This Friday, 27 January at Kings Place sees a performance of a different kind. The use of folk music in film and documentaries today is widely used and even more so in adverts, but this is nothing new: Look back through time and you can find a rich history of folk music being used in British film. This special show will combine footage from feature films and documentaries combined with a live performance from The Memory Band and Lisa Knapp performing updated version of traditional pieces used in films. These will include the ‘Willow’s Song’ from The Wicker Man, Bushes & Briars, Bold Grenadier and a beautiful song from a film called The Innocents (Based upon the novel “The Turn Of The Screw” by Henry James).
Since the beginnings of the Volkmusic movement in 19th Century Germany folk music has been fundamentally linked with notions of national identity and this performance aims to celebrate, question and explore how those notion of folk and national identity have been portrayed using motion pictures.
In a decade which has seen a wide ranging and fruitful revival of interest in folk music, Stephen Cracknell’s The Memory Band has established itself in that fine English tradition of slightly schizophrenic projects pointing in several directions at once which manage to find their place in the ever exciting independent music scene, popping up at several influential moments and though the marvels of technology finding audiences all around the World.
The Memory Band performing Gently Johnny:
The Memory Band – Search
The Memory Band – Fireleap
On Folk Radio UK:
Stephen Cracknell on: Folk on Film