‘AN EAST-END LOVE AFFAIR’….

So, yours truly has returned from swooping and dipping upon the mighty back of a modern-art and musical mistral! Just as this meteorological thermal is quickly-accompanied by clear and fresh weather, so too, has my mental after-party been partnered by crystallised, cognitive art-assimilation!

Utterly wooed have I been, by the dapper-gent of East London’s multi-disciplinary art-scene..and I have fallen for every magnificent manifestation, in both conscious and subconscious realms. Frankly, the area oozes creativity…. From urban to fine-art, street-style to avant-garde gear, old-skool to nu-skool, game-changing musical-movements, the E.C’s got it covered!

Invitational rose petals had already been fluttering my way, from ‘The Shoreditch Fashion Show’… as described in my subsequent post ‘The Arts go OFF-the-BEAT-en Track’… However, the tokens of affection have continued to adorn my artistic pathways in the guise of such events as ‘The Other Art Fair’*, which was another world, the adjoining ‘Moniker Art Fair’ which was brain-crunchingly breath-taking.. and a one-off video-launch of the effortlessly vibrant ‘Alpha Romeo’, from one of electro-pop’s finest purveyors, M.T!

We begin the beguine, under the industrial roof of ‘The Old Truman Brewery’, where I was one amongst an intense, rush-hour-sequence of excited visitors, weaving their way along corridors, bearing the brilliance of a superlative spectrum of talent, expressed through exhibits of painstaking-perseverance and time-honoured, yet idiosyncratic, technique.

Like a theramin, my heart-strings were plucked by the invisible fingers of visual-art, as a domino of pieces from emerging and established portfolios, brimful of imagery, alike, fell into the open arms of my anticipation. The beauty of these East-London flora had me fluttering from genus-to-genus of urban, photographic, live, printed, filmic, painted, embroidered, collaged, stencilled and oh-so-fine art media! In fact, at every turn, so high a standard of work was on display, that I wondered just how the respective gallerists had chosen which of their artists to showcase. ‘Was this how it felt to choose a favourite amongst a brood of children?’ I wondered! Well, the joy for me, was that I didn’t have to select… I simply succumbed to this ever-more enticing visual fayre, in all of its beauteous glory and let my internal, creative-chorale decipher its own descant of mounted offerings!

Thus, the coloratura of crystallised global-landscapes of Jaykoe, gave way to semi-quavers of surreal photographic re-interpretations of water by Angelika Spranger, in turn, complemented by M.J. Forster’s sotto voce, watercolour wonder-world, followed by the crescendo of Matt Small’s multi-layered car-bonnet creations, Keira Rathbone’s staccato, type-writer-work, the ralentando of 3-D relief, by the outstanding Jo Peel, the harmonies of acute attention-to-detail, wielded by Mark Powell’s pen-art and a collaborative coda of riffs-on-black-and-white, as manifested by Zeus and T.L.P, in their transplantations of outdoor urban-landscapes to indoor art-scapes! A relentless downbeat of hip-hop sonically-booming through the space, often caused my senses to intensely focus-pull upon each moment and, as the days progressed, the revelation dawned that, in fact, each moment was a happening, waiting to unravel… It took a second visit, on a comparatively calm Sunday afternoon, for my own voice to add its bespoke grace-notes, the result of which, are wrapped within this written solo.

Gifts from East-London did not come in the shape of objets d’arts, alone! Oh no! Indeed, my promenade was to continue along the Ridley Road market, to a video-premiere party at a delightfully quirky Carmen-Miranda-esque establishment, by the name of ‘Wu’s’. At personal invitation of synth-pop supremos, ‘M.T’ (which stands for ‘Many Things’), and in defiance of the imminent arrival of Hurricane Jude, I accepted… Well, after all, it would have been Wu’d not to!!

At first glance, what with all of the stalls neatly-housed for the night, you would have been forgiven for wondering whether you had taken an errant turning but I had faith in my East-London chaperone and my faith was duly rewarded with an evening of all-consuming fun, in an intimate atmosphere of warmth and hearty welcomes, more akin to a close-knit family gathering than that of an inaugural video-preview of a critically-acclaimed musical outfit! From the outset, Michael, the lead singer, was the perfect host…A willowy figure, with shoulder-length, chestnut-brown hair and deep pools of super-friendly, yet intense, eyes, he cut a dash in a three-quarter camel mac, opened just enough, to reveal a loose, black, scoop-necked jumpsuit, with its long sleeves hinting at the overcoat’s cuffs. Affectionately-known to his friends as the ‘white, fluffy, cloud’ because of his love of wearing white on-stage, it was evident that his quiet humility had long-inspired many of whom made up the guests that night. As the venue became increasingly filled, I sensed that the overriding energy revolving around the room was of friendship, support and love. The video, was joyfully reflective of just such emotion, evolving from band close-ups, to an all-out party-scene, featuring many of the people in the amassed crowd.  As I left, amidst a flurry of hugs, I remember feeling as if I had been some long-lost member of the family, at a celebratory reunion!

I walked into a waiting evening of sullen storm-clouds, apt for precipitation, M.T’s ‘Alpha Romeo’ the more-than-welcome sonic invasion into my soul’s soundtrack and a heartfelt acknowledgment that, whilst the whirlwind-of-wooing was over, this was no fly-by-night notion of affection. On the contrary, yours truly had been veritably won-over by my dapper-gent that is East London and marks the renaissance of a relationship, the kind of which, I am certain, will last forever.

© AFROW2013-2019 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

www.monikerartfair.com : www.theotherartfair.com : www.pagetpr.com : www.mtmanythings.com

: www.facebook.com/ridleyroad (Wu’s)

*Heartfelt thanks to Paget PR for organising my invite to the amazing event!

 

‘STYLE HAPPENS SOONER, ON ‘LATER’!’

We have a lot to thank Mr Jools Holland for! Not only does he bring us the most eclectic of live, global musical offerings, from established and emerging artists, alike, but with them, come a plethora of stand-out, sartorial selections, from the style-spectrum! For instance, you’re as likely to see and hear the hauntingly melodic, ‘Amadou and Mariam’, bedecked in bold, traditional Malian dress, playing in the-round, as you are the infectiously-anthemic synth-pop of ‘M.T’, in their eponymous multi-coloured, tie-dye-tees!

Case-in-point has to be a recent episode, featuring, Goldfrapp, James Blake, Franz Ferdinand and Kanye West!

 Backlit in a pure-gold aura and engulfed, full-length, in a column of black chiffon-drapery, the ever-ethereal, Alison Goldfrapp, held the audience, spell-bound with her melifluously reed-like, vocal perfomance of ‘Annabel’. The timeless gown, simultaneously, captured her effortless, idiosyncratic grace, whilst also paying homage to SS14 runways, with its pintuck-peephole bodice.

The unnervingly-talented James Blake delivered an equally-classy rendition of the stunning ‘Retrograde’. With hair, windswept, in defiance of the stillness generated by his unfolding-wall-of sound, he was an example of understated style, surrendering to sonic substance. In a ‘1-800 Dinosaur’ T-shirt-and-jeans ensemble, Blake also seamlessly combined product-placement of his new record label and a pinpoint performance, with ease and flair.

In stark juxtaposition, was the riff and quiff-friendly, Franz Ferdinand. Already well-known for their unique fashion statements including the sharpest of Savile Row-silhouettes, the band showed that they had lost none of their couture-creativity, teaming the gusto of, lyrically, ‘right words’ with the ‘right action’ of donning fashion-forward Hawaiian-prints with rock-a-billy attitude! Very D-Squared-2!

Kanye West’s performance of ‘Bound To’, with the outstanding ‘Uncle’ Charlie (Gap Band) Wilson, more-than-referenced the fact that he had graduated, magna-cum-laude, from the School-of-FROW! The ‘College Drop-Out’ star stamped his artistic authority on the programme, with all of the swagger for which we have come to love him. Punctuating the pitch-black studio with dramatic spotlighting, which served to accente his choice of a laid-back, layering trend, a play-on-neutrals of black ribbed-tee and low-slung, loose-fit, trousers, was complemented by a three-quarter length, khaki parka and desert boots in a pop-of-camel-colour. The entire look was topped-off by the trademark, heavy-gold, diamond-set, belcher-link chain, de rigueur for ushering in SS14’s metallic forecast! Uncle Charlie was certainly in-the-house, with his own, distinguished, take on double-denim, accessorizing with shades, as blacked-out as the windows on a one-off, customised Bugatti! It was, undoubtedly, a fitting backdrop to the soaring, silky-smooth, vocal-runs and devastating musical prowess of such a living-legend of U.S Funk/R&B!

So, the next time you tune into ‘Later… with Jools Holland’, keep an eye out for a new class of ‘artist-interpretations’… I think you’ll find that, on closer inspection, they are, in fact, rather more original!

©AFROW2013-2019 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED