I’m really pleased to announce that I’m going on an expedition to the Arctic with Cape Farewell. They are a charity working to create a cultural response to climate change. They are taking a 40 strong crew of musicians, artists and scientists on a 12 day trip to Disko Bay on the West coast of Greenland.
The boat will voyage across the front of the Jakobshavn Glacier, one of Greenland’s largest glaciers. It is moving at an alarming rate, faster than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day.
Some of the artists on board include Laurie Anderson, Vanessa Carlton, Jarvis Cocker, Feist, Robyn Hitchcock, Ryuichi Sakamoto, KT Tunstall, Martha Wainwright, Marcus Brigstocke and Lemn Sissay.
We set sail in four weeks time. I’ll be blogging and sending updates to this site live from the voyage. So far I have not really had a moment to think about it. But I need to get myself a warm jacket!
This weekend was Greenbelt festival in Cheltenham. Originally they were interested in booking the Vocal Orchestra, but some the choir weren’t about so Greenbelt commissioned me to create something different.
In the build up to Glastonbury I jammed with tabla virtuoso Pete Lockett, bassist Jon Cox and Pavan Mukhi – aka Orifice Vulgatron, the front man of the hip hop group Foreign Beggars. I decided to get this lineup together again and play around with some ideas.
It was a real pleasure to collaborate with Pavan again – he was one of the first people to believe in my skills and to get me up onstage. We first bumped into one another when I was a fresh faced fresher in Leeds. I was frantically beatboxing full blast outside a drum n bass rave where he was MCing, back in 2002. I was 18 and Foreign Beggars were doing their first shows together at the time. I quit Uni to go on tour with Foreign Beggars all over the world, and I learnt so much about stagemanship from performing with Pavan.
Pavan all smiles
Foreign Beggars are massive in the West Country and there were loads of fans going mad for Pav!
Pete Lockett is one of the world’s leading percussionists and a tabla wizard. I met Pete a few months ago at a development weekend for a percussion project we are both involved in, and earlier this summer he performed at Glastonbury with us. We had toyed with the idea of combining beatbox with Konnakol, the South Indian discipline of vocal percussion. This was a great excuse to develop some ideas a little further.
Pete and Shlo
We booked in a warm-up gig at the Big Chill House in King’s Cross a few days before the festival. This way we could rehearse all day, and run through the show in front of an enthusiastic audience that evening.
A few days before the rehearsal, Pete sent over some notation for some tabla vocals. It looked impossible. I didn’t get a chance to look at it properly until the day before the gig, and spent the whole afternoon trying to get my head round it.
Pete’s Konnakol notation
This was the first time that I have sat down and properly studied a musical exercise in years! It was difficult to get right but it felt really good to be challenged. After about three hours of going over and over the rhythms I was starting to feel a bit more confident. I called Pav and asked if he wanted to have a look at it too. He said he only had about an hour to spare that evening but he’d take a look, so I sent him the notation.
Next day we got together in the morning to rehearse. Pav had nailed the whole thing! In one hour!! I could not believe it. The piece sounded really good with Pav and Pete doing the tabla vocals, and me doing the same rhythms but using beatbox sounds.
Here’s a tiny snippet of us performing it…
It was such a pleasure to play some quite subtle and challenging material on a festival main stage, and to feel like the crowd really got it.
Lastly here is a picture of the delicious organic burger that I deleted just before the show.
Ok nearly at the end of a crazy summer of festivals.. This weekend it’s Greenbelt.. I misread the information, thinking we were playing to 2000 people. I’ve just been sent the final info and actually it’s 10,000 people and we are second from headline. Also just found at that at Bestival in a couple of weeks we are on third from headline, the saturday evening order goes us (me vs DJ Yoda) then Hot Chip, then Amy Winehouse. No pressure then.
Shlomo and the Vocal Orchestra are the UK’s only beatbox choir.
After a festival run that included a two hour show at Glastonbury, the Vocal Orchestra hit the road in October for their first ever UK tour, kicking off at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on October 17th.
For full dates and ticket info please check out the events page.
One of my favourite things about being ‘in residence’ at Southbank is hanging around in the Riverside Room. It’s a hub of activity set up by Southbank for all the residents to work from.
There are a few of us resident artists now, so whenever I am in, there are others in too.
We’re right by the London Eye
and just above the skate park
This is my desk… note the recent addition of a piano! (loving that)
This is Lemn Sissay who is writer in residence. He has writing on the walls.
Creative Connections are also based here - they are a team of speed artists who create ‘visual minutes’ at meetings.
Also based here are Gauri Sharma Tripathi who is a stunning Kathak dancer, and Bellowhead, the folk collective. They weren’t in today but these lovely people above are the team from Cape Farewell. They take artists out to the Arctic to get them thinking about climate change. Got some exciting news about these guys coming soon!
One problem with the office being right by the river amongst all the Southbank art galleries, public concert halls and theatres, is that people often think we are some kind of public space. They come in asking for a table for two, or just wander in during a meeting to just ‘browse’.
I’ve hardly been in lately because of the festivals but I am really looking forward to when the next season of unconventional means kicks off so i can hide in here and drink peppermint tea.
Episode 3 of Shlomo’s Babelbox Podcast is out now, and it’s a Glastonbury special.
The podcast includes a backstage audio diary following Shlomo’s performances on the main stage in front of tens of thousands of people, plus highlights from the two-hour show on Park Stage. Features music and interviews from DJ Yoda, Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Martha Wainwright, Martina Topley-Bird, Ed Harcourt and loads more.
Yo.. I just got back from the Big Chill festival, lots of fun.
Played on the Saturday night as part of the Mighty Boosh curates. It was totally insane, the tent was so rammed, people were trying to climb under the tent’s walls..
