Gig Of The Week – Parallel Voices 2010 @ Siobahn Davies Studios

Pulling together an incredible cast of cross-media artists, Parallel Voices 2010 is the third event of it’s kind at the Siobahn Davies Studios in Elephant & Castle. Curated this year by Carsten Nicolai the event aims to bring together performers that bridge the gap between the audio and visual mediums and the two headline figures for me are Blixa Bargeld (Einstürzende Neubauten, The Bad Seeds) and electronic maestro Christian Fennesz. Given the supreme quality of their musical work, you’d expect their discussions to be equally vital. Both discuss the fertile land where art forms meet – music and poetry, dance, video. Each talk is accompanied by a short performance piece featuring some of the panel – an intriguing event.

If you hanker after something a little more traditional then there are gigs aplenty throughout town this week. On Monday try Mono at Scala, or the latest ATP event – The Retribution Gospel Choir at Cargo. Tom McRae is back, still searching for the awesome form of his first two records, and plays Scala on Wednesday. The influential Chapterhouse, along with Engineers, also play Scala on Thursday. MGMT hit the promo trail at Heaven, part of an ever-expanding live music line-up at the club. Fabric on Friday sees an incredible lineup, highlights of which are Skream, Benga and Caspa. As a final recommendation why not try and catch the inimitable Patti Smith, who performs at the branch of Foyles in the RFH, and then a fully fledged gig at the Union Chapel on Sunday – still, I imagine, something worth seeing.

Einstürzende Neubauten – Die Wellen

Fennesz – Grey Scale

Parallel Voices website

Photo: Kentaro_m_photography @ The Triple Door, Seattle WA, 02/06.

Read on for all this week’s recommendations.

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