A Polyphonic Spree!

It was with great excitement that Spokes and I headed over to the Philharmonic Hall to see the wonderful Luke Daniels perform at The Phil's superb new Music Room venue. It was our first visit to this new addition to the Philharmonic and we really loved the feel and the acoustics of the place.

As for tonight's performance, well, we knew we were in for a treat and we weren't disappointed.

Luke Daniels originally became well-known to folk fans as a melodeon virtuoso and over the years he’s worked with top folk performers such as Cara Dillon and De Dannan amongst many others. More recently, however, he’s developed a whole new career as a rather fabulous guitarist/pianist and singer-songwriter. His 2014 album, 'What's Here, What's Gone' certainly gets regular plays chez Booknerd. And now, he’s added an unexpected and intriguing new string to his bow by going all steampunk!

He’s developed technology which allows him to create new music with an authentic Polyphon machine – a mechanical music device - essentially a 4-foot music box (circa 1880) - which plays 20'' discs, predating the gramophone but serving a similar purpose to a jukebox. Tonight, alongside songs from his usual solo set, he played extracts from his new work, ‘Revolve and Rotate’ – a suite for polyphon discs with live accompaniment.

Luke’s a lovely person with a gentle soul and a burning belief in social justice and progressive politics. He's also an engaging performer and it was amazing to watch him play the newly-created discs on the polyphon, accompanied by looped samples, live guitar, piano, accordion and vocals.

I can't find any footage of him playing along with the polyphon but here he is performing one of my favourite songs of his, 'All My Dreams'.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLBP34uVtaw

After the show, we had a bit of a chat with Luke about the inner workings of the polyphon and he very kindly let me have a go at putting a disc in place and playing it. Quite a thrill! He also talked us through how he's linked 21st Century electronics to the machine, not only to project a musical manuscript onto the discs but to allow a computer to read its mechanical output as midi files. Fascinating stuff!

Thanks to Luke for a great show, for letting me take his picture and for creating the first new works for polyphon in over a century. It's a brilliant project.

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As a postscript, those of you who enjoyed the fabulous Stealing Sheep video which I posted a link to last week www.blipfoto.com/entry/2108309403143768475 may be interested to know that the band's singer/guitarist, Emily Lansley, came and sat at the adjoining table earlier this evening when Spokes and I enjoyed a pre-gig meal at The Pen Factory on Hope Street. Small world!