Read the Following Lines From Ten Songs

Latest track: Lar 2

James Marren (Cyanotape)

"With the globe every bit information technology is I've said some prayers recently – I think most of us probably take in one way or another. Some direct to a specific god and others to something far more loosely divers. What struck me when researching the Lar, is that it represented a focus for this same free energy. It's this energy that is a constant. Acknowledging this allows us to perhaps connect with this artefact and the people who took comfort from information technology, more than deeply." (James Marren).

James Marren (Cyanotape) is a UK based artist and musician exploring a wide diversity of media, including photographic processes, film, installation, sound and operation. He studied fine art at Chelsea Higher of Arts and draws on a range of tools and themes to make piece of work. This work is as a personal journey as it is a mode to connect. Unearthing fragmented discoveries that oftentimes feel intimate, only to after reveal a more than universal relevance.

"Lar II" and its infectious, mantra-like repetition, serves equally an audio-work of focused contemplation which seeks to enable its listeners to connect with this mysterious ancient artefact, besides as with the people who historically took condolement from it.

The Songs

1 song is released per month, scout this infinite for the latest tracks.

Track i: 'UNWRITTEN'

STERGIN & LOUISE FAZACKERLEY

.

'Unwritten' is a litany, an invocation, a provocation that spins a tale using the language of spinning wool and fruitfulness to explore the worth and power of one, unheard, Roman adult female.

"Roman literature does non tell the stories of individual women. Women are represented as symbols of domesticity. Wool work was the symbol of a 'good' woman.  Without this knowledge what connections can exist fabricated betwixt the women of today and the thoughts and feelings of Roman women so long ago? Perhaps a reliance on the globe to feed u.s.? Libation as a form of nascence command? Violence. Humour. Hope."

Track Ii: 'VENI LARES VENI'

Yeji Yeon

.

Created through an act of meditation 'Veni Lares Veni' is offered as a living prayer, a song that transcends time and calls out to the spirit residing in the statue of the Lar. Listeners are invited to focus their attention on the human action of devotion whilst the Lar, rejoicing in the power of the vocal, is spoken into life once once more.

"I begin with meditation – a lit candle, an emptied listen. And then, a curt prayer of gratitude to my instrument and to my voice with Saraswati on my mind; the Hindu Goddess of Music, Wisdom and Speech communication who is said to reside within the pharynx chakra. Singing then becomes an extension of the meditation – an act of prayer. Behind my airtight heart lids, I run across the figurine of Lar coming to life, dancing. The cold, rusted metal of the statue turns to mankind; basking in my music of devotion."

Track 3: HOUSEHOLD GODS

Iain Chambers

Household Gods is a newly composed musique concrete 'audio-artefact' reimagining the Lar as a receiver actively tuning into and amplifying the sounds of its natural and domestic environment. Travel dorsum in time from the present solar day to Advertizing 200 rediscovering some of the sounds that surround and define our existence, though have long resonated, dormant to our ears, awaiting eventual rediscovery and commemoration.

Chambers states, "The initial spur for me was that reawakening of the domestic sound world that happened during the UK lockdown of March 2020. For me, the idea of the Lar being this object that mayhap is listening in on the domestic environment and the domestic audio world and that might have done and then for many hundreds of years – I thought that is a actually nice conceit for a piece … When we had the initial lockdown, and our outdoor activities were limited, I think all of us had a different focus on our homes and the people we share them with, besides every bit the objects and the sounds found within them. Objects and things that we had available to us that all of a sudden were non as freely available outside of the firm".

Track Four: Carmen DCCIII

Anil Sebastian

'Carmen DCCIII' is an innovative new sound-based piece of work created by Anil Sebastian in collaboration with Japanese/Egyptian coder and modular synthesist Cherif Hashizume. Past experimenting with the resonant properties of the Lar figurine, the work translates physical matter into audio waves. The championship itself is a reference to the prime number frequency at which natural harmonic resonances peaked when sound was channelled through this tiny metal artefact from AD 200 – DCCIII being the roman numerals for 703(Hz).

Contemplating the genie like qualities of the Lar, Sebastian states: "I love how much 1 small-scale object can inspire and trigger off endless possibilities of creativity and thought. I lilliputian fragment, from one item time, probably from i particular family and household, has the potential to inspire such an incredible and varied richness of responses."

Track 5: 'Falling for the Sky' (Sorry Audio 3)

Repose Boy

Gaz Tomlinson, as well known by his creative person name 'Tranquillity Boy', is an alternative electronic theatre and film composer, singer-songwriter, and performer, who resides in Margate, Kent (UK).

For this committee Tomlinson has further developed his explorations of the positive impact that sound and words (like sunlight) tin have on our wellness and mental wellbeing. 'SAD Audio iii' is a binaural sound composition aurally transporting listeners into homes beyond Kent – inviting y'all to overhear on conversations, stories and ruminations laced with cogitating, tender, and often humorous observation and insight.

The piece of work has been specifically optimised to be listened to via headphones.

Track Six: Gal wu yol liq noq hhaq zeq

Ariel Chan

Ariel Chan (Linyuying Chen) is a freelance scholar, vocaliser, and choral manager from Yunnan Province, China. Chan's work primarily focuses on the inquiry and documentation of sounds and images from minority indigenous groups (mainly Miao and Hani) in remote South Due west Red china.

Chan's audio-artefact for 'X Songs for a Lar' is a presentation of fieldwork she carried out whilst studying in a remote Hani hamlet. The title 'Gal Wu Yol Liq Noq Hhaq Zeq' is an ancient phrase of Hani, which roughly translates to "an aboriginal song of thanks to the gods". In discussing the work and the songs of the Hani and Miao, Chan states:

"This is a very old grade of singing. Everyone says their own things. They don't need to exist standardized and unified. They pay more attention to the horizontal musical lines. The ups and downs are all caused by emotions. But the harmonic effect formed in the sound interweaving is also very shocking."

Through these songs, the Hani and Miao express their belief in animism (the attribution of free energy/living souls to inanimate objects) and provide a living, direct connection with our Lar figurine, and aboriginal Roman beliefs.

Rail Vii: Song FOR A LAR

Donna McKevitt and Jan Noble

Song for a Lar' is a new collaborative audio work between poet Jan Noble and composer Donna McKevitt. Their sound-artefact for the Ten Songs for a Lar commission reimagines the journey that this treasured figurine has taken throughout time, from its creation, use, and burial, to its eventual rediscovery.

Donna McKevitt writes music for film, contemporary dance and concert performance. She has collaborated with Nick Cave, Tricky and Michael Nyman. Her first work, Translucence, a song wheel of Derek Jarman's poetry, began when scoring music for his final film Blueish. Her work has been performed at The Tate, The Purple Opera Firm and Sadler'due south Wells besides as national and international festivals and venues.

Jan Noble is a writer and a poet. He studied Fine Art at Canterbury School of Art (now UCA). His piece of work has been broadcast on Channel iv and BBC Radio. He has recorded at Abbey Road Studios and read at venues and festivals across Europe including the ICA, London, the Teatro Filodrammatici, Milan and Poetry on the Lake, Italian republic with former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

Y'all may autumn before or worship me
Leave what store of religion you take
Unguarded by the door, I know my place
I'll keep information technology safe and look
Till you come back for more.

(Words: Jan Noble)

Rail Eight: LARENTALIA

Lunatraktors

'Cleaved folk' duo Lunatraktors (Clair Le Couteur and Carli Jefferson) are a Margate based partnership routed in inquiry-led music and art experimentations. Ofttimes drawing inspiration from British folk heritage, and influences from contemporary art, theatre and music, 'Lunatraktors search for new solutions to former problems, and old solutions to new ones.'

For this commission, Lunatraktors have congenital upon the concept of 'sound is a form of bear on' through the creation of a new ritualistic folk song and dance: an invocation to the Guildhall Lar. "Whether equally visitors looking through a glass vitrine, artists responding to digital images during lockdown, or partially sighted or less mobile visitors experiencing primarily through tactile sound, we want the Lar to be something that nosotros can all impact, and that tin impact us."

Runway Ix: A visit from a Lar

Freddie Murphy and Chiara Lee

"The song volition exist a phone call to listen, alternating a tranquility composition and moments of silence, as in a sort of "game of seduction" where the audience is drawn to listen but is likewise asked to be longing for the next sound. By choosing to appoint in attentively listening to the Lar sound we can enable audience's curiosity towards the figurine story and what it potentially symbolises." (Freddie Irish potato & Chiara Lee).

'A Visit from a Lar' is a new collaborative sound piece of work between Italian sound artists Freddie Tater and Chiara Lee. The work acts as a type of 'sonic liturgy' aiming to engage with listeners on a cerebral and emotional level – shaping our thoughts and feelings, and inducing physical movement.

Ten ARTISTS WORKING WITH SOUND 'GIVE Vox' TO OUR SILENT LAR

Ten Songs for a Lar is a new and ambitious global artist commission inspired by an almost 2000 year old mysterious figurine, held in the collections at The Guildhall Museum, Rochester. This tiny 'Lar' statuette, a household god figurine, served as a protector of the domicile, family and domestic boundaries and dates from around Ad 200. Each of the x selected artists volition create a unique audio-artefact inspired past the Lar having been asked: 'What does this object say to y'all, and what stories practise you wish to requite voice to, and bring to life, through music and audio?'.

Through mod composition, musique physical, spoke word, field recording, pop and folk, artists volition explore themes of identity, loss, family, home, protection, silence, time travel and animism.

The ten artists are: Anil Sebastian; Ariel Chan; Cyanotape; Freddie Irish potato & Chiara Lee; Iain Chambers; Lunatraktors; Donna McKevitt & Jan Noble ; Quiet Male child; Stergin; Yeji Yeon.

Starting from September 2020, ane audio response will be released every month through a regular/rolling programme of music, discussions, lectures, and blogs.

Weblog: Lar in Focus

Lar in Focus is an ongoing series of blogposts exploring and demystifying some of the processes undertaken by artists developing works for commissions.

COLLABORATION
with Vinzenz Stergin and Louise Fazackerley

Why collaborate? How practice you notice the right person to piece of work with? What could go wrong? Vinzenz Stergin and Louise Fazackerley discuss the thinking behind their track, having religion in chaos, and the excitement of the unknown. Read full article.

CHANNELLING CREATIVE FORCES
with Yeji Yeon

Ed Liddle, Learning and Engagement Assistant at The Amelia, spoke with artist Yeji Yeon, the creator of 'Veni lares Veni', the second rails to be released every bit office of the commission. Read full article.

WORKING WITH Sound
with Iain Chambers

Have you lot always thought virtually sounds which may accept been lost in time? How oftentimes do nosotros actually pay attention to the audio globe effectually u.s.a.? Elizabeth Hall, project assistant for Ten Songs for a Lar, explores Iain Chambers' new work 'Household Gods', what it means to work with sound, and how we can reawaken those clicks, crackles and hums that grade the groundwork to lives past and present. Read full article.

Soundbites

'Soundbites' is a serial of brusque sound excursions in to key topics and themes unearthed through research in to the Ten Songs for a Lar commission. Hear from the artists developing audio artworks for the project also as curators, archivists, spiritualists and archaeoacousticians.

Stergin and Louise Fazackerley hash out some of the thinking behind their runway 'Unwritten'

---

Composer Iain Chambers discusses 'Household Gods', musique concrete, freezers, & working with sound.

.

Museum Sound Matters with Eric De Visscher

.

Archaeoacoustics with Professor Ellen Swift, Academy of Kent (Canterbury) – X Songs for a Lar.

.

The Artists

See the ten selected artists creating a unique audio-artefact inspired by the Lar

Anil Sebastian

Anil Sebastian is a Folkestone-based creative person, artistic manager and producer. Anil is a solo artist, member of Icelandic band Hrím, and the Founder and Director of London Contemporary Voices choir. Anil has performed with Alt-J, Manu Delago, Imogen Heap, Nitin Sawhney, Laura Mvula, Sam Smith and U2, and has toured globally.

For this commission a new innovative work entitled 'Resonance' will be created in collaboration with Japanese/Egyptian coder and modular synthesist Cherif Hashizume, translating physical affair into sound waves by exploring the resonant properties of the Lar
figurine.

Ariel Chan

Ariel Chan (Linyuying Chen) from Yunnan Province, China, is a freelance scholar, singer, and choral director. She is dedicated to the mining and research of minority ethnic music (mainly Miao and Hani) in Southwest China.

Chan's work volition document the "cirane" and "whispering love song" recited in a nearby remote village. These songs limited a continuation of a strong and existing belief if animism (the attribution of energy/living souls to inanimate objects) and provides a living, direct connection with our Lar figurine and ancient Roman beliefs.

Cyanotape

James Marren (Cyanotape) is a Uk based creative person and musician exploring a wide diverseness of media, including photographic processes, motion picture, installation, sound and operation. He studied fine art at Chelsea Higher of Arts and draws on a range of tools and themes to make work. This is equally a personal journey every bit it is a way to connect. Fragmented discoveries that often experience intimate, simply to afterward reveal a more universal relevance.

Cyanotape volition create a wistful slice that seeks to enable listeners to connect with this artefact and the people who historically took condolement from it.

Freddie Murphy & Chiara Lee

Italian audio artists Freddie Murphy & Chiara Lee take been composing music together since 2003. Their natural inclination to write music for films, installations and readings derives from their peculiar arroyo to composition. The starting point of the process are visual imagery and concepts, followed past translation of their subconscious meanings into music. With the moniker Father Murphy, they released concept albums focusing on expressing the sound of Catholic sense of guilt. They have performed extensively across Europe, United kingdom, North America, Australia and Russia. Films with their original soundtrack were selected by Locarno Movie Festival, MoMA Fortnight Doctor Festival, etc.

For this commission they volition create a song to induce a physical volition to mind, alternating a placidity composition and moments of silence, as in a "game of seduction" where the audience is drawn to listen merely is also asked to be longing for the adjacent sound. "By choosing to engage in intently listening to the Lar audio we can enable audience's marvel towards the figurine story and what it potentially symbolises."

Iain Chambers

Iain Chambers is a London-based composer and producer whose work explores specific locations and their irresolute sounds across time, as in The Business firm of Sound (2017), and City of Women (2018). In 2019 Iain launched the independent record label Persistence of Sound, creating a new space for musique concrète, field recordings, and the uncategorizable sounds in between. In 2015 Iain staged the start ever concerts in Tower Bridge'southward Bascule Chambers, turning Tower Bridge into a huge resonant chamber. Iain continues to curate the annual Bascule Chamber Concerts, working with partners Thames Festival and Tower Span. In 2003 Iain co-founded Langham Research Heart, an electronic music ensemble using Cold War era technology to compose new music. The group also create new realisations of work by composers including John Muzzle, Alvin Lucier and Christian Wolff, using an unusual analogue instrumentarium.

Chambers volition create a new work, Household Gods, which imagines the Lar as a sounding lath or receiver, picking up and amplifying the sounds of domestic objects, which are and then arranged into a through-composed musique physical piece of work.

Lunatraktors

Margate-based 'broken folk' duo Lunatraktors make research-based performances rooted in body and vocalism: trip the light fantastic toe and gesture, trunk percussion, speech, vocal harmony and overtone singing. The upshot is an experimental fusion of live art and folk music, moving between theatres, museums, galleries, music venues and festivals. Drawing on British folk heritage and influences from gimmicky art, theatre and music, Lunatraktors combine the talents of percussionist, dancer and choreographer Carli Jefferson with research creative person, composer and folk singer Clair Le Couteur. Lunatraktors' debut album This Is Broken Folk was listed in MOJO Mag's Top 10 Folk Albums of 2019.

"Lunatraktors volition brand a new ritualistic folk song and dance: an invocation to the Guildhall Lar. Whether as visitors looking through a glass vitrine, artists responding to digital images during lockdown, or partially sighted or less mobile visitors experiencing primarily through tactile sound, we want the Lar to be something that nosotros can all touch on, and that can touch united states."

Donna McKevitt & Jan Noble

Donna McKevitt writes music for movie, contemporary dance and concert performance. She has collaborated with Nick Cave, Tricky and Michael Nyman. Her first piece of work, Translucence, a song wheel of Derek Jarman'southward poetry, began when scoring music for his terminal film Bluish. Released on Warner Classics it received v-star reviews in many of the national and international newspapers and publications. Her work has been performed at The Tate, The Majestic Opera House and Sadler's Wells equally well as national and international festivals and venues.

January Noble is a writer and a poet. He studied Art at Canterbury School of Art (now UCA). His work has been broadcast on Aqueduct 4 and BBC Radio. He has recorded at Abbey Road Studios and read at venues and festivals across Europe including the ICA, London, the Teatro Filodrammatici, Milan and Poetry on the Lake, Italy with former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.

McKevitt and Noble'southward work will take the Ovid quote, "Every doorway has 2 sides" every bit a starting point for the lyrical content which will envisage the Lar as an object handed down through generations: touched held, lost, rediscovered!

Quiet Boy

Gaz Tomlinson also known by his artist name 'Quiet Male child', is an culling electronic theatre and film composer, singer songwriter and performer who resides in Margate. With over a decade's feel of playing in bands. Tomlinson has toured the UK extensively, appeared at most major Great britain music festivals and has had his music played by all major radio stations.

Originally trained as a theatre maker at Eastward 15 Acting Schoolhouse he found composing for theatre to be a natural progression for his skill set. His debut piece was composing, musically directing and performing in critically acclaimed gig theatre 'My Beautiful Black Dog' by Brigitte Aphrodite and Directed by Laura Keefe. Most recently Tomlinson composed and co-wrote eco punk musical 'Parakeet' and has composed music for BAFTA winning script brusque picture 'Liverpool Ferry' which is scheduled for release in Fall 2020.

Tomlinson'due south work for this commission will be a binaural composition featuring the voices and ruminations of 'the real people of Kent' – an audible thread of everydayness between current Kentish communities and those from almost 2000 years ago. The narrative volition take you on a journey of hibernation, loneliness, grief, things coming to an terminate, the struggle of keeping a firm warm and homelessness.

Stergin

Stergin is an Austrian multi-instrumentalist, composer/producer & songwriter based in London. 2018 he was awarded the highly competitive "Exercise Information technology Differently Honor" by Assist Musicians Great britain. His projects accept received support by the Arts Quango England & The Austrian Cultural Forum London. As a performing artist his most recent cross-arts project is chosen "12 Photos 12 Tracks" – the global journey of a Polaroid turned into music, developed with his ring "Ode To Lucius".

For this commission Stergin has collaborated with poet Louise Fazackerley, winner of BBC Radio 3 'New Voice' honor, European slam finalist and back up artist for Dr. John Cooper Clarke. Their slice 'Unwritten' is focusing on a Lar silently observing everything that happened inside a abode. "If merely this Lar could talk. What stories would it tell? Unwritten tells the story of a Roman adult female and the thoughts she had while preparing dinner for the family.

Yeji Yeon

Yeji Yeon is a multi-disciplinary creative person of music, trip the light fantastic toe, visual and performing arts. Trained in classical singing, ballet and theatre interim- she is a performer as well as a producer to her creations including musical compositions, theatre, trip the light fantastic films and narrative cinema. Yeon's music is a lullaby for lovers and dreamers, as singing is her prayer and meditation. Born in Republic of korea, she moved to England at a young age and is currently based in Seoul, Republic of korea. Much of her inspiration comes from nature, beloved and spirituality; she writes, sings, and records her songs frequently on the road in her travels around the world.

Yeon has composed a haunting and hypnotic traditional based folk vocal in Latin entitled Veni Lares Veni" – "I take chosen…to sing lyrics of praise; I envisioned the melody to be chant-like and unproblematic- every bit how the people of the ancient times would accept sang their love and praise for the Lares. I decided to back-trail the singing with an Autoharp; to sound familiar to a Roman lyre. I wish to evoke the feelings, the atmosphere, and the Spirits of those times through my vocal."

What is a Lar?

The Guildhall Lar is a bronze figurine believed to date from around 200AD. It was found in 1888 near Quarry House, Frindsbury, Uk. A Lar (or plural, Lares), including the i from The Guildhall Museum are particularly mysterious objects. They are rare archaeological finds in the UK. Lares are primarily household guardian deities from aboriginal Rome believed to observe, protect, and influence all that happens within the boundaries of their location (home). Statues of domestic Lares were placed at the tabular array during family meals; their presence, cult, and blessing seem to have been required at all of import family unit events.

Although there is much that is nonetheless unknown with The Guildhall Museum Lar, these objects, are often depicted every bit dancing, protective forces. Ovid (Roman poet) describes how these deities are often described as Muta (the speechless one) and are required to carry out their safeguarding activities in silence.

.

The Lar is one of the '100 objects that made Kent.' A web resource designed specifically for teachers wanting to observe more almost Kent's rich history.

.

The Comission

The Kent Medway Museums National Portfolio Organization Partnership (KMM NPO) requested proposals from musicians, song writers, sound artists, poets, and those working with sound to create new audio artworks to be accessioned as permanent artefacts within the museum collections. 'Ten Songs for a Lar' is an ambitious new commission creating multiple audio interpretations of a statuary Lar.

Background

The KMM NPO is a group of four museums (The Historic Dockyard Chatham, Canterbury Museums & Galleries, Guildhall Museum Rochester and Tunbridge Wells Museum & Gallery) funded by Arts Council England (ACE) to work together to deliver excellence in the use of collections and to inspire learning, creativity, and wellbeing to existing and new audiences in their communities.

This commission is part of the KMM NPO's ambition to produce artworks that encourage audiences to think about 'What is collecting? What makes a brandish? Which stories are beingness told at museums and how?' Museum objects, often grouped in predefined, restricted spaces sit silently, sparsely captioned, awaiting the attention of further, deeper, exploration.

Museums do not just collect, care and exhibit objects; they categorise, contextualise and translate objects to fulfil their own, and their intended audiences, requirements. The many stories behind these often human made objects, and the emotive connections they intend to brand, can therefore become difficult to obtain.

Through this committee the KMM NPO appointed 10 musicians or artists working with sound to create private, thought provoking, emotive works to translate a Lar figurine – an inherently 'traditional' museum object. Without the need for images, physical presence, and peradventure even words, we asked: 'what does this object say to you lot, and what stories do y'all wish to requite phonation to, and bring to life, through music and audio?'.

The 10 audio responses will:

• Get permanent digital artefacts accessioned (added to) the collections of the NPO partners
• Be made into a physical, express-edition vinyl record to exist deposited in each of the museums partners collections
• Exist promoted individually through a monthly programme of activities and as a group of audio tracks (album)
• Be exhibited together equally role of an interactive touring display

sloanextrany.blogspot.com

Source: https://thedockyard.co.uk/our-charity/kent-medway-national-portfolio-organisation-partnership/ten-songs-for-a-lar-2/