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Wave If You're Really There #05

16/10/09 Live
by Joseph Bramall

The show is essentially a one-off poetry-cum-music extravaganza, presenting the best-est most cutting edge-est most challenging and intense collaborations across music, literature and visual arts, in one of the most impressively charming venues in the UK.

It’s also a total steal: Arts Council England have seen fit to subsidise the entry fee to a practical vanishing point.

Tickets are £5 with a little postage & booking fee if you book on the ‘net.

We sincerely advise that you snap up as many as you need RIGHT NOW, because by the time you have got to the end of this news item they’ll probably all be gone.

Got them? Right, now here’s what you’ll be seeing ...

Wave Machines

Co-curators, disco long-burners, BBC darlings, wise men, and Mercy’s best pals. Since releasing their debut album in 2009, these shows in collaboration with Mercy are the ultimate way to experience the music of this shockingly accomplished, inspirationally inventive four-piece at the top of their form.

Post War Years

More a living organism than just an outcome of the sum of their parts, Post War Years’ inherent cognitive ability to communicate on stage makes them one of the most captivating live bands around. Their new single Soul Owl is an ‘avant-garde contemporary lullaby’. That’s so Mercy! For WIYRT they’ll be pulling the owl out of the bag and popping out a-once-in-a-lifetime steam-coming-out-of-ears, leather-jackets-on-fire-style set that will shake the church to the bones beneath.

John Smith

A dazzling, inventive guitarist, with lightning-fast fingerpicking, unconventional percussive guitaring and an unforgettable, honeyed, gravelly growl of a voice that gives us watery knees. As well as songs from his new album, John will be bringing the noise with a thrilling electric guitar collaboration with the Homework poets.

Luke Kennard

Youngest ever Forward Prize nominee, Mercy E-zine favourite, irresistibly clever impeccable funny-guy, and the most important poetic voice of his generation. That is all. Luke will be presenting newly commissioned poetry in performance, alongside new illustrative work from the Mercy creative team.

Ross Sutherland

Mercy resident. One of the most natural creative talents working in the written word today – a film-maker, playwright, poet, journalist and all-round inky egg head. He was featured in The Times’ list of Top 10 Literary Stars of 2008. His work for WIYRT includes a newly commissioned animation from M.S. Paint-ifier and folkie, Line And A Dot.

Homework

Ross, Joe Dunthorne, Tim Clare and Chris Hicks present a series of irrestitable multi-vox poetry performances, including new collaborative multimedia work. Homework is London’s monthly poetry meeting at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. It is also a hot-house and drawing board for the team’s strikingly original new poetry in performance.

"The Mercy productions of Wave If You're Really There in 2008 were the undisputable live literature highlight of the year and a guarantee of the wealth of talent that the collective continues to draw on"

Brychan Tudor

Using an amalgamation of projected light and solid structure to create a kind of ghostly layering, Brychan’s work explores the relationship between ‘real’ and ‘illusionary’ space. Through composed repetition, these serious and playful works explore the connection between sight, imagination and the importance of our bodies’ experience in constructing our perception of space.

Karen McLeod

A physical performer whose style is confrontational, absorbing and visually stunning. For WIYRT#05 Karen will be reprising and reinvigorating her startling portrayal of a lost bride, as part of a character-based durational work, flipping the traditional performer/audience relationship on its back and leaving it for dead.

Plus!

  • DJ sets by Binary Jam's Markus SoukupNew artwork and décor by Scott Spencer, Gary Daly & Becky Grove
  • Visuals and atmosphere by Phil Communication & Adam Sloan, and the Mercy creative team
  • YOU! Dressed to the nines and getting drunk on your own booze with the stranger next to you in the pews
  • Date & Time : Saturday, December 5th at 7:00pm to Saturday, December 5th at 11:59pm
  • Venue : St Leonard's Church, Shoreditch, London, E1 6JN