Speech Muse

Delighted to share that the TENTH iteration of Speech Muse will take place at The (beloved) Horse Hospital, on Wednesday April 22nd, featuring Neil Luck, Eleanor Tennyson + BJ Holy (duo), and Odie Ji Ghast. Plus, entertainment from the one and only REUBEN! NEIL LUCK is a musician based in the UK. His work often explores the pathos and interaction between live human performance and multimedia, and attempts to frame the act of music making as something curious, or weird, or useful, or spectacular in and of itself. Neil’s work takes a range of forms from music-theatre, to concert works, radio, public projects and recordings. He is the founder and director of the music-theatre ensemble ARCO; an experimental music-theatre company. ARCO has been commissioned to produce work for arts institutions, galleries and music institutions around the UK and overseas.  Eleanor Tennyson is a writer based in London. She is the author of two chapbooks, The Submissive and Half-Life, and co-edits Alice, a journal of contemporary poetry and the unconscious, forthcoming later this year. Ben Boswell is a London-based artist, musician and cocktail mixologist. His semi-improvised live shows contain notes of ambient, classical, trad folk, and club. His sound is shaped by the city: living in it and occasionally breaking out of it into somewhere else. Odie ji Ghast is a Manchester based Lithuanian artist who plays with voice. She has been a part of improvised and noise scenes in the UK for over a decade, has several solo albums, and many collaborative projects. Her notable projects are and were Impossibility Knox, This Friendship is Sailing, Bad@Maths , Historically Fucked, and many more. Odie ji Ghast also produces music, writes poetry, works with nature, community and in education, and is raising a musical kid. Music is thickly woven into her every day. Reuben is: Funny Energetic Kind Knowledgeable Chatty Understanding Hard working Giggly Doors at 7, music from 7:30. No-one turned away for lack of funds. ⚡ Ticket link in bio ⚡

Elated to add two duos to the lineup for Speech Muse Fest: Pentu @pentupentupentu + Joanna Ward @gingerjoanna and Ben BJ @bj__holy + Eleanor Tennyson @eleanor_tennyson , this Saturday at HQI @_h_q_i_ So, the lineup is complete! Though there are salacious rumours swirling of a very secret, very special surprise set 👀 Lineup: Y.Them @0._a.d.m._0 Egg Meat @georgiemcvicar @upper_crust_punk THE NARRATOR @thenarrator_______ Loré Lixenberg @lorelixenberg Flo Ray + Gina Prat Lilly (duo) @ginapratlilly Pentu + Joanna Ward (duo) @pentupentupentu @gingerjoanna Yol + Clive Henry @haribo_voodoo_ritual @_chchc_ (duo) Mari Matsutoya Maggie Nicols + Faradena Afifi @faradenaafifi Anastasia Freygang @ragamash_sandybaum Ben BJ + Eleanor Tennyson @bj__holy @eleanor_tennyson Samra Mayanja @newyearr_newmee Yas Clarke @yasclarke No Internal Thing, a film by Flo Ray Hosted by Ethan Cohen @etco1 Poster: Handwriting by Reuben Cohen Based on photo by Claudia Gudín @1313.es Designed by Karina Sletten @slettenkarina

Overwhelmingly excited to announce that the next Speech Muse gig will take place on January 14th, at beloved Bloomsbury venue The Horse Hospital, featuring Phil Minton, Beatrice Ferreira, Imani Mason Jordan, and Charles Verni. Plus, entertainment from Reuben <3 Charles Verni is a London-based musician. Their work uses humour and genre experiments as a means to try and come to terms with popular song, digital audio, and the voice. Their latest album “I’m Crazy” was released by Plot Toy, with other projects including “I Was Today Years Old” and the radio play "Not That Deep.” Beatrice Ferreira is a Canadian American composer and string improvisor based in London. With a style described as ‘atmospheric, surreal... [and] occasionally unnerving’ (Spectrum Culture), she draws upon mimetic materials to destabilize perceptions of extramusical sound. With over a decade of experience writing for solo, concert, and theatre settings, she has established herself in the contemporary music scene as a skilled yet playful voice. Imani Mason Jordan (b. 1992, London) is an interdisciplinary writer, artist, editor and curator. Since 2016, they have synthesised a performance practice that centres writing and collaboration, using the speaking voice as an instrument. Imani is Director of PAPERFLESH PUBLISHING. They have curated various exhibitions and public programmes, alongside Rabz Lansiquot, as Languid Hands and SYFU. Phil Minton is from Torquay, UK. For the last 40 years, he has been working as a improvising singer in groups, orchestras and situations, in various locations worldwide. Since the 80s, he has directed the Feral Choir, where he voice-conducts workshops and concerts for anyone who wants to sing. Reuben is Funny Energetic Kind Knowledgeable Chatty Understanding Hard working Giggly Poster by Reuben ⚡ Ticket link in bio ⚡

* some pictures I took at Speech Muse Fest at @_h_q_i_ , August 30th. @speech.muse !

Jo Hutton's review of Speech Muse 6 in The Wire, Issue 498. Catch Mari Matsutoya, Yol + Clive Henry, and Egg Meat at Speech Muse Fest this Saturday.

Speech Muse Fest is this Saturday, August 30th, 12-11, at @_h_q_i_ Video by @1313.es @ginapratlilly @haribo_voodoo_ritual @_chchc_ @pentupentupentu @0._a.d.m._0 @gingerjoanna @bj__holy @eleanor_tennyson @thenarrator_______ @faradenaafifi @ragamash_sandybaum @newyearr_newmee @lorelixenberg @yasclarke @georgiemcvicar @upper_crust_punk @etco1

Thrilled to announce Speech Muse Fest, Saturday August 30th, at @_h_q_i_ in White City. Featuring: Faradena Afifi @faradenaafifi + Maggie Nicols (duo) Yas Clarke @yasclarke Y.Them @0._a.d.m._0 THE NARRATOR @thenarrator_______ Egg Meat @georgiemcvicar @upper_crust_punk Flo Ray + Gina Prat Lilly (duo) @ginapratlilly Samra Mayanja @newyearr_newmee Clive Henry + Yol (duo) @_chchc_ @haribo_voodoo_ritual Anastasia Freygang @ragamash_sandybaum Mari Matsutoya @marimatsutoya Poster: Designed by Karina Sletten @slettenkarina Using handwriting of Reuben Cohen Based on photographs by Claudia Gudin @1313.es Tickets in bio ⚡

Bad news: Speech Muse this Sunday will no longer be in Brentford. Good news! We'll be moving to one of the best venues in London, @_h_q_i_ in White City. Also good news: date and time remain the same, Sunday June 29th, 4pm. Address: 195 Wood Lane, W12 7FQ. Nearest stations are White City (Central) and Wood Lane (Hammersmith & City and Circle). Maggie Nicols and Faradena Afifi @faradenaafifi (duo) Jacob Dwyer @jacobdwyer106 Ryan Skelton @ryanskelton and Pentu @pentupentupentu (duo) Followed by an open mic! As always, no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Get in touch if you'd like to come but aren't able to buy a ticket.

Selections from the Speech Muse archive We're back at XYZ @yourxyzworld this Thursday, link in bio 📸 @1313.es

🔔 Announcing Speech Muse 6 🔔 yol and Clive Henry @haribo_voodoo_ritual @_chchc_ Mari Matsutoya Egg Meat @georgiemcvicar @upper_crust_punk Followed by an open mic! Thursday May 8th Downstairs at XYZ, 5 Gray's Inn Road, WC1X 8PH Doors 6:30, starting at 7 @yourxyzworld @etco1 Poster design by Reuben Cohen Tickets on Dice or OTD, no one turned away for lack of funds

🔔 Announcing Speech Muse 5 / Jan 15th 🔔 Denise Riley + Ute Kangiesser (duet) Flo Ray THE NARRATOR Followed by an open mic! At XYZ, 5 Gray's Inn Road, WC1X 8PH Doors at 6:30, starting at 7 Tickets on Dice and OTD No one turned away for lack of funds @yourxyzworld @etco1 Denise Riley lives in London. Her prose books are War in the Nursery: Theories of the Child and Mother [1983], ‘Am I That Name?’ Feminism and the Category of 'Women' in History [1988], The Words of Selves: Identification, Solidarity, Irony (2000), The Force of Language (with Jean-Jacques Lecercle; 2004), Impersonal Passion: Language as Affect (2005) and Time Lived, Without Its Flow [2012].  Poetry collections include Marxism for Infants (1977), Dry Air (1985), Mop Mop Georgette (1993), Penguin Modern Poets series 2, vol 10 (with Douglas Oliver and Iain Sinclair; 1996), Selected Poems (2000, 2019), Say Something Back (2016), Penguin Modern Poets series 3, vol 6 [with Maggie Nelson and Claudia Rankine; 2017], Lurex [2022]. Ute Kanngießer @utekanngiesser is a London based cellist and composer from Germany. Over the years she has carefully deconstructed her classical roots and almost exclusively performs unscripted, improvised music. Much of her work has evolved in relationship with other art forms such as film, dance, poetry and site specific work. She is interested in the vast expressive possibilities of her instrument in relation to body, space, and others, always looking to rediscover or redefine what is musical/lyrical in this moment in time. Recent releases include Blue Monday - a collaboration with writer Zara Joan Miller - on New York label Reading Group. She has also closely collaborated with poets Evie Ward and Nathaniel Mackey. Flo Ray is an artist whose work is broadly concerned with expressions of multiplicity: fragmentations in thought and feeling that complicate dominant cultural narratives of the singular, cohering subject. Through writing, drawing, video, sculpture and audio, she explores everyday antagonisms within, and between, what we call selves. THE NARRATOR @thenarrator_______ is a storyteller in play with multisensory worldbuilding, immersive experience and sonic.

🔔 Venue Change 🔔 Please note that Speech Muse (this Wednesday!) will be at XYZ, 5 Gray's Inn Road, WC1X 8PH See you there 👂