Spindle Ensemble | Inkling album launch

Hidden Notes presents
Spindle Ensemble's Inkling album launch

Act 1
Mandel (Bedroom Community)
Screening premiere of 'Please You Draw Near'.

Act 2
Spindle Ensemble

St George's Concert Hall
Tickets £12/14
27/05/2021
19:30

Please note. This concert will have a socially distanced audience. Seating is for individuals and pairs, and masks must be worn throughout. There will be an interval where the audience is encouraged to take some air outside whilst maintaining social distancing measures.

SPINDLE ENSEMBLE
Pre-Order Inkling https://spindleensemble.bandcamp.com/album/inkling

Contemporary classical chamber quartet Spindle Ensemble are performing their first show since 2019 to celebrate the release day of their sophomore album Inkling.
Inkling will be released on vinyl, CD and digital download by new record label Hidden Notes Records, an expansion of contemporary classical/avant-garde Hidden Notes festival (featuring upcoming performances from Jonny Greenwood and Penguin Cafe). The vinyl version will be accompanied by a special 12 page booklet which also includes liner notes written by celebrated DJ and Broadcaster Nick Luscombe (BBC3’s Late Junction/Musicity/Flomotion Radio).

Since their formation in Bristol in 2016 contemporary chamber quartet Spindle Ensemble led by composer, pianist and harpist Daniel Inzani (Yola, Alabaster dePlume, Tezeta) which also features tuned percussionist Harriet Riley (Charles Hazelwood’s Paraorchestra, Bristol Symphony Orchestra), cellist Jo Silverston (Mesadorm) and violinist Caelia Lunniss (Edward Penfold) have garnered much praise for their innovative take on contemporary classical music, rooted in spontaneity and improvisation performed with deft musicianship and unique instrumental pairing all resulting in truly captivating sonic soundscapes.
Inkling was recorded at various venues across Bristol (including St George’s), capturing their performances as unique 3D sound images enabling the listener to hear each instrument’s position mimicking the audible experience as a live audience member.

A series of three pieces from the album have been released as audiovisual collaboration videos with visual artists Narna Hue, Marie Lechevallier and Fred Reed. Available to watch via their website:

http://www.spindleensemble.com/

MANDEL

Another addition to Valgeir Sigurdsson's impressive Bedroom Community catalogue, selected by the legendary producer and composer and mastered at his Iceland recording studio Greenhouse, Mandel is a creative partnership between longstanding BedCom collaborator Emily Hall and Misha Law.
Drawn together by a common aesthetic, they meet every week to practice mindful free improvisation mostly on violin and viola then work together to develop this material into fixed pieces of music. They originally got together to improvise on a regular basis as a means of free expressive offloading. They started to record their improvisations and listen back and quickly spotted ideas and sometimes whole passages which they wanted to develop into pieces. Mostly they then develop the pieces together through devising and for some pieces a more composer-based approach is taken and Emily develops the improvisation in between sessions. In this way, Mandel is a true partnership between the music therapy skills of Misha Law and the composition skills of Emily Hall.

Their debut EP ‘Nha Trang’ was released by Bedroom Community in Jan 2021. The title track comes out of an improvisation in a response to “Nha Trang” a photograph by Andreas Gursky of workers in a factory in Thailand making wicker furniture for IKEA. It mirrors its swirling macro to micro, and homes in at a certain point to something more human. Nha Trang came about through a commission from the London Sinfonietta.

https://emilyhall.bandcamp.com/album/nha-trang-mini-suite

PLEASE YOU DRAW NEAR

‘Please You Draw Near’ is a collaboration between Harriet Riley, Maia Ayling and Tom Jacob. Created during the 2020 lockdown, it uses aerial circus, live music and text from Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ to explore themes of isolation, powerlessness and determination. It responds to the currently pertinent question, “what is an artist without an audience?”.

Maia combines her experience in circus and theatre, performing the text and rope routine. This is displayed alongside Harriet’s live musical performance, filmed in a separate venue. The physical nature of the percussion mirrors the physicality of the aerial circus. Exploiting the challenges of Covid restrictions, Tom’s edit seeks to capture a unique perspective that is not possible in live performance, creating a sense of intimacy through the use of slow motion, double exposure, close-up photography and split screen.

The film was funded by Help Musicians Fusion Fund and Thimble Theatre.

Aerial Circus: Maia Ayling
Music: Harriet Riley
Film: Tom Jacob
Filmed at St George's Bristol and Circomedia, Bristol