NEWS: ME ME ME present: William Basinski & Bed Wetter @ Sage Gateshead

Image: Geoff Kirkwood

Sometimes Sage Gateshead pulls something really special out of the bag, and this looks likely to be one of those nights. Resulting from a recent Artist In Residence collaboration, they’ve enabled Wallsend-born electronic musician Geoff Kirkwood – now internationally known as Man Power – to curate this remarkable line-up on Friday 4^th November under the auspices of his Me Me Me label. Billed as the North East’s first contemporary-classical event, the evening’s line-up is intended to give expression to Kirkwood’s ideas about blurring identities and cultural boundaries, and artistic expression in working-class contexts.

Heading the bill is the perennially brilliant William Basinski: most people will know him (if at all) via his Disintegration Loops project, a truly heartbreaking sonic experience conjured from decaying magnetic tape loops but infused with the tragedy of 9/11. He’ll be performing his 2020 album Lamentations, one of his richest and elegiac works.

As well as his curation, Kirkwood’s contribution is a performance as Bed Wetter alongside composer Fiona Brice and the Royal Northern Sinfonia for the premiere of NXS8, a combination of electronic and classical practices that will be performed alongside footage assembled by local artists and filmmakers that seeks to capture the essence of the North East. Finally, Radio6Music DJ Tom Ravenscroft will be providing a carefully chosen set.

William Basinski, Bed Wetter, Brice and Novak with RNS and Tom Ravenscroft perform at Sage Gateshead on Friday 4^th November.