I’m afraid you’ve already missed it. It happened. The Journalist Adam Curtis and Robert Del Naja and his band Massive Attack — with vocalists Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins) and Horace Andy — staged a show over some nine days at an abandoned railway station as part of the Manchester International Festival. There was light and color and very, very loud music. I wish that I could have seen it. The whole thing focussed on the subject of control and the mechanics of the exercise of power today. Subjects that are very close to my own concerns as an artist and an entity. You might worry about these things as well. Here is one sample audience video of the show.
Adam and Robert appeared on a special episode of Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone focussed on the Manchester International Festival, interviewed by the awesome Mary Anne Hobbs. It’s well worth a listen also for a chat with Hal Willner who describes the singular event of the leaders of the Polish Solidarity movement reuniting to the sounds of a march composed by Sun Ra. He was in Manchester for his latest work with Robert Wilson – The Old Woman, with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe.
Here’s a review of the event that you may find useful. Hopefully the production will be turned into something that those of us not in Manchester last week will be able to safely consume at home.
