A few years ago at Roadburn, I organised a panel discussion with the theme of community and collaboration. My excellent friend, Cody F. Davis hosted it - he writes about bodies over at Heal ‘Em All. The musicians on the panel were Ethan Lee McCarthy (Primitive Man), Liam Neighbours (Mizmor), Bryan Funck (Thou), Dylan Walker (Full of Hell) and Emma Ruth Rundle.
I wanted to gather them together to talk about these topics, because to me it seemed that they were galvanising factors in their creativity. Yes, they can - and often do - work independently but what difference can collaborating make to their approach, or indeed the end result? What happens when we lean into community and ask for help, or offer up assistance when we can?
You may well have seen a lot of people suggesting that community is what is going to help us through looming horrors; I don’t disagree. Community is not only for crisis moments though, even if that is sometimes when its positive impact can be felt most acutely. I believe in community as a constant - something we would all be lucky to have, to support, to nurture, to console, to celebrate, to participate in. It’s something I think about a lot and it does creep into my writing here sometimes too.
If you’re (un)fortunate enough to be one of my friends in real life, you will have suffered through me asking questions about this sort of thing at regular intervals. I will lament our reliance on social media, our inability to be generous with our time and ideas, our dependency on the mechanics of structures not designed to support fanciful tangents with no monetary value. I want to make a space for a community to thrive and somewhere in these thoughts, I found a positive one and I grasped it with both hands and I haven’t let it go yet. I am still figuring it out, but if you are a person who is creative (or would like to be creative, or once was creative and is wondering whether there’s a shred of it still alive within you) and you would like me to tell you when I have a plan for this scrap of an idea to come to life, you can leave me your details HERE and I will do just that.
If you’re here for reading about music rather than vague and underdeveloped ideas of a better way to inhabit an online space then I have some of that too, I promise.
Inspired by the participants of that panel, I would love to tell you about Thou and Emma Ruth Rundle’s collaborative efforts, May Our Chambers Be Full, and the accompanying EP, The Helm of Sorrow. If my memory serves me correctly, when May Our Chambers Be Full was announced and available for pre-order there were two versions: a regular one and a ‘diehard’ version. With no additional details I opted not to go deluxe for the luxury of what I presumed to be a fancy coloured vinyl, only to later find out that diehard meant you got the EP too. Curses.
Anyway, the origins of this collaboration are rooted in Roadburn, which is a delight for me to contemplate sometimes. I had to step outside to answer a phone call when they were performing, and as I walked back into the venue, they were playing a cover of The Cranberries’ Hollywood, and I thought that they sounded for all the world like a complete band that belonged together, singing a song that lived inside their bones.
If you’re unfamiliar with either artist, then what a treat awaits you. I have written about both here in Slowpoke before (read about Emma here, and Thou here), but what I really want to say about this album is simply that I love it and perhaps you will too. I listened to it a lot when it first came out. I am particularly ill-equipped for listening to music out in the wild; finding that my attention is diverted to sound and infinitely increasing my risk of walking into traffic, falling into a bog, or forgetting that I had a dog with me when I set out. However, May Our Chambers Be Full did accompany me on a few long dog walks without incident. Side note: I once fell over in the park as I listened to Blood Year by Russian Circles for the first time and bloodied my knees. I became preoccupied with moving my sandal’d feet in time to the music and toppled.
The album also contains a line that gets lodged in my brain for days at a time; I’m not sure if it’s the delivery, the melody or just the shape of the words. But keep your ear out for finicky sleight of hand as you listen, and see if it does something similar to you. Probably not, but then you also probably don’t fall over in the park as often as I do.
Thou are frequent collaborators, actually, and therefore I’d like to mention another release that involves them, and yes, also Roadburn once again. In 2022, we had our first edition of the festival “post-pandemic” and Thou performed several times, one of which was a collaborative performance with Mizmor. The two musical entities had joined forces in secret and recorded an entire album, Myopia, which was announced that very day and available to buy at the festival. They performed a big chunk of the music they’d written together on the main stage, and I watched it in floods of tears. I did mention this in my earlier writings about Thou, but such was its impact on me, it has reappeared here too.
I was very emotional at that edition of Roadburn, actually. The importance of community and collaboration went beyond a cool idea for a side programme conversation, and to me felt like a real, living, breathing, tangible thing. That the Mizmor and Thou collaboration had been concocted in secret and unveiled in such a way highlighted both the power and magic of pooling talent and mad ideas, creating something truly special along the way. I had also spent the previous two years wondering when I would feel that power and magic again - if ever.
My part in that was primarily as a witness; I got to watch the hard work and commitment to the idea unfold, and so when I stood at the side of the stage and let the acerbic sound of Prefect wash over me, my emotions swelled up and out. That performance represented a lot of what I love about my job, but much bigger than that, what I love about art and music. The possibilities are infinite.
Here are some other collaborations I’ve been rating highly lately:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs & Perfume Genius - Spitting Off The Edge Of The World
It’s a mere single track, a power ballad of sorts and a combination of sounds that appear to be so natural and as if they were designed to belong together. It’s tempting in such situations to wonder what a full collaborative album would be like. But I think sometimes we shouldn’t be so greedy and we should try to just accept the gifts we’re given.
Midwife & Nyxy Nyxy - it’s ok 2 lie 2 me
Again, just one track. Madeline Johnston is another artist that is a frequent collaborator; under the moniker Midwife she has lent her talents to various artistic projects, and this one popped up almost a year ago, and is a few minutes of lush instrumentation and mellifluous vocals.
The Bug & Dis Fig - In Blue
I am pretty sure I’ve mentioned this album here before too, but I have returned to it a few times in the last month or so. There’s something about it that suits the sparseness of a frigid January; it is gently propulsive and engaging without being too demanding or overwhelming. Give it a spin.
That’s all for this week. I’m in France, but I’m going home now.
~Becky
Image below shows (L-R) Bryan, Liam, Emma, Dylan, Cody & Ethan
❤️❤️❤️