“Collaborations often start from a seed of curiosity. They are a great opportunity to explore no-mans territory and journey into something that is surprising and fruitful. Part of this journey is to keep an open mind, let things happen naturally and know that no matter what the outcome, the opportunity has been explored.
On one chilly but bright winter’s day earlier this year, Raymond and I met for the first time. Time was left at the door, as Ian Brennan, the music producer (who incidentally I was also meeting for the first time) allowed our flowing minds to dance together for the day whereby the outcome was our new release, Another Noise – an improvised first-take live recorded spoken word poetry album. I can only hope there will be other opportunities.“
– Dame Evelyn Glennie, 3rd September 2024
Extracts from the October edition of Songlines, published online 29th August 2024, written by Jane Cornwell:
Dame Evelyn Glennie is a two-time Grammy winner and the world’s premier solo percussionist. Raymond Antrobus is a poet and writer with an MBE, a Ted Hughes Award and a cult following for his debut 2019 collection The Perseverance. That they both happen to be deaf is incidental to Another Noise, an album recorded in a single afternoon at Glennie’s headquarters in Cambridgeshire.
“In all my years of playing, collaborating with a poet is something I’ve never done,” says the Aberdeenshire-born Glennie, 59, who has recorded almost 50 albums and worked with everyone from Björk and Béla Fleck to Bobby McFerrin and film-maker Danny Boyle. “It’s an entirely new approach.”
Featuring 12 short pieces recorded in real time – Glennie fashioned soundscapes that unfolded as Antrobus spoke – Another Noise is testament to the respective artistry of both participants, and to the creative vision of Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ustad Saami, The Good Ones).
“I’ve always aligned with Ian’s philosophy of seeking music that is under-appreciated and worthy of celebration,” says the Hackney-raised, Margate-based Antrobus, 38, a self-described ‘investigator of missing sounds’ for whom poems are sound objects, containers for the exploration of masculinity, deafness and identity, particularly around his Jamaican-British heritage.
“Ian’s work makes you think twice about perceptions and clichés,” he says of Brennan, whose CV spans over 30 international albums from overlooked regions and groups. “For me as a deaf person, as someone who requires synced-up artificial technology to communicate, I’ve made it a mission to live through a lens of exploration and creativity. This album feels very much connected to that.”
In a world crammed with distracting chatter, Another Noise is a project intended to reclaim noise, to offer another way of listening and, more abstractly, of sensing and seeing. It’s the sound of two artists on a journey that takes them and the listener outside their comfort zone. But it is also a tonic, a pause. “I think people will find something replenishing for the spirit, for the soul,” says Antrobus. “It just takes active, careful listening”.
Read the full article here: https://www.songlines.co.uk/features/raymond-antrobus-evelyn-glennie-a-meeting-of-minds
To preview and order Another Noise, visit Bandcamp. You can listen via the following online streaming platforms too: Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify.