CULTURE MUSIC Something in the air For the past year, a boat in the sky has been London’s quirkiest rock venue. The curator was Laura Barton, music writer and IL contributor There was a problem with the spinny horn. Was the boat big enough to accommodate a shellacked double-horn speaker, standing 28 inches tall and with a 40-inch wingspan? And who would pay for its safe passage from Chicago to London? It was two weeks before the start of Sounds from a Room. The multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird was due to perform the inaugural concert, and suddenly everything was in jeopardy; the elaborate speaker was looking like a deal-breaker. I googled a picture of the spinny horn, pressed my face into my hands, and wondered whether this sense of imminent catastro- phe would continue all year. It had all started with a glass of wine. One warm evening in 2011, Michael Morris, co-director of the and designed by David Kohn Architects in collabora- Boating song innovative arts organisation Artangel, invited me tion with the artist Fiona Banner, it was inspired by the ABOVE Laura Barton joins the Texan singer for a drink. We sat outside and sipped rosé while he Roi des Belges — the steamer that Joseph Conrad sailed Josh T. Pearson on explained a grand project for the coming year: as part down the Congo in 1889, on the journey that led him board. OPPOSITE The of London’s Cultural Olympiad, Artangel would be to write “Heart of Darkness”. Our boat was not inten- boat, inspired by “Heart of Darkness” placing a boat on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. ded to float; its structure of steel, aluminium sheet and Chiefly it would exist as a one-room hotel, with splen- painted ply would arrive by road, and be winched high did views over the river — from the Houses of Parlia- up onto the qeh roof one December morning. But ment to St Paul’s. But for ten days each month the boat until then it remained something of a mystery, a vague would host cultural events: a writer in residence, a sketch of spire and hull and bitter red wood. thinker in residence, and a series of concerts to be live- “It’s a boat,” I would say down the line to band streamed online, as well as shown on a giant screen in managers and booking agents. the Southbank Centre. Would I, he gently wondered, “A boat on the river?” they would reply, and I consider helping them devise the musical programme? would say no, it was a boat that would sit proudly on a roof, unfettered by fish and flotsam and undulating And so, over the months, we drew up a list of artists tides. “And where do the audience stand?” who might want to perform on board the boat — peo- “There is no audience.” And there would be a ple we loved or admired, people we hoped would give silence, as they tried to imagine a show in a tiny boat a portrait of the breadth and beauty of music, from atop a large building with no audience. classical cellists to popular musicians in Mali, Senegal It is hard to convince anyone of the merits of a pro- and Sweden. We wanted to explore the potential of a ject when the venue doesn’t exist and you are armed single room, the echo of wood and glass, the acoustics only with the architects’ plans, giving a misty, pastel- of its library, observation deck, galley, the influence of hued impression of what it might look like. You see tide and wind and sky. The charge of isolation. how people crave solidity — photos, specifications, di- Meanwhile, in a shed in Sussex, the boat was mensions, technical necessities, rather than the swan- being built. Commissioned by Living Architecture, whoop of enthusiasm. So, in those early months, > PHOTOGRAPH peter KINDERSLEY 117 CULTURE > discussions often stalled. Booking agents stopped electric bass, snare drum, ukulele, and her distinctive Port of London Authority who stood on the prow of answering e-mails; managers fell into long contempla- vocal style, the product of studying Swahili at univer- the boat to talk about the tides and the moon. Jarvis tion, or suggested we revisit the idea once the concerts sity and a trip to the coast of Kenya where she learned brought a gentleness and a warmth to the room. were under way. At times I feared that we might strug- music and dance. I had seen them live on several occa- My own relationship with music shifted over the gle to fill the year-long,12 -concert programme. sions and was thrilled by their infectiousness, the way year. Seeing the space that a performance must fill, and But some got it instantly. Artists who had a long- their music seemed to work on the guts, skin and mus- watching — at such an intimate distance — the way each standing relationship with Artangel, such as Laurie cles as much as the ears. I had no doubt that they would artist proceeded to fill it, was either thrilling, terrify- Anderson, Wildbirds & Peacedrums and Imogen make something special of their time in the boat. ing, or both. Each month, as we stood on the brink of Heap, all felt at ease with the leap of imagination In the event, it was extraordinary. Garbus insisted a new performance, I would feel a sudden lurch, as if required, even exhilarated. Others seemed willing to that instead of exploring the boat’s remoteness, she stepping off into that wide, blank space with them. be convinced, and so we told them of the promise of wanted the space thronged with people. She wanted Many of the artists saw the boat as an opportu- the boat — a chance to enjoy some isolation, two nights noise and life and voices. Dressed in elaborate costume nity to try something new. We began and ended the far away from tour buses and thronging fans. A chance and facepaint, she launched in with a kind of exquisite year with Andrew Bird and Stornoway performing to write something new, or reinterpret old songs. We caterwaul, soon joined by her bandmate Nate Bren- unreleased material, but in between we had some curi- told them to think of it like the mountain fire station ner and two female gospel singers, who had spent the osities that displayed the lick of genius. Among them that inspired Kerouac’s “Desolation Angels”, or the previous hour squashed into the boat’s shower room, was October’s performance Wisconsin cabin that brought forth Bon Iver’s “For using it as an impromptu rehearsal space. The boat by the Texan musician Josh Emma, Forever Ago” – only in the middle of a big city, seemed suddenly delighted, jostlingly vibrant, trans- T. Pearson. We had expected My relationship and with a view of the barges and the promenaders and formed from the serene space of Bird’s performance. something similar to his usual with music shifted the buses rolling over Waterloo Bridge. We began to make plans for the second half of shows, performed alone with Andrew Bird arrived that January day, spinny horn the year. The artists who had performed up to now a guitar and the clutch of songs over the year. in tow, but in muted spirits. The air was chill and damp had given us something ambitious, unusual, exciting: he recorded for his latest solo and the colour of porridge, and he was disappointed Imogen Heap’s listening chair, Laurie Anderson’s album, “Last of the Country Watching at his wife was unable to join him, having discovered en spoken-word performance, Heiner Goebbels’s musi- Gentlemen”. Instead he gave route to the airport that her passport had expired. He cal rendering of Conrad’s river diaries, Wildbirds & us a kind of gospel hour — ex- such an intimate sat bundled in scarves and woollens, skin ashen save Peacedrums playing the boat itself like a percussive cerpts of his favourite country for the tip of his nose which was pink with cold. instrument. Now we had to get our heads around some gospel performances on You- distance was The day of his performance, the sky hung pale and of the more outlandish plans of the artists to come: the Tube and a variety of readings, flat through the porthole window. I sat before the big cellist Natalie Clein’s desire to establish “a dialogue smattered between gospel either thrilling, screen in the belly of the Royal Festival Hall and fret- between solitude and its opposite and music that classics recorded on the boat in terrifying, or both ted. Would the weather make for a flat performance? feels as though it ebbs and flows with the river”, and the small hours of the morning. Would the spinny horn turn? Would all the cables and Charlie Fink of Noah and the Whale, who began with As I stepped aboard to this news, another pit of wires and switches and magic needed to let a single Radio silence into the Festival Hall in an attempt to crowd-source the intention of melding a brass band with Oliver worry opened up inside me. What if it didn’t work? person see the show actually work? Jarvis Cocker, singer with Pulp and material that she would turn into an entirely new song Stone’s talk-radio show. What if this rambling show never caught fire? I sat on BBC DJ, played hard to get, but Bird strolled onto the screen still swaddled in eventually put in one of the best during her stay.