Mess Collective’s Night of Music, Poetry And Art

Words by Samuel Rich

Photography by Mess Collective

Mess Collective’s night of music, poetry and art coincided with the bitter realisation that the harsh reality of a cold, damp London winter had slowly crept upon us. Thankfully, I arrived at the venue just before my fingers had the chance to turn blue. 

Although situated in a warehouse, it was evident that Mess Collective had been creatively inspired by the endless folk revival dominating the British arts scene. The venue was modelled off of a pub one might find nestled somewhere on a rural village green “The Maypole” was the name given, with a rather tastefully designed set of banners. The lights were set to a warm reddish hue and linens had been draped over beams, surrounding the audience. 

And so the scene was set. Jess Faber opened the night, with a set of compositions for violin, cello and piano. Faber’s music was in the realm of neo-classical and almost cinematic chamber music. The performance felt light and wispy, one based on loops and sequences, and few bars which formed the foundation for her compositions. The performance felt highly personal, her dynamic technique characterised by her gentle swaying, meditative expression and large sweeping gestures. It was a gentle, tenderly composed act to start the night, the coldness outside was thawed out by the warmth and emotional richness of Faber’s music. 

Following Jess Faber, was Sam Watson, a warm, personable performer who held the ability to turn the warehouse venue into a space as intimate as his living room. The repertoire performed by Sam, framed sound as a communal memory, and his remarkable instrumentation (electronics, tambourine, hurdy-gurdy, loop pedals, harmonium and vocals) were all played with such sensitivity and purpose that I couldn’t help but feel as if he was drawing connected strings between each audience member. 

His choice of repertoire was well suited to his stated artistic intention “to create careening soundscapes and atmospheric journeys…concerned with deep memory, belonging, yearning, exploring the tension and release therein.” Certainly, the most exemplary of sections of his set was his performance of One for Sorrow, Two for Joy. That well beloved yet haunting ornithomantic (the practice of seeking omens from the actions and song of birds) song about magpie salutations. His interpretation saw his voice weaving through multiple registers over a harmonium drone, so emotive was his performance that I spotted a few tears in the audience. Watson’s voice and profoundly unique folk interpretations are ones I look forward to hearing a lot more of. 

Mess Collective’s eclectic and unique curatorial style included two spoken word performances. The first given by Luke Hornsby—Smith, whose highly comedic yet sharply poignant piece about the “comedy of coping” was delivered in a perfectly erratic, almost distraught manner. Accompanied by a gently rolling alt-rock type backing track, he spun a narrative of almost feigned disinterest in his own performance. Ostensibly because his persona had to rush to make a dinner party, which included many mentions of his self-aggrandised scallops. His work spoke to the all too common conflict between a presentation of an external self and the onslaught of our collective subconscious that postmodern life inflicts.

The piece unfolded as both confession and caricature, using the rhythms of a friendly anecdote, with a pseudo-apologetic tone and scrupulous domestic detail, Hornsby—Smith sketched out what he has termed “queer social ritual”. The everyday experience of preparing food for others became, on his stage, an almost camp performance of social anxiety. What lingered, was laughter and the sense of how brittle those rituals can feel when only humour is holding the night together. 

The second spoken word act was performed by Patrick Lewin of the Be Lucky band, who was accompanied by Alistair Welsh on keys. Whilst Lewin semi-sung poetry, which depicted love unrequited and unsupported, Welsh played an improvisation based on Michel Legrand’s “I Will Say Goodbye”. Welsh’s unhurried voicings conducted the room to exhale, allowing Lewin’s poetry to sit comfortably above. 

Subsequently came Alice George Perez, a guitarist with a bard-like voice. Her intimate set was a soft exploration of specific vignettes in her life, as well as songs that dealt with interpersonal and familial relationships. Perez held space, and held silence, her silences were evocative and allowed the listener to dictate what it is that fills those spaces. 

The final two acts of the evening were both phenomenal musicians coming from very different perspectives. The first being the clarinettist, composer and DJ: RBI, who played an electro-acoustic set on a set of live loops, creating a rich, reverberant soundscape.

Her style, marked by highly percussive yet clear articulation, gave the impression of an improvisatory yet highly calculated set of pieces. The culmination of all of her live loops produced an organic and almost site-specific experience. Site-specific, because the murmurs of the audience, the shuffles of cold feet, and the audible reactions to her music were all included in each recorded loop. 

To round off the evening, we were entertained by Celtic-pop duo, Clara Pole on vocals and ALISA on harp, who shed a new light on folk-inspired pop with a Reichian manipulation of vocal loops, which allowed the performers to carve out a new way to express this genre. Clara and Ailsa were able to carve out a new way to express a particular musical identity. Patterns of arpeggiated harp lines, vocal pads and a more or less consonant harmonic language allowed them to warp the modes of this genre, however there were times when the pieces felt static. There were beautifully transcendental moments where pre-recorded loops and live vocals seemed to melt into each other, texture and timbre dominated the listening experience. All of this coalesced into a set that, on the open hand, felt pleasantly familiar in genre whilst also allowing for a total re-imagination of the kind of sonorities Celtic pop as a musical descriptor is capable of producing. 

It was a fitting end to the evening: reflective, future-facing, and in many ways transformative.

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