Chronomomomania.
The best plans go backwards.
No, sure. They do. Even the few that look pretty good going forward.
I mean, most great plans look so rubbish going forward that >CHUCKLES< you'd hardly think they were plans at all. It's only through the all-revealing prism of hindsight that you can see the genius at work. Yeah. Obvious as black and white.
So let’s get straight to the cake and take Momo’s latest creative collaboration.
I don’t wish to bore you about such things, but I suppose this is the nearest thing to a press release my offices will be issuing directly on the matter and, well, today we’re kind of launching it so this is good timing, I guess.
And timing is my point.
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Looking forward, I couldn’t see it. Looking back, I trust I increasingly will. That the timing of catching such an enormously fun collaborative swerve ball is actually perfect. Because I wouldn’t have chosen now to sprint off on a sudden creative tangent. Especially such a whimsical-seeming one.
Not when I’m trying to weave an elaborate myth around the idea that I’m some debonaire highly credible fringe electro-cabaret whizz-chops.
And don’t waste both our time sniggering at the word ‘credible’.
You see, the thing blatantly is that all that wasn’t accounting for a particular creative force, introduced to me a little while ago by a good number of good folk, I think. A creative force known as Hazel Evans.
Lighthouse Poole’s current visual artist in residence approached me a mere handful of weeks ago to moot the idea of a little playdate. To see if I would be at all interested in helping her bring a simple sonic element to her work. Record a couple of her poems, that kind of thing.
Today, I am tweeking final mixes of our shared genre-hopping prog-synth quirk-fest concept soundtrack album, Adventures Into The Monochronium.
I haven’t slept much this week. ..Meh.
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Her six-week installation in what I guess must be the central south’s most notable arts venue, last summer, seemed a very interesting affair, from afar. Following shots of it on friends’ blogs and The Book of Face and so on, the intriguingly black & white-themed Monochronium seemed hard to catagorise, but it did seem to be one thing in particular – definite.
I mean, when you first hear about it, you might not be sure what it is. This Mono-whatsit. You might still not be sure how to sum it up after going to see its imminently-opening successor this summer. But you may well soon get the nagging feeling it does all seem suspiciously like the woman had some sort of prophetic vision and simply wrote it all down.
An illustrator, writer and performer, Hazel appears to be as at home making marks as she is making funny words and funny voices. But perhaps key to her being known by so many people around Bomo is that she is just as at home with an idea that many artists recoil at the sound of. Product.
Which is really just a professional way of saying: ‘Actually finishing sh**.’
Hazel Evans isn’t just a multi-talented creative person. She’s a logo on a stamp. She’s an evolving, exploring artistic body of work, sure. But she’s a… show. In the minds of many of her friends I suspect, she’s… an idea. She’s a ruddy brand, mate.
Having now fairly suddenly worked with her a lot, I can say she manages to cultivate the very interesting evolution of all this while also being, dare I say it, a complete professional.
Which is really just a professional way of saying: ‘Completely fab.’
To put it in perspective, the lovely first lady of Momo has made it clear she thinks rather highly of Hazel and her fairly instant creative likeability. And who wouldn’t. But, if you know my unpretentiously impressive wife, this is still praise indeed. We have enormously enjoyed opening our home to some gentle extra artistic insanity during the month of May, and I suspect we may not have all seen the last late-night sniggering in the Momo studio together.
Now, you and I both know how tedious it is to hear creative lovies extolling eachother’s virtues, so I’ll leave it there. But, as you might imagine, to meet a fellow creative who, while honestly just being themselves and following their artistic nose, also has a business that is somehow just a little larger than their own life, and who likes having fun while delivering some actual results, who also combines creative disciplines including a penchant for slightly posh spoken word and a dusting or two of theatrics, without being any kind of diva… well, it rang a bell. Apart from the diva bit, obviously.
It rang a few bells, in the end. As you’ll hear on the album.
For Hazel Evans’ Adventures Into The Monochronium opens an already extended eight-week installation at Poole Lighthouse from tomorrow night, Saturday May 26 2012, to coincide at some point with the esteemed Dorset Arts Weeks. And exclusive preview copies of the collaborative album soundtrack to it’s evocative exploration of a monochrome timeline will be available right in the exhibition, from the private show on Wednesday 30th.
And then there’s Friday June 22nd. For we are, allegedly, convincing a string quartet to join Mark from the Tempo Pops band and me and Hazel at an intimate sharing of some of the tunes. But more on that in the next couple of weeks. When I work out what to do with a string quartet.
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If you’re intrigued, you should be. As a soundtrack to Hazel’s journey, the collection of pieces written together does have the heavy hand of Momo all over it. Tunes and whimsy abound in there. There are a few beats to be found too, and hopefully much colourful fun, to explore thoughtfully too. Plus, your kids will love bits of it. But it’s certainly a little score to take you on a bit of a tangent for a while.
All I can say, as I look forward to other projects over the summer, is that I’ve hugely enjoyed the time. Slightly crazy as it’s been.
Go see it. Just go see it and hear it.
Adventures Into The Monochronium, the title track on Soundcloud.