with Jayne Dent (Me Lost Me)

WEBVTT
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or focus of the people and it's kind of whatever
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the people are making and it's traditions are
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not just the objects it's like a it's like an
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ethos um this way of making physically creating
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things with what you have to hand the materials
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you have to hand and it's not necessarily it's
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not for profit it's not for they can be but it's
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it's not at its core it's not a money making
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scheme right it's like I feel compelled to tell
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stories or share stories. I, you know, I'm going
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to do that with the things I have to hand. And
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whether that's singing or whether that's like
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coding a cool website, building a mini game,
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because you've learned how to do that on YouTube.
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You know, that to me is folk. And I think we've
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always just used the technologies you have to
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hand. And we have, you know, it's easier to.
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play a free software synth than it is to learn
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to acquire and then learn a hurdy -gurdy you
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know like it's it's what is the more folk instrument
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now is it a software synth to me it would be
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i mean i love a hurdy -gurdy obviously but hi
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you're listening to conversations with musicians
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with leah roseman which i hope inspires you through
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the personal stories of a fascinating diversity
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of musical guests Jane Dent is a wonderful British
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interdisciplinary artist, singer, and composer,
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and I was absolutely delighted to explore ideas
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around a creative and playful life with her.
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You'll be hearing clips of music from Me Lost
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Me with inspirations from folk culture old and
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new. She opened my mind to what folk creativity
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and community can mean in the 21st century. You'll
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also hear about community music making, collaborations
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with dancers, experimentation with e -textiles,
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and the challenges and joys of her career path.
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I was really struck by her creative and curious
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spirit and you'll be hearing about some of her
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chance -based writing tips and her varied interests
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from creating costumes to medieval sword fighting.
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You can watch the video on my YouTube or listen
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to the podcast and I've also linked the transcript.
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It's a joy to bring these inspiring episodes
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to you. And I do all the many jobs of research,
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production and publicity. Have a look at the
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show notes of this episode on my website, where
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you'll find all the links, including different
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ways to support this podcast and other episodes
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you'll enjoy. Hey, Jane, so great to meet you.
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Nice to meet you, too. So you're presently in
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London for a gig as we record this, but you're
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based in Newcastle. upon time like it's different
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than there's different newcastle yeah there's
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an underline which is um yeah a bit further south
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and to the like west uh of newcastle upon time
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but yes that's the one i'm at and yeah and there's
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one in canada and of course yeah i was just curious
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to see where you were based yeah and you had
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moved there originally for visual art many years
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ago yeah i moved there in uh 2013 i think um
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to study fine art um which was more it was i
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was interested in a mix of things and ended up
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doing a lot of sound art and performance art
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which kind of gradually became more more music
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uh and well it still flits between the two but
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um yeah so it was always a little blurry I was
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so interested to discover your work and I was
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super interested with all the intersection of
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your creative practice. So I'm hoping we'll get
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into a couple of Me Lost Me's projects and some
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of your community collaborations. I thought a
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good place to start, especially for those people
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that don't know you or your fans, would be actually
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your 2023 album, RPG. For people who haven't
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heard it, maybe you could say in your own words
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kind of what the project's about. I always joke
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when I do it live that I set out to write an
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album about video games. And it is kind of, but
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it's also mainly about the weather. So many of
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the songs are about the weather because they're
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about, I guess, place and environments and whether
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that be a real, real, air quote, environment
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or, yeah, one that's been created in a virtual
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world. yeah it's about exploring these places
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and kind of exploring yourself through exploring
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these these sorts of places and it kind of i
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come from like a folk music kind of family um
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and i'm really interested in like technology
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and um those two things yeah kind of fused throughout
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the me lost me like music but um yeah this album
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was leaning more into i guess i played a lot
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of video games during lockdown and ended up writing
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songs about them directly or indirectly uh so
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that was this album was kind of the the lynch
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and of that kind of holding it all together yeah
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i listened quite a bit to this material moment
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your more recent album which we're going to get
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into later in the episode and also rpg and it's
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you know not knowing what to expect you know
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we hear the beautiful close harmony acapella
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and then the electronics coming in and then clarinet
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and it's it's such an interesting um mixture
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of textures and i don't know it's very very immersive
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music i thought though it would be cool to start
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with a clip of you have this old song i assume
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it's middle english uh mary it is while summer
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i last Thank you. So is that Middle English?
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Oh, I think so. I always get them confused when
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the borders of, I think it's Middle English or
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Old English. Not a historian, just a fan. Yeah,
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yeah. Yeah, so it's one of the oldest songs,
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kind of recorded songs that is secular, written
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in an English language. There's a couple, also
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Summers are coming in, appropriate because today
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is the 1st of May. as well as sort of around
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the same sort of time and this song was found
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a fragment of this song was found um it was only
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recorded because a monk took interest in it wrote
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down the notation of the this verse um in a bible
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and it was found years later um so this is kind
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of a rare little snippet there might have been
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more to the song than this this one verse but
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yeah i took the the melody and added a bunch
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of uh yeah set it for nine eight or nine voices
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and um yeah how to play around with this one
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verse that got saved with this song yeah i was
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curious about the close harmony so since most
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music wasn't notated certainly not harmony is
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that just the oral tradition that we know about
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that yeah i mean the so the harmony is very much
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they came about organically so a lot of how i
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write songs or arrange uh songs of other people
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i guess um is through improvisation i'm not really
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like a notation gal um i sing the song i mean
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i can read music but i like to learn um yeah
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by hearing songs um so i also write by singing
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so i recorded the main melody and just kind of
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enabled and layered up a bunch of different harmonies
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kind of very improvised very like you know and
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i there's maybe a few the a few notes i uh was
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like well i'll take that one out and um as i
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as i arranged it and then kind of notated and
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gave it to the singers who performed it um on
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the album so it was very much like an improvised
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harmony um yeah rather than a sensible historically
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accurate one yeah that's interesting Jane but
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actually my question was more to like I guess
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you don't maybe don't know the answer to this
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but how do we know how people sang in folk settings
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in terms of the harmony is it influenced from
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the church you know what I mean in terms of yeah
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I mean I I think the exciting thing for me is
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that we don't I love not knowing uh things yeah
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and I think it's so beautiful that we can get
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this one snippet of melody um and realistically
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there's probably a thousand different iterations
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of the song um no one was if people weren't notating
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it people weren't um you know learning it as
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such they were also probably improvising the
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melodies around harmonics that they understood
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and knew so i guess i was kind of doing the same
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really they weren't consciously fitting a a style
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or a a harmonic structure they were just like
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this sounds right to me now and yeah which i
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think is pretty cool and on rpg so the use of
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electronics you definitely have some really whimsical
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video game sounds coming through are those imitations
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from games you were playing or samples or you
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just went your own way on that um it's a mix
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so nothing's directly sampled from a video game
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although on this is very nerdy on um so there's
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a song that's specifically about legend of zelda
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breath of the wild Enableton has a function where
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you can take an audio sample and it will imitate
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the reverb, the echo that is on that. It takes
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the shape of the waveform. And there's this common
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recurring sound of a drip that's very, very like,
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got this huge reverb on it. And I sort of copied
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that reverb a little and like transplanted it.
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into that song which is such a tiny silly nerdy
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detail um but everything else is yeah it's built
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to their sounds inspired by the world but they're
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not taken directly from them but they're supposed
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to echo that kind of space i guess yeah And you
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had a residency in Aarhus in Denmark? Oh, I did
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a couple of residencies there because I studied
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there on my exchange. So I did a couple of little
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trips back to make work there, which was nice.
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Yeah, and we'll get into your academic life because
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you're doing your doctorate now. So those residencies
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were part of your master's or earlier? They were
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in between. So they were after my... Well, I
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studied at the art academy in Aarhus on my undergraduate
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and then went back after I graduated to do these
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residencies to make work. Okay. So do you know
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some Danish? Not a lot. Not a great deal. It
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used to be better. Yeah. So the oldest trees
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hold the earth. So beautiful. I understand the
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way you co -wrote it with your friend. Is it
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Dita, Ellie? How does she say her name? Dita.
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Dita. Okay, so you were in the woods in Denmark,
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and you had this creative process to write this
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song together? Yeah, it was. So me and Dita met
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actually in the UK, and by some strange coincidence,
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she also ended up in Aarhus. And so we met, and
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I stayed with her for a few days. We've sung
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together for years, and we decided to try and
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write something together. And so we sat. in this
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woods which is this amazing place where it's
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it's woodland and then it suddenly drops off
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in a cliff and then it's beach and then it's
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a bay it's a really amazing like instant change
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of uh kind of biome it's really beautiful and
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um yeah we sat there and passed a piece of paper
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between each other and just like sat in silence
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um i wrote a line she wrote a line i wrote a
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line and then we took it back to her house and
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we sang it we just improvised around it and yeah
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it was a really lovely way to write a song and
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you never you know you think you know where a
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lyric's going and then you get the piece of paperback
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and you're like oh that's not where I was going
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with that at all so then you have to like pivot
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it's really it's really creative and inspiring
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it's nice Yeah. Actually, it might be interesting
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to talk. about your work in the community like
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you do music workshops i'm sure you do different
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things with that yeah i do lots of um sort of
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uh i like to i like to think i get i get brought
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in sometimes as a um as the kind of disruption
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to um you know often it will be community groups
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that regularly meet and do songwriting in a very
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like chorus verse bridge chords rhyming structures
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type way and then i get brought in to like cause
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a bit of chaos and to be like what if you only
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need one chord throughout the whole song do you
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need a bridge like have you tried playing with
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this so i yeah i quite like kind of um like gently
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introducing a bit of like chaos to uh yeah what
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people understand as as music and play around
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with it try and introduce like improvisation
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or um electronics um and yeah i kind of always
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want it to be very accessible and i think sometimes
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the the kind of traditional way of like understanding
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songwriting can be difficult if you've not kind
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of you know had proper music training um so i
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like this kind of idea that anyone can write
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a song anyone can be creative anyone everyone's
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voices are important and interesting and they
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have stories to tell and like finding ways of
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supporting people to tell their stories is really
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important and it doesn't need to have a bridge
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and a chorus you know it can be however you want
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it to be yeah yeah exactly that's great and what
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kind of improv exercises do you do with people
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in community settings i guess there's a lot of
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kind of fun games that involve the voice um that
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kind of because i'm a singer and a lot of people
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say they can't sing because they got told once
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when they were six years old that they couldn't
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sing so they don't use their voice um which i
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think is a shame and um so i try and do a lot
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of games where you kind of almost like tricked
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into singing or using your voice in an unconventional
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way um i think that's yeah a really really fun
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and exciting thing to do it like relaxes people
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and um doing a lot of i think a lot of the exercises
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i like doing are things where because having
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a blank page is scary so you make a word cloud
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of um different words that you can bounce off
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or you know creating all these structures for
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yourself so you don't need to stare at a blank
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piece of paper or sing into an empty room you've
00:17:08.900 --> 00:17:13.339
got things to hold on to um yeah try and provide
00:17:13.339 --> 00:17:16.319
like a framework in the improv um i think that's
00:17:16.319 --> 00:17:19.440
important don't just say improvise because that's
00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:21.180
that's terrifying i would hate it if someone
00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:24.779
did that to me so in terms of you you describe
00:17:24.779 --> 00:17:27.299
your music as future folk and i understand like
00:17:27.299 --> 00:17:30.420
this diy aesthetic so you're redefining what
00:17:30.420 --> 00:17:32.359
folk means do you want to talk to that a little
00:17:32.359 --> 00:17:36.200
bit well focus of the people and it's kind of
00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:41.059
whatever the people are making and it's traditions
00:17:41.059 --> 00:17:44.539
are not just the objects it's like a it's like
00:17:44.539 --> 00:17:49.019
an ethos um this way of making and it's kind
00:17:49.019 --> 00:17:52.519
of physically creating things with what you have
00:17:52.519 --> 00:17:54.980
to hand the materials you have to hand and it's
00:17:54.980 --> 00:17:57.559
not necessarily it's not for profit it's not
00:17:57.559 --> 00:18:00.319
for they can be but it's it's not at its core
00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:02.900
it's not a money making scheme right it's like
00:18:02.900 --> 00:18:06.480
i feel compelled to tell stories or share stories
00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:10.630
i you know, I'm going to do that with the things
00:18:10.630 --> 00:18:13.230
I have to hand. And whether that's singing or
00:18:13.230 --> 00:18:16.490
whether that's like coding a cool website, building
00:18:16.490 --> 00:18:20.769
a mini game, because you've learned how to do
00:18:20.769 --> 00:18:23.809
that on YouTube, you know, that to me is folk.
00:18:24.069 --> 00:18:27.549
And I think we've always just used the technologies
00:18:27.549 --> 00:18:31.329
you have to hand. And we have, you know, it's
00:18:31.329 --> 00:18:34.130
easier to play a free software synth than it
00:18:34.130 --> 00:18:36.970
is to learn, to acquire and then learn a hurdy
00:18:36.970 --> 00:18:39.890
-gurdy. you know like it's it's what is the more
00:18:39.890 --> 00:18:43.490
folk instrument now is it a software sense to
00:18:43.490 --> 00:18:47.130
me it would be i mean i love a hurdy -gurdy obviously
00:18:47.130 --> 00:18:52.430
but yeah so i think it's it's important to yeah
00:18:52.430 --> 00:18:56.849
talk about accessibility with within folk i think
00:18:56.849 --> 00:19:00.670
it's intrinsically yeah it's at the it's at what
00:19:00.670 --> 00:19:07.470
the core of folk is yeah so With Me Lost Me,
00:19:07.569 --> 00:19:10.069
you've been touring for almost 10 years. Oof,
00:19:10.190 --> 00:19:17.490
I have. So you sometimes do it solo, but you
00:19:17.490 --> 00:19:21.529
have collaborators you work with as well? Yes,
00:19:21.589 --> 00:19:25.750
yeah. So quite often I play with John Pope and
00:19:25.750 --> 00:19:29.029
Faye McCalman, who are absolutely incredible
00:19:29.029 --> 00:19:32.690
musicians that come from a more jazz background.
00:19:34.890 --> 00:19:37.069
And also more recently, I've been playing with
00:19:37.069 --> 00:19:40.250
Ewan on drums, which is really nice. It's very
00:19:40.250 --> 00:19:46.269
nice to have live drums. It's quite nice. We
00:19:46.269 --> 00:19:48.490
all have quite different musical backgrounds
00:19:48.490 --> 00:19:52.309
because it brings such a nice flavour to it.
00:19:54.150 --> 00:19:57.309
Yeah, I love playing live with them. It's a very
00:19:57.309 --> 00:20:00.269
different experience. I spend most of my sets
00:20:00.269 --> 00:20:08.450
giggling when they're with me. um yeah okay well
00:20:08.450 --> 00:20:13.630
so you're doing your phd now in so you're based
00:20:13.630 --> 00:20:16.710
at the open lab um in newcastle university school
00:20:16.710 --> 00:20:21.430
of computing it's true so what is your uh what
00:20:21.430 --> 00:20:22.769
is your doctorate about can you are you free
00:20:22.769 --> 00:20:24.509
to speak about that or is it still in progress
00:20:24.509 --> 00:20:26.950
it's very much in progress that's like the scariest
00:20:26.950 --> 00:20:30.569
question to ask someone doing a phd um We don't
00:20:30.569 --> 00:20:31.910
have to go through that. Oh, no, no. I'm happy
00:20:31.910 --> 00:20:34.069
to talk about it. Okay. Whether it'll be the
00:20:34.069 --> 00:20:36.190
same answer next week or the week after, who
00:20:36.190 --> 00:20:39.630
knows? Yeah, a couple of years. I'm just about
00:20:39.630 --> 00:20:46.750
two years in now. So my work is kind of looking
00:20:46.750 --> 00:20:50.769
at how technology can be better designed to support
00:20:50.769 --> 00:20:56.950
people's well -being as a very general kind of
00:20:56.950 --> 00:21:01.079
broad description. i'm kind of looking at folk
00:21:01.079 --> 00:21:04.880
or folk culture craft culture and particularly
00:21:04.880 --> 00:21:09.200
actually um non -league football um kind of that
00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:14.859
like uh collaborative song making banners those
00:21:14.859 --> 00:21:18.160
sorts of practices as an example for how technology
00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:24.529
could potentially be created um in a more in
00:21:24.529 --> 00:21:27.329
a way that is less centered on kind of making
00:21:27.329 --> 00:21:30.490
a profit and also replacing people you know there's
00:21:30.490 --> 00:21:33.089
a whole AI thing right like it's very like an
00:21:33.089 --> 00:21:36.750
antidote to AI this kind of handmade technology
00:21:36.750 --> 00:21:41.430
can we use technology in a way that is better
00:21:41.430 --> 00:21:46.730
for us basically so it does feel sometimes like
00:21:46.730 --> 00:21:49.630
I might be shouting into a bit of a void on the
00:21:49.630 --> 00:21:51.890
technology side because I'm sort of like but
00:21:51.890 --> 00:21:54.859
what about people and maybe we don't need to
00:21:54.859 --> 00:21:57.380
be making things fast and efficient maybe we
00:21:57.380 --> 00:22:01.539
could be making cool beautiful meaningful things
00:22:01.539 --> 00:22:06.920
with this technology as like a you know a way
00:22:06.920 --> 00:22:11.180
of making art um and yeah that kind of thing
00:22:11.180 --> 00:22:17.559
so it's it's very fun um and difficult working
00:22:17.559 --> 00:22:21.869
on it I do feel like there's a pushback now that
00:22:21.869 --> 00:22:24.049
people are more interested in things that are
00:22:24.049 --> 00:22:29.230
made by hand, created by individuals or communities
00:22:29.230 --> 00:22:35.730
across arts and crafts and all the things. Yeah,
00:22:35.750 --> 00:22:40.410
definitely. And I also think specifically, I'm
00:22:40.410 --> 00:22:43.430
not saying we get rid of technology. I think
00:22:43.430 --> 00:22:46.150
that's a lot of people who are sort of saying,
00:22:47.019 --> 00:22:49.700
uh or i've seen people say you know like ditch
00:22:49.700 --> 00:22:52.619
the technology back to like old ways of doing
00:22:52.619 --> 00:22:55.079
things and i'm not necessarily in that camp i'm
00:22:55.079 --> 00:22:59.779
in a we have all this cool tech we could incorporate
00:22:59.779 --> 00:23:03.839
it or we could what mad things could we what
00:23:03.839 --> 00:23:09.319
beautiful light up uh sound responsive like costumes
00:23:09.319 --> 00:23:11.339
could we make or like you know what are the how
00:23:11.339 --> 00:23:14.220
could technology actually integrate and and benefit
00:23:14.220 --> 00:23:18.599
us instead of sort of saying nah let's go back
00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:24.539
to uh you know analog everything um yeah because
00:23:24.539 --> 00:23:27.000
i love technology it's great like i said building
00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:31.000
a little web game or like a like that's so exciting
00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:35.720
as a as a art form yeah so let's get into your
00:23:35.720 --> 00:23:38.819
work in e -textiles because that you've done
00:23:38.819 --> 00:23:42.839
exhibits in galleries and also um your your recent
00:23:42.839 --> 00:23:45.559
album So how did you get involved with that?
00:23:47.099 --> 00:23:51.059
How did I? I guess we, so on my master's, I did
00:23:51.059 --> 00:23:57.819
a bit of creative computing and started to try
00:23:57.819 --> 00:24:01.539
and build. I actually had a dulcimer, an Appalachian
00:24:01.539 --> 00:24:03.700
dulcimer from my dad that had broken because
00:24:03.700 --> 00:24:06.339
my dad, everyone gives him instruments. They're
00:24:06.339 --> 00:24:07.440
like, they have an instrument. They're like,
00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:10.460
we'll give it Jack. He's got loads. And he started
00:24:10.460 --> 00:24:12.220
passing them on to me and this was a bit broken.
00:24:12.809 --> 00:24:15.309
this dulcimer and I thought it would be really
00:24:15.309 --> 00:24:19.170
fun to try and rig it up to be a kind of MIDI
00:24:19.170 --> 00:24:25.309
controller. So I looked into etextile's ways
00:24:25.309 --> 00:24:27.869
of making strings or making this like elastic
00:24:27.869 --> 00:24:32.190
that was responsive and built a little bit of
00:24:32.190 --> 00:24:35.109
code that sort of made this horrible synth sound.
00:24:35.230 --> 00:24:39.910
Awful. It's like really whiny sound, but that
00:24:39.910 --> 00:24:43.460
was kind of the first. attempt in any textiles
00:24:43.460 --> 00:24:47.859
and I've loved textile work for a long time and
00:24:47.859 --> 00:24:50.079
I make clothes and costumes and banners and things
00:24:50.079 --> 00:24:53.839
and so it was a very natural like I guess marrying
00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:58.660
of interests this like sound thing that I had
00:24:58.660 --> 00:25:03.000
and then this textile thing yeah and so I've
00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:05.660
now made quite a few sort of installations and
00:25:05.660 --> 00:25:10.970
instruments that are kind of soft objects and
00:25:10.970 --> 00:25:14.009
they're also quite good as accessible instruments
00:25:14.009 --> 00:25:17.009
because they don't look like instruments so no
00:25:17.009 --> 00:25:19.529
one has the fear that you get when presented
00:25:19.529 --> 00:25:22.210
with a keyboard oh i can't play piano you have
00:25:22.210 --> 00:25:24.750
a bunch of shapes on a banner and you're like
00:25:24.750 --> 00:25:26.710
great i'm going to play them and then you get
00:25:26.710 --> 00:25:30.349
people improvising in a gallery space and it's
00:25:30.349 --> 00:25:33.369
playful and lovely and they're not you know hit
00:25:33.369 --> 00:25:37.630
with the i'm bad at music fear um yeah so it's
00:25:37.630 --> 00:25:41.240
it's a really fun fun way of getting people to
00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:45.599
play I guess yeah and of course your website
00:25:45.599 --> 00:25:47.680
will be linked so people can see your your current
00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:49.720
installations I was just taking notes as you
00:25:49.720 --> 00:25:53.180
were talking clothes costumes banners what let's
00:25:53.180 --> 00:25:57.559
get into that yeah um I just love sewing I just
00:25:57.559 --> 00:26:00.339
have a lot of hobbies like collect all the hobbies
00:26:00.339 --> 00:26:03.059
what else can I learn how to do um I just love
00:26:03.059 --> 00:26:07.160
learning um yeah so for the particularly for
00:26:07.160 --> 00:26:10.930
this most recent album and for the music videos
00:26:10.930 --> 00:26:15.509
and for live shows, I've been doing a lot more
00:26:15.509 --> 00:26:18.430
designing and making of costumes and clothes
00:26:18.430 --> 00:26:24.309
for that. I got into making clothes a few years
00:26:24.309 --> 00:26:30.470
ago and then realised that I could design this
00:26:30.470 --> 00:26:34.970
whole bunch of costumes that linked. everything
00:26:34.970 --> 00:26:37.289
together like aesthetically and kind of add to
00:26:37.289 --> 00:26:40.369
this like world of the album um because I've
00:26:40.369 --> 00:26:43.690
been making banners for a while um for myself
00:26:43.690 --> 00:26:46.829
well for myself and art stuff but also commissioned
00:26:46.829 --> 00:26:52.950
by people by bands and organizations uh to make
00:26:52.950 --> 00:26:58.349
banners um so it seemed like an actual like yeah
00:26:58.349 --> 00:27:02.869
again little um way of building a world yeah
00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:08.339
You mentioned your family and your dad's instrument
00:27:08.339 --> 00:27:10.319
collection. So what was that like growing up
00:27:10.319 --> 00:27:18.000
in your house singing? Yeah, my parents were,
00:27:18.140 --> 00:27:22.660
so my mum was a Morris dancer and my dad used
00:27:22.660 --> 00:27:25.279
to play concertina for the Morris dancing team
00:27:25.279 --> 00:27:28.900
my mum danced in. So I was constantly, I'm an
00:27:28.900 --> 00:27:32.119
only child, but I was just constantly with them.
00:27:32.589 --> 00:27:36.809
a thousand uh you know not related aunties and
00:27:36.809 --> 00:27:39.329
uncles and cousins it felt like this big kind
00:27:39.329 --> 00:27:42.589
of folky family we'd go to days of dance and
00:27:42.589 --> 00:27:47.390
go to pubs to sing uh folk sessions like as a
00:27:47.390 --> 00:27:50.029
child or just be at a pub you know surrounded
00:27:50.029 --> 00:27:52.950
by this folk music it wasn't it wasn't a job
00:27:52.950 --> 00:27:55.390
they you know they had normal jobs but it was
00:27:55.390 --> 00:27:58.170
just kind of their hobby and their passion and
00:27:58.170 --> 00:28:01.549
it's really i feel very privileged to have growing
00:28:01.549 --> 00:28:05.049
up around parents who were so invested in their
00:28:05.049 --> 00:28:07.490
hobbies I think it's it's a really beautiful
00:28:07.490 --> 00:28:11.269
thing to see as a child to see adults very passionate
00:28:11.269 --> 00:28:14.890
about making stuff and being creative and having
00:28:14.890 --> 00:28:17.549
lots of you know friends and that sort of thing
00:28:17.549 --> 00:28:19.890
so yeah I feel lucky and I feel like as a teenager
00:28:19.890 --> 00:28:22.509
I was like this is rubbish I don't like it I'm
00:28:22.509 --> 00:28:26.509
goth now um but obviously that didn't last long
00:28:26.509 --> 00:28:29.549
and then I got I got back into it very quickly
00:28:29.549 --> 00:28:33.289
yeah So did you learn to do the Morris dancing
00:28:33.289 --> 00:28:36.049
as a child? Did do a bit of Morris dancing. Yep.
00:28:36.210 --> 00:28:38.309
I've dabbled. I've dabbled in Morris dancing.
00:28:39.109 --> 00:28:42.390
Yes. I've never seen it. What's it like? Oh,
00:28:42.410 --> 00:28:44.970
well, there's lots of different kinds. My mum
00:28:44.970 --> 00:28:50.650
was in a northwest garland clog dance group.
00:28:50.910 --> 00:28:53.509
So they had these big heavy clog shoes with bells
00:28:53.509 --> 00:28:56.970
on. So it was a lot of kind of slow stepping
00:28:56.970 --> 00:29:00.250
and walking and they had big garlands. and they'd
00:29:00.250 --> 00:29:02.150
kind of be in a group of six and they'd sort
00:29:02.150 --> 00:29:05.809
of walk in amongst each other and um yeah it's
00:29:05.809 --> 00:29:09.710
quite kind of slow and calm um there's some that
00:29:09.710 --> 00:29:12.029
are a lot more like crazy and shouting and jumping
00:29:12.029 --> 00:29:15.950
and doing some flips sometimes and um but yeah
00:29:15.950 --> 00:29:19.569
theirs was this really i guess like quite steady
00:29:19.569 --> 00:29:25.890
uh yeah quite a steady um dance um and yeah i
00:29:25.890 --> 00:29:28.390
joined in with that and did a few other tried
00:29:28.390 --> 00:29:31.579
a few other little Yeah, versions of Morris dancing
00:29:31.579 --> 00:29:36.579
as well. Yeah, I mean, I'm not, you know, I've
00:29:36.579 --> 00:29:39.440
listened to bits of folk music, like a lot of
00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:41.619
people sort of more popular acts growing up,
00:29:41.619 --> 00:29:43.900
but I'm not in the folk community in Canada.
00:29:43.980 --> 00:29:46.019
So I'm sure many people here could answer this
00:29:46.019 --> 00:29:48.599
question. But my impression as a Canadian is
00:29:48.599 --> 00:29:51.500
when we think about the British Isles and folk
00:29:51.500 --> 00:29:54.000
music that was brought here, it's Ireland and
00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:55.940
Scotland. And we don't talk about the rest of
00:29:55.940 --> 00:29:59.039
the UK. and wales and there's obviously this
00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:02.059
rich folk tradition of music and dance that i'm
00:30:02.059 --> 00:30:04.259
sure got brought over to north america but i
00:30:04.259 --> 00:30:07.720
don't know yeah i'm sure you know what it seems
00:30:07.720 --> 00:30:10.559
like this celtic connection because of a lot
00:30:10.559 --> 00:30:13.259
of the immigrants yeah i think i mean it's so
00:30:13.259 --> 00:30:16.400
regional it's it's village to village sometimes
00:30:16.400 --> 00:30:19.480
so it's those things i guess can get lost because
00:30:19.480 --> 00:30:22.819
often there's only like 30 people doing them
00:30:22.819 --> 00:30:25.039
sometimes you know um so i'm from originally
00:30:25.039 --> 00:30:27.650
from derbyshire And there's a tradition there
00:30:27.650 --> 00:30:29.470
called well dressing about this time of year
00:30:29.470 --> 00:30:32.230
where they put flowers, they decorate the village
00:30:32.230 --> 00:30:36.589
well with flowers, floral scenes, really elaborate
00:30:36.589 --> 00:30:41.509
floral scenes, quite often biblical scenes. Sometimes
00:30:41.509 --> 00:30:43.730
last year I saw one that was the Toy Story themed.
00:30:43.849 --> 00:30:47.789
They also do popular culture ones too. And then
00:30:47.789 --> 00:30:50.490
Morris dancers like dance at them and they are
00:30:50.490 --> 00:30:55.829
blessed by the local church. And this is a very...
00:30:56.989 --> 00:30:59.990
Derbyshire specific tradition. Every village
00:30:59.990 --> 00:31:02.329
will have one, but then once you get beyond the
00:31:02.329 --> 00:31:07.069
boundaries of the county, it's not a thing. So
00:31:07.069 --> 00:31:09.670
they can be so localized that I think sometimes
00:31:09.670 --> 00:31:14.329
it's, yeah, it can get lost in the way it disperses,
00:31:14.329 --> 00:31:17.630
I guess. Well, let's get into, we were talking
00:31:17.630 --> 00:31:20.029
about e -textiles, so let's talk about this material.
00:31:20.599 --> 00:31:23.700
Moment. So I was interested in these automatic
00:31:23.700 --> 00:31:25.759
writing techniques that you did a workshop with
00:31:25.759 --> 00:31:30.559
Julia Holter. Yeah. Hi, just a really quick break
00:31:30.559 --> 00:31:33.559
from the episode. I wanted to let you know about
00:31:33.559 --> 00:31:35.819
some other episodes that I've linked directly
00:31:35.819 --> 00:31:39.059
to this one in the show notes for you with Liana
00:31:39.059 --> 00:31:43.680
Johnson, Jean Rowe, Lawrence English, Eliza Marshall,
00:31:43.859 --> 00:31:47.460
and Maya Youssef. In the show notes, you'll also
00:31:47.460 --> 00:31:50.410
find a link to sign up for my newsletter. where
00:31:50.410 --> 00:31:52.809
you'll get exclusive information about upcoming
00:31:52.809 --> 00:31:56.549
guests. A link for my Ko -fi page to support
00:31:56.549 --> 00:31:59.390
this project directly, where you can buy me one
00:31:59.390 --> 00:32:02.690
coffee, or every month, and my podcast merchandise
00:32:02.690 --> 00:32:05.430
store, with a design commissioned from artist
00:32:05.430 --> 00:32:08.710
Steffi Kelly. You can also review this podcast,
00:32:09.109 --> 00:32:11.829
share it with your friends, and follow on your
00:32:11.829 --> 00:32:15.809
podcast app, YouTube, and social media. All this
00:32:15.809 --> 00:32:19.309
helps spread the word. Thanks. Now, back to my
00:32:19.309 --> 00:32:24.750
conversation with Jane. Yeah, that was a really
00:32:24.750 --> 00:32:30.230
inspiring trip. So Camp France is an incredible
00:32:30.230 --> 00:32:34.150
place. It's in the Pyrenees Mountains in the
00:32:34.150 --> 00:32:37.230
south of France, which is very nice. And they
00:32:37.230 --> 00:32:44.470
run residencies that are kind of guided by artists.
00:32:44.890 --> 00:32:47.490
And I went and did... Two weeks back to back,
00:32:47.710 --> 00:32:50.950
one with Julia Halter about nonsense and non
00:32:50.950 --> 00:32:53.529
-words and kind of writing, different approaches
00:32:53.529 --> 00:32:57.150
to writing. And one with Tashi Wada, which was
00:32:57.150 --> 00:33:00.490
about alternate tunings as well. And both of
00:33:00.490 --> 00:33:04.609
them were quite influential on this album. And
00:33:04.609 --> 00:33:06.650
yeah, so some of the techniques were things that
00:33:06.650 --> 00:33:11.690
we learned with Julia at that, yeah, on that
00:33:11.690 --> 00:33:14.890
residency and that I then took and played around
00:33:14.890 --> 00:33:18.089
with. uh in a in a new way as well as sort of
00:33:18.089 --> 00:33:20.089
because she'd kind of said oh this is a john
00:33:20.089 --> 00:33:22.470
cage one or this is you know she was taking them
00:33:22.470 --> 00:33:25.589
from the learning of somebody and then um i was
00:33:25.589 --> 00:33:28.269
kind of taking them and also running with them
00:33:28.269 --> 00:33:30.509
in different directions as well to try and see
00:33:30.509 --> 00:33:32.930
what else could come with them which was fun
00:33:32.930 --> 00:33:37.250
and these artists residencies i mean there must
00:33:37.250 --> 00:33:40.630
be this cool cross -pollination in the community
00:33:40.630 --> 00:33:44.029
have you found that yeah definitely and you also
00:33:44.029 --> 00:33:47.279
meet lots of amazing people from all over the
00:33:47.279 --> 00:33:51.200
world which is really lovely like I've got friends
00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:56.259
yeah all over the place from kind of going and
00:33:56.259 --> 00:34:00.920
meeting this place in France which is amazing
00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:04.880
like I know that if I wanted to go to San Diego
00:34:04.880 --> 00:34:06.339
I'd probably have someone who could put me up
00:34:06.339 --> 00:34:10.099
you know like it feels it's really nice to have
00:34:10.099 --> 00:34:12.800
this community that we kind of still keep a little
00:34:13.710 --> 00:34:16.409
in touch i keep an eye on what people are making
00:34:16.409 --> 00:34:21.809
um yeah it's this lovely kind of community built
00:34:21.809 --> 00:34:24.130
with people from yeah all over the world which
00:34:24.130 --> 00:34:25.670
is nice that you just suddenly get dumped in
00:34:25.670 --> 00:34:27.849
a place for a week and like live together and
00:34:27.849 --> 00:34:29.989
eat together and go for walks and make music
00:34:29.989 --> 00:34:34.409
it's nice yeah so i had to look up messostic
00:34:34.409 --> 00:35:01.579
yeah that's a right uh -huh So you talked a little
00:35:01.579 --> 00:35:03.679
bit about that, like generate, like using chance
00:35:03.679 --> 00:35:09.360
based writing strategies, right? So in your show
00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:12.159
notes for the album, it said that it became unexpectedly
00:35:12.159 --> 00:35:15.639
personal feelings of burnout and overwhelm. And
00:35:15.639 --> 00:35:17.699
I'm wondering, like you have been in school a
00:35:17.699 --> 00:35:21.139
long time. Is that part of it, the academic overwhelm
00:35:21.139 --> 00:35:24.860
or just being a touring musician? I would say,
00:35:24.860 --> 00:35:27.699
yeah, I'd say it's more the latter. I think it's
00:35:27.699 --> 00:35:32.500
so hard to... be a freelance for anything but
00:35:32.500 --> 00:35:36.099
a freelance artist and musician and that balance
00:35:36.099 --> 00:35:40.739
of never knowing um yeah never knowing where
00:35:40.739 --> 00:35:43.900
the money's coming from always or like oh this
00:35:43.900 --> 00:35:47.260
is very precarious and I think that was doing
00:35:47.260 --> 00:35:49.199
a lot more damage to me than I realized even
00:35:49.199 --> 00:35:53.679
though I loved so much of it it's that you know
00:35:53.679 --> 00:35:55.659
I'm working on all these amazing projects but
00:35:55.659 --> 00:35:57.460
you're like in two months I have nothing planned
00:35:58.119 --> 00:36:00.619
what if i don't have anything planned you know
00:36:00.619 --> 00:36:03.639
it's this real yeah uh so i think it's probably
00:36:03.639 --> 00:36:08.480
the precarity of that and then um yeah that that
00:36:08.480 --> 00:36:11.719
being quite difficult um and also i think that's
00:36:11.719 --> 00:36:13.880
why one of the reasons i was drawn to these chance
00:36:13.880 --> 00:36:18.420
-based strategies is because they give you they
00:36:18.420 --> 00:36:20.280
get someone else can do the decision right or
00:36:20.280 --> 00:36:22.500
something else there's a the decision the initial
00:36:22.500 --> 00:36:25.139
decision is made for you it's this nice improvisory
00:36:25.139 --> 00:36:27.710
technique where you're not you're not in charge
00:36:27.710 --> 00:36:31.030
for once you know you're like this is this I'm
00:36:31.030 --> 00:36:33.469
putting this is out of my hands and then I'm
00:36:33.469 --> 00:36:36.170
going to respond to these words that something
00:36:36.170 --> 00:36:38.690
else has given me a process has given me these
00:36:38.690 --> 00:36:41.309
words and it's not up to me this time this is
00:36:41.309 --> 00:36:43.130
out of my hands and then it ends up being all
00:36:43.130 --> 00:36:45.389
about you it ends up being so you read it back
00:36:45.389 --> 00:36:50.329
and like oh where did that come from um but I
00:36:50.329 --> 00:36:54.090
think having that initial spark not being in
00:36:54.090 --> 00:36:59.480
your in your hands is is very freeing uh thing
00:36:59.480 --> 00:37:03.019
i think especially when you're constantly just
00:37:03.019 --> 00:37:05.480
like trying to get work trying to make stuff
00:37:05.480 --> 00:37:09.159
trying to like beg for money you know you're
00:37:09.159 --> 00:37:12.800
like please hire me or whatever so yeah it was
00:37:12.800 --> 00:37:15.360
i think it was therapeutic in a lot of ways actually
00:37:15.360 --> 00:37:20.500
writing like that yeah so maybe we could get
00:37:20.500 --> 00:37:25.460
into some of the tracks um even like the The
00:37:25.460 --> 00:37:29.440
last track, have you been changing? Yeah, that
00:37:29.440 --> 00:37:33.539
one was, that was a masochistic poem. So that
00:37:33.539 --> 00:37:37.000
was one that I wrote the lyrics to in France,
00:37:37.199 --> 00:37:39.920
but I hadn't got a melody for. I'd written a
00:37:39.920 --> 00:37:43.840
poem using one of these strategies. And it was,
00:37:43.980 --> 00:37:47.480
it's one of two on the album that are written
00:37:47.480 --> 00:37:52.840
using a book that was like a manual for making
00:37:52.840 --> 00:37:55.920
like hand tools. so it's like how how to make
00:37:55.920 --> 00:38:00.800
a um how to make like a hand clamp or like how
00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:03.800
to make a yeah something for your workshop so
00:38:03.800 --> 00:38:08.539
it was very practical um practical doing instruction
00:38:08.539 --> 00:38:13.039
words basically um so this this poem kind of
00:38:13.039 --> 00:38:18.139
sounded kind of yeah very it's it's very materials
00:38:18.139 --> 00:38:22.380
based it's got a lot about like color and texture
00:38:22.380 --> 00:38:25.579
sharp edges like all these different kind of
00:38:25.579 --> 00:38:27.900
physical properties that it's sort of describing
00:38:27.900 --> 00:38:31.280
in this in this book and then kind of turning
00:38:31.280 --> 00:38:35.699
that into a an emotional or like a metaphorical
00:38:35.699 --> 00:38:38.960
kind of uh thing through this process of turning
00:38:38.960 --> 00:38:41.440
into a poem and then improvising in response
00:38:41.440 --> 00:38:46.360
to that poem and seeing this kind of thing emerge
00:38:46.360 --> 00:38:50.860
that felt very i don't know have i been changing
00:38:50.860 --> 00:38:54.320
i have i haven't like this conversation with
00:38:54.320 --> 00:39:38.940
myself kind of emerged from it I guess And touring
00:39:38.940 --> 00:39:41.480
this album, which came out last year, was that
00:39:41.480 --> 00:39:43.400
some of the bigger touring you've done since
00:39:43.400 --> 00:39:45.960
the pandemic lockdowns or was it RPG before that?
00:39:46.500 --> 00:39:52.500
Oh, I mean, both, I guess. I've done a sort of
00:39:52.500 --> 00:39:58.639
a bigger tour kind of once a year for the last
00:39:58.639 --> 00:40:01.980
few years, as well as a couple of little shorter
00:40:01.980 --> 00:40:04.860
ones and particularly like tour supports for
00:40:04.860 --> 00:40:07.750
people, which were always fun. because you get
00:40:07.750 --> 00:40:11.590
taken around in a van um but yeah it's definitely
00:40:11.590 --> 00:40:14.929
one of the longest the last two tours or the
00:40:14.929 --> 00:40:18.849
the last sort of um like after the albums were
00:40:18.849 --> 00:40:20.789
the longest kind of biggest ones i've done in
00:40:20.789 --> 00:40:24.610
a while or ever actually really um to be kind
00:40:24.610 --> 00:40:29.610
of a couple of weeks uh away yeah and just in
00:40:29.610 --> 00:40:33.179
the uk or in europe Just in the UK, I played
00:40:33.179 --> 00:40:36.139
a festival in Denmark, which was really lovely,
00:40:36.320 --> 00:40:39.880
not last summer, the summer before. But no, it's
00:40:39.880 --> 00:40:44.880
become a bit harder to tour in Europe since Brexit,
00:40:45.059 --> 00:40:47.800
unfortunately. It's definitely doable working
00:40:47.800 --> 00:40:53.059
on it, but there's a lot more hoops now to jump
00:40:53.059 --> 00:40:56.880
through. So hopefully I'll get a proper European
00:40:56.880 --> 00:41:01.550
tour soon. I know it's a big problem for Canadians
00:41:01.550 --> 00:41:05.130
because our country is so incredibly big and
00:41:05.130 --> 00:41:07.969
it's like you can't yeah even regional tours
00:41:07.969 --> 00:41:10.730
are difficult and it was always difficult for
00:41:10.730 --> 00:41:12.690
us to go to the states but now of course it's
00:41:12.690 --> 00:41:16.429
much harder and so yeah but I imagine in the
00:41:16.429 --> 00:41:20.269
UK it's so much more densely populated yeah you
00:41:20.269 --> 00:41:25.630
can you can do yeah you can do a pretty decent
00:41:25.630 --> 00:41:27.889
tour and everyone kind of knows each other eventually
00:41:27.889 --> 00:41:33.010
like It's very, the DIY sort of touring scene
00:41:33.010 --> 00:41:36.590
in the UK is so tight knit, which is lovely.
00:41:36.750 --> 00:41:39.409
And quite often, even if you don't know someone
00:41:39.409 --> 00:41:41.809
in a city, your friend will. You can be like,
00:41:41.949 --> 00:41:44.730
oh, do you know anyone in Cardiff who can put
00:41:44.730 --> 00:41:47.289
me on? And then they usually do, or at least
00:41:47.289 --> 00:41:50.710
someone you can ask. So it's very kind of, once
00:41:50.710 --> 00:41:54.050
you're in this sort of network, it's, I think
00:41:54.050 --> 00:41:56.630
it is, you know, I mean, it's difficult because
00:41:56.630 --> 00:41:59.699
a lot of people are. venues are closing like
00:41:59.699 --> 00:42:01.639
venues and promoters are struggling it's it's
00:42:01.639 --> 00:42:04.260
not i wouldn't say it's easy to tour in the uk
00:42:04.260 --> 00:42:09.380
but it's a very lovely passionate community who
00:42:09.380 --> 00:42:12.679
try their best and i think that's you know very
00:42:12.679 --> 00:42:18.280
valuable yeah if you were gifted a certain large
00:42:18.280 --> 00:42:20.920
sum of money that had to be used to create a
00:42:20.920 --> 00:42:23.360
new venue for performing arts what would it look
00:42:23.360 --> 00:42:29.809
like oh oh that's so nice i love that um oh i
00:42:29.809 --> 00:42:35.130
think it would be really cool to find a beautiful
00:42:35.130 --> 00:42:37.849
neglected building and bring it back so it's
00:42:37.849 --> 00:42:39.590
got a bit of history and i've played a couple
00:42:39.590 --> 00:42:41.849
of gigs that um i always joke that i'd love to
00:42:41.849 --> 00:42:44.550
do a tour where it's only buildings that have
00:42:44.550 --> 00:42:47.670
an info board like a history info board in because
00:42:47.670 --> 00:42:49.469
there's been a couple of venues where i played
00:42:49.469 --> 00:42:52.070
in museums or played in historical sites i think
00:42:52.070 --> 00:42:54.719
that's very fun so i would maybe pick a find
00:42:54.719 --> 00:42:57.099
find somewhere that's got a bit of a bit of history
00:42:57.099 --> 00:43:00.900
and then kind of yeah turn it into a lovely immersive
00:43:00.900 --> 00:43:06.280
audio visual accessible space that would be very
00:43:06.280 --> 00:43:09.139
nice um that would be lovely and it'd be in the
00:43:09.139 --> 00:43:17.039
north specifically um because i love it now and
00:43:17.039 --> 00:43:21.050
you're playing with your um frey mccalman on
00:43:21.050 --> 00:43:23.750
clarinet and i thought track four painting of
00:43:23.750 --> 00:44:07.570
the wind features her quite beautifully yeah
00:44:07.570 --> 00:44:11.769
it seems it seems to make sense with uh it being
00:44:11.769 --> 00:44:14.730
a song about wind to have a wind instrument it's
00:44:14.730 --> 00:44:16.510
very very literal i was like you know what i
00:44:16.510 --> 00:44:18.809
feel like this needs the air and it needs the
00:44:18.809 --> 00:44:22.329
quality of the clarinet in particular um and
00:44:22.329 --> 00:44:27.090
i also wanted it to feel quite like romantic
00:44:27.090 --> 00:44:30.650
like it's supposed to be this like painfully
00:44:30.650 --> 00:44:36.480
slightly like this like pretty sweet thing um
00:44:36.480 --> 00:44:40.179
so I kind of yeah I thought that yeah that's
00:44:40.179 --> 00:44:42.980
kind of how I wanted it to be uh yeah in the
00:44:42.980 --> 00:44:47.179
arrangement and have this lovely um yeah I love
00:44:47.179 --> 00:44:48.559
the clarinet it's such a beautiful instrument
00:44:48.559 --> 00:44:51.579
so I just want to drench everything in it to
00:44:51.579 --> 00:44:54.920
be honest um and Faye's so great um she's an
00:44:54.920 --> 00:45:01.460
amazing player so yeah and John Pope on um bass
00:45:01.460 --> 00:45:04.039
and he plays he plays both electric and acoustic
00:45:04.039 --> 00:45:07.590
on this he does yeah he's before before this
00:45:07.590 --> 00:45:11.289
album it was just uh double bass um and then
00:45:11.289 --> 00:45:14.050
i kept joking that this album or a couple of
00:45:14.050 --> 00:45:16.710
songs on the album were my like rock opera uh
00:45:16.710 --> 00:45:19.590
songs that were very dramatic when we were recording
00:45:19.590 --> 00:45:21.610
them and i was like i feel like this just needs
00:45:21.610 --> 00:45:24.349
a bit of like electric bass actually and the
00:45:24.349 --> 00:45:27.409
drums i wanted it to be a bit more like a bit
00:45:27.409 --> 00:45:32.110
more dramatic a bit more um yeah have a bit of
00:45:32.110 --> 00:45:34.769
a different feel um which was yeah which was
00:45:34.769 --> 00:45:37.949
really nice and I've been writing I write bits
00:45:37.949 --> 00:45:41.170
of parts for them but I there are some songs
00:45:41.170 --> 00:45:44.210
where I'm just like do your thing I trust you
00:45:44.210 --> 00:45:47.309
um and particularly for the electric bass I'd
00:45:47.309 --> 00:45:49.710
never written for it before and I was like just
00:45:49.710 --> 00:45:54.969
just jam um and he did great things which uh
00:45:54.969 --> 00:45:59.840
yeah and you know I'd notated some I made little
00:45:59.840 --> 00:46:01.719
notes on some of the tracks, but if you want
00:46:01.719 --> 00:46:03.800
to talk about, I'm happy to include little clips
00:46:03.800 --> 00:46:06.519
and encourage people to check out the whole album.
00:46:06.639 --> 00:46:08.659
Are there a couple more tracks from this material
00:46:08.659 --> 00:46:13.860
moment that you want to talk about? Like Ancient
00:46:13.860 --> 00:46:19.119
Summer? Yeah, that feels appropriate. Yeah, Ancient
00:46:19.119 --> 00:46:20.780
Summer was actually the first song I wrote for
00:46:20.780 --> 00:46:26.199
the album. And it's the first time I used this
00:46:26.199 --> 00:46:29.880
technique, this misostic. poem technique um and
00:46:29.880 --> 00:46:32.900
so this song was written in its entirety in in
00:46:32.900 --> 00:46:37.239
france after i'd been to visit a roman aqueduct
00:46:37.239 --> 00:46:42.460
um and this song is um so the lyrics are taken
00:46:42.460 --> 00:46:46.659
from the tourist pamphlet um for this for this
00:46:46.659 --> 00:46:52.679
roman aqueduct um and uh which is why the vocabulary
00:46:52.679 --> 00:46:56.199
in it is it's so hyperbolic which i love it's
00:46:56.199 --> 00:46:59.750
like like Marvel, like wonderful, beautiful.
00:46:59.789 --> 00:47:02.849
Like it's, it's so, um, it's using all these
00:47:02.849 --> 00:47:06.150
words that are trying to persuade you to go to
00:47:06.150 --> 00:47:09.269
a place, you know, it's very like, wow. Um, but
00:47:09.269 --> 00:47:10.849
that's genuinely how I felt when I was there.
00:47:10.969 --> 00:47:13.789
Like I, it's, it's an amazing, amazing place.
00:47:13.869 --> 00:47:17.610
And I felt, I felt really like I got to swim
00:47:17.610 --> 00:47:20.269
in the river that's under this aqueduct and,
00:47:20.289 --> 00:47:24.869
and it, it was really, um, beautiful moment for
00:47:24.869 --> 00:47:27.579
me. And then. this song kind of came out of,
00:47:27.619 --> 00:47:30.380
I took this tourist pamphlet for the following
00:47:30.380 --> 00:47:33.780
week to, um, Camp France and made this, made
00:47:33.780 --> 00:47:37.619
this song, this like hyperbolic love letter to
00:47:37.619 --> 00:47:43.219
like people and history, like our history and
00:47:43.219 --> 00:47:48.079
the things we make that last and, um, the joy
00:47:48.079 --> 00:47:50.760
you can find in those things. Um, these like
00:47:50.760 --> 00:48:02.340
marvels. Um, yeah. Inventive lovers are dust
00:48:02.340 --> 00:48:17.699
And what more universal flavor Than love left
00:48:17.699 --> 00:48:42.280
and reconstructed beautiful did you get more
00:48:42.280 --> 00:48:45.199
into synths and looping and stuff during the
00:48:45.199 --> 00:48:48.559
pandemic like a lot of people oh i'm not sure
00:48:48.559 --> 00:48:52.780
i did i got what i did get more into during the
00:48:52.780 --> 00:48:59.320
pandemic was um uh online like building websites
00:48:59.320 --> 00:49:01.519
and building things that you could access online
00:49:01.519 --> 00:49:06.860
so i was doing my uh masters when lockdown happened
00:49:06.860 --> 00:49:10.659
and um We were supposed to have a show, an exhibition
00:49:10.659 --> 00:49:14.199
of our work at the end of it, which obviously
00:49:14.199 --> 00:49:20.099
did not happen. But in some ways, that was great
00:49:20.099 --> 00:49:23.519
for my learning because then we were like, right,
00:49:23.599 --> 00:49:27.420
we need to build an online audiovisual installation.
00:49:27.699 --> 00:49:30.500
How do we do that? So I had to learn how to kind
00:49:30.500 --> 00:49:33.320
of, you know, code websites in a way that would
00:49:33.320 --> 00:49:35.880
reflect what I creatively wanted to do. So I
00:49:35.880 --> 00:49:39.289
made this. website that had a variety of different
00:49:39.289 --> 00:49:41.309
sounds and a variety of different images and
00:49:41.309 --> 00:49:43.650
every time you refreshed it it would be a different
00:49:43.650 --> 00:49:46.369
collage of those things so it was like randomized
00:49:46.369 --> 00:49:51.289
um kind of audio visual like time -based thing
00:49:51.289 --> 00:49:55.889
and um so by necessity I had to kind of do a
00:49:55.889 --> 00:50:00.250
lot of the yeah I was much more interested and
00:50:00.250 --> 00:50:02.349
I am generally interested in like being in a
00:50:02.349 --> 00:50:05.550
place and being immersed and experiencing something
00:50:06.269 --> 00:50:10.789
in an embodied way um but it was really interesting
00:50:10.789 --> 00:50:12.769
to have to then move that online and what that
00:50:12.769 --> 00:50:15.690
means um like how do you immerse someone how
00:50:15.690 --> 00:50:18.389
do you give someone that experience in a web
00:50:18.389 --> 00:50:21.630
browser that's very hard um so it was kind of
00:50:21.630 --> 00:50:23.809
a fun I guess challenge to figure out how to
00:50:23.809 --> 00:50:29.489
translate that um liveness uh the electronics
00:50:29.489 --> 00:50:33.070
that I think fill a room in a beautiful way how
00:50:33.070 --> 00:50:35.659
do I actually make that do some make people feel
00:50:35.659 --> 00:50:40.119
things on on the internet i guess now i was thinking
00:50:40.119 --> 00:50:45.239
about um you're like now there's a dance collaboration
00:50:45.239 --> 00:50:49.039
i don't know if it's current abundance and so
00:50:49.039 --> 00:50:51.719
when you're performing you're improvising with
00:50:51.719 --> 00:50:56.000
electronics in that setting yeah the description
00:50:56.000 --> 00:50:58.840
says it's an intergenerational dance performance
00:50:58.840 --> 00:51:01.760
that it invites audiences to slow down rest and
00:51:01.760 --> 00:51:04.139
reconnect and then it says there's three professional
00:51:04.139 --> 00:51:06.579
dancers and three volunteer dancers but from
00:51:06.579 --> 00:51:08.340
what i understand the three volunteer dancers
00:51:08.340 --> 00:51:10.380
are chosen before it's not like they get up from
00:51:10.380 --> 00:51:12.539
the audience and suddenly yeah yeah yeah yeah
00:51:12.539 --> 00:51:15.960
they're involved in the kind of making of the
00:51:15.960 --> 00:51:20.980
piece as well so um we had it in three different
00:51:20.980 --> 00:51:23.380
places there's one more performance of it um
00:51:23.380 --> 00:51:26.119
in the summer but um the initial stage is we
00:51:26.119 --> 00:51:29.440
have three groups of volunteer performers um
00:51:29.440 --> 00:51:35.699
who attend dance classes um in the kind of locations
00:51:35.699 --> 00:51:39.019
which were around the northeast of england um
00:51:39.019 --> 00:51:43.780
and we kind of collaboratively i was doing the
00:51:43.780 --> 00:51:45.840
music at the same time they were kind of coming
00:51:45.840 --> 00:51:51.219
together to um make this work like all at once
00:51:51.219 --> 00:51:54.699
so the volunteers were in the room um we were
00:51:54.699 --> 00:51:56.840
talking about different improvisatory techniques
00:51:56.840 --> 00:52:00.900
um and ideas of abundance like puts his abundance
00:52:00.900 --> 00:52:05.679
to you um and developed yeah developed this sort
00:52:05.679 --> 00:52:08.860
of semi -improvised work kind of around it so
00:52:08.860 --> 00:52:10.760
they were very much involved in the making of
00:52:10.760 --> 00:52:15.599
the piece it was shaped um like it was it was
00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:17.480
sort of shaped sometimes in the in the room without
00:52:17.480 --> 00:52:20.920
them but they came with these ideas and yeah
00:52:20.920 --> 00:52:23.699
so they have this like ownership of the piece
00:52:23.699 --> 00:52:27.840
it's a really beautiful um yeah works i'm really
00:52:27.840 --> 00:52:31.260
proud of um being a part of um everyone that
00:52:31.260 --> 00:52:33.500
worked on it's really yeah created a beautiful
00:52:33.500 --> 00:52:35.900
environment for like working um so it's very
00:52:35.900 --> 00:52:39.340
very nice so it's intergenerational i'm assuming
00:52:39.340 --> 00:52:41.719
there's some older dancers who are usually excluded
00:52:41.719 --> 00:52:45.780
from professional dance yeah so i think the youngest
00:52:45.780 --> 00:52:52.300
dancer was 23 and the oldest dancer was 82 wow
00:52:52.300 --> 00:52:56.000
right yes yeah so it was very much um this like
00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:00.760
spread um and this yeah the celebration of different
00:53:00.760 --> 00:53:02.760
bodies different women's bodies at different
00:53:02.760 --> 00:53:06.679
kind of times and a lot of it focused on play
00:53:06.679 --> 00:53:11.440
and watching adults be playful um which i feel
00:53:11.440 --> 00:53:15.900
like is a theme generally actually but um yeah
00:53:15.900 --> 00:53:18.599
this idea lots of the feedback was like it's
00:53:18.599 --> 00:53:23.349
so nice to see you know older women being like
00:53:23.349 --> 00:53:28.349
really expressive in the bodies and like you
00:53:28.349 --> 00:53:32.809
know joyful and childlike and um like other emotions
00:53:32.809 --> 00:53:35.690
too but this kind of yeah we really wanted to
00:53:35.690 --> 00:53:40.650
present this um this range of bodies and range
00:53:40.650 --> 00:53:45.190
of ages and range of um yeah feel feelings um
00:53:45.190 --> 00:53:49.820
it's a very emotional work it's really nice Have
00:53:49.820 --> 00:53:51.960
you talked to anyone who does somatic therapy,
00:53:52.099 --> 00:53:55.079
like therapy with dance and movement to help
00:53:55.079 --> 00:53:57.719
with emotions? No, I haven't really. I'm aware
00:53:57.719 --> 00:53:59.800
of its existence, but I don't know much about
00:53:59.800 --> 00:54:03.159
it. So in terms of your more experimental music,
00:54:03.260 --> 00:54:05.179
because we were talking a lot about songs before
00:54:05.179 --> 00:54:08.760
earlier. So Worm Saliva is your sort of project.
00:54:09.059 --> 00:54:12.659
So experimental improvised music. And I was listening
00:54:12.659 --> 00:54:16.360
on Bandcamp and there's a track Brass Neck Melt.
00:54:16.559 --> 00:54:19.539
I thought we could... Just include a little bit
00:54:19.539 --> 00:54:21.360
of that to get people to hear a little bit of
00:54:21.360 --> 00:54:59.289
that type of music making. wanted something i
00:54:59.289 --> 00:55:02.710
think it came from so i was as i was doing more
00:55:02.710 --> 00:55:04.969
and more me lost me gigs there was i guess this
00:55:04.969 --> 00:55:07.329
expectation that i would place play the songs
00:55:07.329 --> 00:55:11.329
um and i wanted to and that felt like a place
00:55:11.329 --> 00:55:14.190
i wanted to like you know know what i know the
00:55:14.190 --> 00:55:16.170
shape of the gig i wanted to know what songs
00:55:16.170 --> 00:55:18.230
i was playing create this specific narrative
00:55:18.230 --> 00:55:22.239
maybe through the songs and then I kind of missed
00:55:22.239 --> 00:55:24.800
something that was in the earlier Me Lost Me
00:55:24.800 --> 00:55:27.820
stuff, which had a bit more improvisation and
00:55:27.820 --> 00:55:31.119
wanted a kind of outlet for that, for experiments.
00:55:31.760 --> 00:55:35.300
So the Worm Saliva stuff is very much like I
00:55:35.300 --> 00:55:38.699
get offered a gig, I say yes, and then I make
00:55:38.699 --> 00:55:42.119
something and it disappears into the ether. And
00:55:42.119 --> 00:55:46.219
it might turn into something else. I think it's
00:55:46.219 --> 00:55:48.420
quite an important part of my creative process
00:55:48.420 --> 00:55:50.559
now, even for songwriting for Me Lost Me or whatever.
00:55:51.230 --> 00:55:53.510
it feeds into other things but there's something
00:55:53.510 --> 00:55:56.090
very nice about it just existing in that instant
00:55:56.090 --> 00:55:59.429
and so the things that are on bandcamp i you
00:55:59.429 --> 00:56:01.409
know i can't perform again and i won't perform
00:56:01.409 --> 00:56:04.349
again that's not kind of their function they're
00:56:04.349 --> 00:56:09.409
like documents of these instances of improvisation
00:56:09.409 --> 00:56:14.710
and experimentation um yeah it's it's nice to
00:56:14.710 --> 00:56:19.510
have i like having these big big project medium
00:56:19.510 --> 00:56:22.480
project little project this lasts 40 minutes
00:56:22.480 --> 00:56:24.539
there and then it's done kind of i think it's
00:56:24.539 --> 00:56:29.880
nice to have multiple levels of uh uh yeah creative
00:56:29.880 --> 00:56:32.400
process length because i can get bogged down
00:56:32.400 --> 00:56:36.000
uh you know the album release cycle and all these
00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:38.199
big things that are more out of your control
00:56:38.199 --> 00:56:41.719
whereas worm saliva is just me playing around
00:56:41.719 --> 00:56:47.059
um throw away in a nice way one of the tracks
00:56:47.059 --> 00:56:49.219
has somebody giving a lecture i think about worms
00:56:49.219 --> 00:56:52.579
is that where it came from um the name the name
00:56:52.579 --> 00:56:55.000
actually the name is very silly the name came
00:56:55.000 --> 00:56:59.420
i so i said yes to a gig to an improv gig and
00:56:59.420 --> 00:57:01.820
i was like well i don't want to be jane and it's
00:57:01.820 --> 00:57:04.099
not me lost me it doesn't that's not what this
00:57:04.099 --> 00:57:06.300
is i want it to be something else and i asked
00:57:06.300 --> 00:57:09.639
on instagram for suggestions oh for what it could
00:57:09.639 --> 00:57:11.679
be called i was completely like i don't know
00:57:11.679 --> 00:57:16.260
and um my friend debbie uh who performs is a
00:57:16.260 --> 00:57:19.320
part of um bird ellen whose work's amazing uh
00:57:19.320 --> 00:57:22.820
she suggested worm saliva um and i got a few
00:57:22.820 --> 00:57:25.360
other suggestions and then i took it out of my
00:57:25.360 --> 00:57:28.320
hands entirely put a poll up what should i play
00:57:28.320 --> 00:57:32.340
as and worm saliva won so i had absolutely nothing
00:57:32.340 --> 00:57:35.460
to do with the name of worm saliva but then i
00:57:35.460 --> 00:57:38.380
actually ended up finding it quite inspiring
00:57:38.380 --> 00:57:41.940
and then like it's like right well got really
00:57:41.940 --> 00:57:45.130
interested in like uh silkworms like what is
00:57:45.130 --> 00:57:47.650
worms you know like conceptually i kind of took
00:57:47.650 --> 00:57:51.369
it and ran with it a bit so um yeah which was
00:57:51.369 --> 00:57:56.369
which was very playful and fun yeah and how about
00:57:56.369 --> 00:57:59.150
the name me lost me how did that come about um
00:57:59.150 --> 00:58:03.630
so that was again this is very silly and throwaway
00:58:03.630 --> 00:58:07.409
actually um but i when i was living in denmark
00:58:07.409 --> 00:58:13.150
um my friends were making fun of me so from derbyshire
00:58:13.150 --> 00:58:15.570
originally my accent's gone all over the place
00:58:15.570 --> 00:58:21.010
now but um i say me instead of my so um me this
00:58:21.010 --> 00:58:25.530
so um and i also lose things a lot i'm very bad
00:58:25.530 --> 00:58:28.070
at losing things and i would always be like oh
00:58:28.070 --> 00:58:31.750
i've lost my keys i've lost my phone uh whatever
00:58:31.750 --> 00:58:35.539
and my friends were like me lost me keys me lost
00:58:35.539 --> 00:58:38.380
me like me lost this i'm always losing things
00:58:38.380 --> 00:58:40.840
and it was this very silly sort of um almost
00:58:40.840 --> 00:58:44.019
like nickname type thing and um because me lost
00:58:44.019 --> 00:58:46.039
me really started kind of how worm saliva started
00:58:46.039 --> 00:58:49.079
which was like i'm gonna put something out don't
00:58:49.079 --> 00:58:52.099
know doesn't don't know i'll just put a thing
00:58:52.099 --> 00:58:54.219
on bandcamp i'll make a little improvised thing
00:58:54.219 --> 00:58:56.340
it might not become anything so it it started
00:58:56.340 --> 00:58:59.599
as this quite yeah i'll use that this throwaway
00:58:59.599 --> 00:59:02.480
thing and uh it's quite funny because some people
00:59:02.480 --> 00:59:06.019
like have come to me and be like so deep is it
00:59:06.019 --> 00:59:08.719
about being lost in yourself and i feel a bit
00:59:08.719 --> 00:59:12.800
bad admitting that it's actually a bit of a bit
00:59:12.800 --> 00:59:15.760
of a joke i mean it's it's not and i love that
00:59:15.760 --> 00:59:19.360
people take more from it um it's really yeah
00:59:19.360 --> 00:59:22.739
it like it's really nice but um sadly it was
00:59:22.739 --> 00:59:27.800
just a bit of a throwaway nickname um that stuck
00:59:28.400 --> 00:59:30.780
I'm curious about your beautiful tattoos. Would
00:59:30.780 --> 00:59:32.539
you mind talking about them a little bit? Yeah,
00:59:32.539 --> 00:59:37.760
sure. I've got a bunch of them. This is Hildegard
00:59:37.760 --> 00:59:42.000
von Bingen painting that she did of Jesus, or
00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:45.360
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I've got some,
00:59:45.440 --> 00:59:49.460
this is a little guy from a manuscript of a folk
00:59:49.460 --> 00:59:54.380
song. This is an ace of wands. They're all kind
00:59:54.380 --> 00:59:57.340
of woodcut. style. This is a guilladinian hand
00:59:57.340 --> 01:00:01.340
which is a way of, that they used to, so monks
01:00:01.340 --> 01:00:04.199
used to improvise. So it's kind of like notation.
01:00:05.960 --> 01:00:09.599
So it's a, they'd learn, you know, what each
01:00:09.599 --> 01:00:11.980
note, each part of the hand was, as is on the
01:00:11.980 --> 01:00:14.119
diagram, and then the person leading them would
01:00:14.119 --> 01:00:16.960
kind of point. So they'd know what note they
01:00:16.960 --> 01:00:18.500
were supposed to be singing. So it's a kind of,
01:00:18.519 --> 01:00:23.559
yeah, way of conducting. So they're all very
01:00:23.559 --> 01:00:27.619
nerdy. They're extremely, yeah, big nerdy tattoos.
01:00:30.039 --> 01:00:34.599
Are you working on a new album? I've not had
01:00:34.599 --> 01:00:38.340
much kind of brain space to write lately, but
01:00:38.340 --> 01:00:42.340
my plan for the summer is to take myself away
01:00:42.340 --> 01:00:47.239
somewhere. I think I find that I write better
01:00:47.239 --> 01:00:50.670
when I'm out of a day -to -day life. when there's
01:00:50.670 --> 01:00:55.050
not dishes to do or you know um so i think residencies
01:00:55.050 --> 01:00:58.110
really suit me like i'll just knock out a bunch
01:00:58.110 --> 01:01:01.030
of songs so my plan is to take myself off this
01:01:01.030 --> 01:01:03.489
summer i don't know where or when yet just maybe
01:01:03.489 --> 01:01:06.909
for a week and try and get some some things written
01:01:06.909 --> 01:01:12.489
i have some seeds of ideas that i'd like to water
01:01:12.489 --> 01:01:16.829
and try and try and grow um but it's very hard
01:01:17.960 --> 01:01:20.440
you know in in day -to -day life I think for
01:01:20.440 --> 01:01:23.420
me right now to find with doing a PhD and other
01:01:23.420 --> 01:01:26.760
things it's yeah hard to put time aside for it
01:01:26.760 --> 01:01:30.340
but um I feel like writing so I hopefully I will
01:01:30.340 --> 01:01:32.800
good I remembered what I was going to ask you
01:01:32.800 --> 01:01:35.320
because you had mentioned about polls on Instagram
01:01:35.320 --> 01:01:38.420
for band names and I was curious about your relationship
01:01:38.420 --> 01:01:45.659
with social media I hate it um no in some ways
01:01:47.050 --> 01:01:51.949
it's a tool and all tools are useful for things
01:01:51.949 --> 01:01:55.809
um they're not always you know they don't do
01:01:55.809 --> 01:01:58.429
everything and they can't do everything and there's
01:01:58.429 --> 01:02:01.650
always drawbacks right so um i think it can be
01:02:01.650 --> 01:02:04.010
used in a really great way i've met a lot of
01:02:04.010 --> 01:02:07.110
collaborators i've met a lot of great musicians
01:02:07.110 --> 01:02:10.190
met promoters i've got opportunities through
01:02:10.190 --> 01:02:15.090
instagram through social media um but it can
01:02:15.090 --> 01:02:18.719
be a really hard place to be and you know you
01:02:18.719 --> 01:02:23.179
have to do so much thinking about it and you
01:02:23.179 --> 01:02:26.940
know i used to use it a lot more as a kind of
01:02:26.940 --> 01:02:30.119
more of a creative diary type thing and um i
01:02:30.119 --> 01:02:31.800
quite like it i like being able to look back
01:02:31.800 --> 01:02:35.139
through it as this kind of like yeah documentation
01:02:35.139 --> 01:02:38.480
like diary of of what i've been up to and the
01:02:38.480 --> 01:02:42.599
making process as well um but it's yeah it's
01:02:42.599 --> 01:02:45.949
it's always hard when you're trying to sell something
01:02:45.949 --> 01:02:49.150
especially when it's something that's very personal
01:02:49.150 --> 01:02:52.230
like music or art like it feels like here's my
01:02:52.230 --> 01:02:56.750
soul please like and comment you know it feels
01:02:56.750 --> 01:03:02.309
very yeah so it's um it's a i'm conflicted it's
01:03:02.309 --> 01:03:04.429
it's a useful tool in some ways and some ways
01:03:04.429 --> 01:03:08.269
it's soul destroying so you know well i think
01:03:08.269 --> 01:03:10.889
that we were talking earlier about the democratization
01:03:11.900 --> 01:03:14.179
of, you know, DIY culture and also integrating
01:03:14.179 --> 01:03:16.619
technology. And it does relate to that too, right?
01:03:17.219 --> 01:03:19.760
Massively. And it's one of these things with
01:03:19.760 --> 01:03:22.699
like a lot of folk technologies or like folk
01:03:22.699 --> 01:03:25.940
uses of technologies you need to, often you,
01:03:25.960 --> 01:03:29.840
the way you do it is by existing within these
01:03:29.840 --> 01:03:35.320
systems that are, you know, often corrupt or
01:03:35.320 --> 01:03:37.320
capitalist or like, you know, these systems that
01:03:37.320 --> 01:03:39.699
you don't necessarily agree with. but you you've
01:03:39.699 --> 01:03:42.559
got to like kind of figure out a way of using
01:03:42.559 --> 01:03:45.820
them there's ways of using them um kind of being
01:03:45.820 --> 01:03:49.980
a bit cheeky with them kind of sneaking in the
01:03:49.980 --> 01:03:54.519
the sort of the work you want to do um it would
01:03:54.519 --> 01:03:58.480
be amazing if we had an alternative um kind of
01:03:58.480 --> 01:04:00.659
platform but it's very hard to build one with
01:04:00.659 --> 01:04:04.760
the same reach uh you know so it's yeah it's
01:04:04.760 --> 01:04:09.460
it's a very yeah it's been incredible for a lot
01:04:09.460 --> 01:04:11.300
of people and for a lot of spread of folk culture
01:04:11.300 --> 01:04:16.039
and and folk um yeah ways of expressing yourself
01:04:16.039 --> 01:04:18.659
like memes memes are folk art and that's the
01:04:18.659 --> 01:04:23.059
hill that i like die on um is that a meme is
01:04:23.059 --> 01:04:26.539
a folk is a piece of folk art um you express
01:04:26.539 --> 01:04:30.280
something someone else changes it you know modifies
01:04:30.280 --> 01:04:33.320
it it lives across yeah so i think it's it's
01:04:33.320 --> 01:04:40.639
i find it really interesting um Yeah. Okay. And
01:04:40.639 --> 01:04:43.179
you mentioned, you know, you're just so curious
01:04:43.179 --> 01:04:45.840
and you're always learning. Are there other things
01:04:45.840 --> 01:04:49.199
you like to get into, like cooking or different
01:04:49.199 --> 01:04:53.199
kinds of making? My most recent, I've started
01:04:53.199 --> 01:04:59.280
a medieval long sword class, a beginner's class.
01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:06.650
I'm three weeks in. It's great fun. yeah that's
01:05:06.650 --> 01:05:11.389
my most recent um that'll be my hobby um moment
01:05:11.389 --> 01:05:13.110
so yeah I'm really enjoying it it's really good
01:05:13.110 --> 01:05:16.309
fun um so yeah I kind of I do lots of different
01:05:16.309 --> 01:05:19.809
things but that's my uh my current surprise new
01:05:19.809 --> 01:05:24.809
hobby um yeah and I'm also really quite yeah
01:05:24.809 --> 01:05:28.210
invested in like non -league football and that's
01:05:28.210 --> 01:05:30.949
kind of ended up becoming part of my work as
01:05:30.949 --> 01:05:34.369
well um it's like community um creativity stuff
01:05:34.369 --> 01:05:38.269
but um yeah just always collecting things to
01:05:38.269 --> 01:05:41.469
do so the long sword is so it's like a martial
01:05:41.469 --> 01:05:43.889
art like you're learning to fight yeah it's german
01:05:43.889 --> 01:05:47.269
german medieval it's based on some german medieval
01:05:47.269 --> 01:05:50.969
like manuscripts um so specifically german style
01:05:50.969 --> 01:05:53.269
which is different to italian style i've found
01:05:53.269 --> 01:05:55.929
out in the last three weeks um that seems like
01:05:55.929 --> 01:05:57.590
a contentious issue that i don't quite understand
01:05:57.590 --> 01:06:01.210
maybe maybe someone can um maybe i'll learn more
01:06:01.210 --> 01:06:04.349
about it but um yeah so it's a it's just a big
01:06:04.719 --> 01:06:08.679
two -handed sword um it's very fun they give
01:06:08.679 --> 01:06:11.000
you plastic practice ones they don't give you
01:06:11.000 --> 01:06:13.840
the big metal ones i've not been given a big
01:06:13.840 --> 01:06:19.760
metal sword yet um it's just a plastic one okay
01:06:19.760 --> 01:06:22.820
yeah the closest i came to that when i used to
01:06:22.820 --> 01:06:25.639
do tai chi i did a sword form and it was a metal
01:06:25.639 --> 01:06:27.760
sword it was pretty flimsy but it was like that
01:06:27.760 --> 01:06:30.300
feeling it felt pretty cool it feels very cool
01:06:32.259 --> 01:06:34.659
Yeah. Well, thanks so much. No, thank you so
01:06:34.659 --> 01:06:38.559
much. It's been so nice to talk to you. I hope
01:06:38.559 --> 01:06:41.079
you enjoyed this episode. Keep in mind, I've
01:06:41.079 --> 01:06:43.579
also linked directly several episodes you'll
01:06:43.579 --> 01:06:45.579
find interesting in the show notes of this one.
01:06:46.119 --> 01:06:48.260
Please do share this with your friends and check
01:06:48.260 --> 01:06:50.980
out episodes you may have missed at leahroseman
01:06:50.980 --> 01:06:53.800
.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support
01:06:53.800 --> 01:06:56.280
this series, that would be wonderful. I'm an
01:06:56.280 --> 01:06:58.780
independent podcaster and I really do need the
01:06:58.780 --> 01:07:01.300
help of my listeners. All the links are in the
01:07:01.300 --> 01:07:03.739
show notes. The podcast theme music was written
01:07:03.739 --> 01:07:05.860
by Nick Cold. Have a wonderful week.