The Goo 1
MAR '25 that he would put a huge amount of though
t and work into it. He’s gone and composed this thing that’s just for this performance. He’s never premiered these pieces. He’d never played these pieces before in public. He may never do so again. It might be the only chance to hear these things. “Remember that mad Clouds gig that Thurston did?” It’s incredibly special that he’s doing that. It’s not like he’s on some massive world tour with this thing. He’s just coming over just to do this gig for us because it’s the way he fancies doing it. Can you talk to me about your perspectives on the Irish New Music community? You can find the same people popping up in different places. You have people who are skilled at one thing, also being skilled in something else. A lack of roles in which everybody sits. Nobody says “Well, I’m a classical violinist and that you can sod off. There’s very little of that in the new music community because, one minute you’re improvising, one minute you’re playing in a folk trio, one minute you’re doing a highly complex new score, one minute you’re collaborating with a turntablist. For me, that’s the ideal.That is a twenty-first century equivalent to baroque musical practice, where if you were a composer, you also played, and you also conducted and you also improvised, and you probably sang, and you probably played for church services. Christine Tobin Christine Tobin’s remarkable voice and unique compositional bent has carried her the world over, from London to New York, winning accolades and devotees wherever she sings. ‘Pseudologia Fantastica’, her new work for BAN BAM 2025, explores the themes of the muddied waters of our language through electronics, spoken word and improvisation. Can you tell me about how you got involved with the BAN BAM award? Have you ever met Gerry Godley? He used to run the IMC,he brought me over to Dublin. To do a tour at one point, when they used to do that. I think I even did a tour at one point. They used to do tours and stuff like that. I played a lot of gigs, and worked really hard,applied for a grant a got that. Various work on and off, but then, because I moved to America, I lost touch. When I came back, I knew about BAN BAM, and I knew people like Cora [Venus-Lunny] had won them, but I didn’t actually attend those concerts. Living out in Roscommon, all the difficulty with traveling and getting back. But last September, I saw Bianca Gannon at a jazz gig in Westport, and she was playing. She played a piece that she had written for last year’s BAN BAM [“We’re All Just Walking Each Other Home”], and afterward I would get notices about applications. Last year I decided to explore a bit of technology, vocal effects and things like that, which weren’t things I’ve worked with before. Applying for BAN BAM, and being awarded, gave me the wherewithal to go and look in that direction, and get some gear. And, so it’s great to actually have this commission to make a new piece. And it’s it’s, it’s an issue that’s kind of I feel very passionate about as well. The theme of ‘Pseudologia Fantastica’ is breathtakingly current. My concern is with the misappropriation of language and the wildfire spread of disinformation across the social media platforms. and even on mainstream media. It’s just so many lies. It seems to have become normal for certain politicians. There’s always been a bit of bending of the truth, there. That’s nothing new, and people have always lied and manipulated the truth for their own ends. I think because social media allows it to be spread so quickly and so widely, we’re in a really difficult situation because it’s very hard to tell what is the truth. I think about Donald Trump with his legacy of having been schooled by Roy Cohn, who had his philosophy that if you have an agenda, you just push it through and bludgeon people over the head with whatever you want regardless of it having any connection to reality. It’s a thug mentality. People just get up now and tell outright lies and we’re poised in a very dangerous situation at the moment because of it. 5