Gwyneth Herbert
Acclaimed singer songwriter Gwyneth Herbert releases her new album, Sea Cabinet, in March.
Every day, a woman walks the beach alone. She collects each discarded or washed up object she finds and takes it home, cataloguing it with the care and rigour of a scientist. These objects are placed in ‘The Sea Cabinet’, and each one sings with the memory of a secret sea-set story – the victory of a Fishguard cobbler’s wife, a jaded seaside hotel, a sunken chapel, the shifting sands of wartime Alderney, the dangerous allure of the King’s Shilling, the loves and the losses and the stars and the whores and the drink and the drowning and the drip, drip, drip…
The Sea Cabinet is the latest project from musical adventurer Gwyneth Herbert – a beautiful, intricate exploration of the sea in all its magic, majesty and mystery, a unique multi-sensory, multi-layered song-cycle written and ripened on the Aldeburgh coast, drawing from the area’s rich history and traditions alongside stormy morning walks, midnight dips and rum-soaked lock-ins.
Working with musicians from her own world-class band, members of folk trio The Rubber Wellies, pop princess Fiona Bevan, inventive sculptor Alex Carr and critically acclaimed novelist Heidi James, Herbert presents an imaginative fusion of music, film, art and storytelling that explores stories from inshore and out.
Her mini-orchestra features a wondrous array of instruments, voices and sampled field recordings, creating a wild and unpredictable ocean of sound in and around each song that draws directly from the musical language of the sea.
Tickets: £12 (£10).