To mark the closing of Old Paradise Yard and the end of Iklectik’s current ‘sonic chapter’, the venue have commissioned a number of friends and supporting organisations to curate a series of final events to see their current home (a former Buddhist monastery and Lambeth’s oldest surviving school building) out in style. Howlround are delighted to be back with regular collaborators Psyché Tropes and Pascal Savy, recreating our audiovisual performance from last summer’s BONE x IKLECTIK festival in Barcelona – and we’ve managed to put together a pretty amazing supporting line up too, including fellow Barcelona stalwart Dali De Saint Paul and the ever-brilliant Kate Carr, plus lots more. Tickets are available here, so do come along and help us see the old place off in style!
Of course our event is just one of several ‘takeovers’ from some of the venue’s many friends and supporters, occurring over the space of ten days and culminating in a huge closing party on Saturday 20th. After that Iklectik enters a new phase which of course will chiefly consist of finding a new home. They’ll be needing all of our support in this new chapter and you can keep up to date with the latest developments and find out how you can help by visiting iklectik.org/saveiklectik. For now, it will be a sad farewell to Old Paradise yard – which looks set to be torn down and replaced with more shiny office blocks/luxury apartments that nobody actually needs/can afford (even though the powers that be don’t actually have planning permission yet!) – but hopefully paradise can be born again, somewhere new. For now let’s just celebrate the great times we’ve had together and look forward to the future. See you there!
Speaking of which, last month’s Noisemas has become another highlight of the Howlround social calendar and this year was no exception, albeit made all the more poignant by the fact that this will be the last one to be held in Old Paradise Yard. This year’s party was better than ever and a testament to this fabulous venue as a meeting ground for so many brilliant artists.
Howlround were honoured to finish the marathon twelve hour back-to-back session with another dose of pure sonic chaos and a duet with Hinvern Liminal (on vacuum cleaner once again!), with the usual eye-popping visual delights provided by Egle Saka. Our performance – in all its noisy ragged splendour – was documented in this incredible 360° video shot by James Alec Hardy. This allows the viewer to adjust their viewpoint in realtime while watching, allowing them to focus on the stage, spiral around the room or indeed just stare at the ceiling, which I’m told is the best way to appreciate the full Howlround effect!
Meanwhile up north, Winter Solstice Soundscapes at Carlisle’s Vinyl Cafe is another highlight of the Howlround year, despite the Network Rail and Avanti West Coast doing their very best to sabotage things! I ended up bundling my suitcase of gear through the door a whopping four hours behind schedule and had to set up and soundcheck in a record-breaking eight minutes! Thank heavens everyone else on the team was as patient and professional as ever!
As a result there wasn’t much time to document the proceedings, but here’s a phone video by the ever-redoubtable Stephanie Sharp of my slightly chaotic ode to the risible machinations of the British Transport Network, with help from a small but enthusiastic ensemble. I fully hope to be seeing all of them again in 2024 for more of the same.
Speaking of which, may I wish a belated Happy New Year to you all and thanks for all of your support over the past twelve months. 2024 might not be getting off to the best start with the closing of such a beloved venue, but I’m confident that better things will come our way. There are plans for a new Howlround LP for one thing and some fresh Howling material in the works, so I’ll hopefully be opening some new sonic chapters of my own before too long. Plus I’m always on the look out for interesting new projects and sonic sensations, so do get in touch if you’d like to propose a live show, an interesting collaboration or indeed have any intriguing sonic submissions for my Resonance FM show FogCast, which returns to the airwaves on Wednesday 9th Jan at 23:00GMT. Strap on your ear goggles and I’ll see you there!
Robin The Fog 