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Lee Fisher looks ahead to Sunderland’s experimental sound and art festival, taking place 21st – 22nd November
Despite the prevailing economic climate and against the odds, Graeme Hopper has done it again. The weekend of November 21st and 22nd will once again see Boundaries Festival – the fifth! – take place across Sunderland, a forward-thinking, boldly experimental, visionary event. This year Hopper has somehow summoned it all up with no funding but no noticeable drop in line-up quality or hike in ticket prices.
Friday is based in Pop Recs and opens its doors at 7pm. Electronic artist (and touring Mogwai guitarist) Alex McKay, post-hardcore local heroes The Unit Ama, Welsh harpist and Hen Ogledd / regular Richard Dawson collaborator Rhodri Davies and the intense, challenging, visually amazing Aja Ireland will be appearing.
After a Sunderland Sound Walk with Tyneside-based polymath performer / installation artist Tim Shaw (kicking off at 10.30), Saturday starts off in Sunderland City Hall at 1pm with No Audience Underground / UK experimental mainstays Constance / Nyoukis, followed by Newcastle’s astonishing mistress of doom, drone and cathartic performance Dawn Terry, acclaimed Irish musician / fearless experimenter Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh and the magnificent, generous, open-ended jazz-doom of Sly & The Family Drone.
After a two-hour intermission, things decamp to Sunderland Minster where from 7.30 you can see ever-exploring French avant-garde musician Félicia Atkinson, Salford experimental pop innovators Hyperdawn and Ensemble Nist-Nah, underground legend Will Guthrie’s gamelan-inflected, Nantes-based percussion improvisation outfit.
As ever, Hopper’s passion for the leading, bleeding edge of music and for his hometown mean he’s once again betting the farm on this remarkable and essential festival. The least you could do would be to show up, right?
