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screemagazine · 4 years

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Nick Samsworth Retrospective & part II - After Shackleton

I had been anticipating this exhibition eagerly since seeing the invitation. Nick Samsworth’s Instagram page offered tantalising glimpses of the large scale paintings he has been producing since the mid 1970s when he was at Exeter art college. Some of these early pieces here sit comfortably among recent work, catagorised as it is both chronologically, and thematically also, and including recent work in the third and final room named ‘After Shackleton’, a purposeful ambiguity around the word ‘after’ and it’s myriad meanings, Nick explained towards the end of the day to the remaining set of people.

We arrived at the studio that for the last year Nick Samsworth had been using. (Prior to that it had been rented by his son Dominic and friend Will Pitt who had been using it for their own large scale work; Dominic is keeping art in the family, but has his own ways and means of creating unique and memorable work. I recall seeing some of his billboard pieces at the now retired Downstairs gallery in Madley - what a place it was - some years back now...) Will makes artwork of an architectural nature.

Nick Samsworth is known to many locally for the years he has spent teaching art to students at Hereford Sixth Form college and has a reputation for inspiring and getting the best out of students. He is known to many more for his own artistic endeavours, as witnessed here, as we walked through the gallery, a little early as Nick was still sweeping the floor rather self-consciously as I gently grilled him about his paintings.

Nick began weaving togethern handmade looms in the 1970s and inserting found objects in the warp and weft, a practice to which he acknowledged a debt to outsider art, and also art povera. The cheap materials were used then out of necessity. Then became interested in knitting patterns, which he admired for their form more than their function, as well as the connection to beloved Norway via the traditional Scandinavian jumpers. The repititious nature of these templates was part of the appeal as well as the rhythm of them. And Nick has been knitting and weaving ever since, in the sense that his own narrative is woven through his output. There is a degree of self-mythologisation rooted firmly in place, specifically Herne Bay, where Shackleton set off from (though it was just Herne then, the bay wasn’t there yet).

The sea has been a constant in Nick’s early life, just as painting has been a constant throughout his life. He seems to like having something to hang on to, like any of us I suppose, and in one of his paintings in room 2 describes 90 degrees due south as the paridoxical epitome of knowing where you are, when every direction leads north.

In room 3 (After Shackleton) among the beautiful rhytmic paintings is a more conventional and literal anchor, a hefty piece of carved stone on a rope based on one he saw in Athens. Nick has also built a symbolic boat, a lashed together skeleton that sails among the paintings, the vessel for his voyage, and may that be a long and bounteous one.

Chatting with Dominic and Matty by the firepit at the exit we waited for beef from Jamie’s Farm where Matty volunteers with teens who have been expelled from school, giving them a focus and sense of purpose in honest work. The beef was definitely worth the wait; we really had come early, just as doors were opening really, but I was glad of the chance to get to speak to Nick properly about his career and work, as well as catch up with Dominic and others. There was plenty more beef for the barbecue as we got the first cuts in some artisan bread with secret recipe chimmichurri sauce, a flavour that stays with you in the best sense. And the art will stay with me, not just the lovely imagery, full of movement and grace, but the feeling, like looking out to sea and being aware of our smallness while at the same time feeling we are a part of everything else, or was that just the suggestion of psychosomatic seasickness? Either way, a good afternoon was had, and I’ve written this in time that perhaps you will be inspired to get down there and see the work, as it looks to be hotting up for a vibrant and fun evening. There were people I hoped to see but had missed. Maybe I’ll pop back later....

Follow Nick Samsworth on Instagram: @nick_samsworth

EDIT: I did pop back for another look at the tall seascape, which appears hyperreal despite an economy of markmaking and relatively broad brushstrokes, and caught up with a couple of old faces while I was there. I was awarded a fried egg sandwich.

#fine art #abstraction #hereford #exhibition #nick samsworth

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screemagazine · 4 years

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New sushi restaraunt in Hereford - now with added Korean delicacies!

When I heard through the digital grapevine a new sushi joint had opened on Widemarsh street (number 64 - the out of town side - near Nilam music shop, another excellent local business) I was eager to try it. Screemate Johnny and I had talked of the need for a sushi place in the ‘ford for a few years to the point of contemplating getting a business plan and some sharp knives. I would have left the preparation to him (I would say cooking but sushi is raw materials arranged beautifully and doesn’t see a pan) but my arrangements would be somewhat abstract and may have lacked refinement. Unlike EN Sushi which was the epitome of refinement. We were welcomed at the door with five minutes to spare before close. It was a lock in situation. The owner is running the business herself, doing everything, and was thoroughly pleasant. The decor was minimal and inoffensive with a few pictures up and tricoleure (or union if you prefer) electrical cable on the wires by the window where we sat, watching the traffic and passers by through the condensation on the window. The menus were printed on brown card stock and nicely designed. (But what’s on the menu I hear you ask) Well here it comes.

I was ready for sushi, you know maki rolls, sashimi, that kind of thing. Of course that was there. But there were a few Korean specialities as well. Korean food, in Hereford! I had to order the Bimbimbap which for those of you who haven’t tried it is a dish with rice and egg and veg usually served in a piping hot stone bowl and they crack the egg in and it cooks in front of you. Here it was served in a plate, which is probably sensible; I had always considered the stone bowls a bit of a health hazard. The dish worked in the modern framing. It had a contemporary twist with the way the vegetables were prepared. Less rustic, somewhere towards haute but still accessible. Bimbimbap is a humble dish, and the restraint in preparation honoured that simplicity while adding a sophisticated tweak to the traditional flavours. It was honestly delicious. I ordered a few sushi to boot and Johnny ordered teriaki sushi and a 500ml Asahi while I made do with the complimentary green tea and miso (we were trying to discuss the flavour which beyond umami is hard to distinguish a la wine tasting. Notes of honey perhaps? Broth? You’ll have to try it if you haven’t. It’s better than the one at wagamama, in fact I’d rather not go there again while this place is open, and sit in farmed rows jostling with strangers. This place has tables for the party you’re with which is really better). When Johnny ordered the teriaki sushi the owner seemed excited and it is listed on the EN SUSHI HEREFORD facebook page as a favourite dish. Johnny was very happily munching through the teriaki one delicate morsel at a time and was happy to hear the crispy addition on top was crispy shallots. I scoffed my sushi (avocado, tuna, and salmon, in that order) and let Johnny try a california roll because in the Korean spirit I had over ordered. He had to finish off my Bimbimbap which by now had cooled but he agreed was delectable (not his words, paraphrasing). All in all an excellent lunch with friendly service for a reasonable price considering the love and care that had gone into preparing the excellent ingredients. Go check it out for yourselves!

#hereford #restaurant #sushi #korean cuisine #japanese cuisine #scree

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screemagazine · 5 years

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Climate Emergency Declared Amidst Protest by Omar Majeed. Coming down the street there was a roar echoing through high town. As I got closer to the neoclassical grandeur of the shire hall the calls distilled into clear words. « What do we want? » « change! » « when do we want it? » « now! »

the crowd is mostly sixth form students and there’s a real energy of defiance and strength - they are in opposition paddling against the rising tides of apathy manifest in the scowling old geezers telepathically sending out signals saying « not my problem » but what of that adage about planting trees for others to sit in their shade?

Using my journalistic patter I gathered that the event had been organised between the sixth form and the art college, and more of the older contingency were represented on the early shift at eight when I was still in bed. I spoke to Rick, an older wizard in a literal pointy hat who pinned a green badge on me with the hourglass graphic while his mate talked about the problems of agriculture and Rick elaborated about fossil fuels and how Exxon had suppressed sustainable energy sources in the eighties. Profit over people was their sound bite critique.

Meanwhile a group held placards saying honk your horn for the planet. 1 in 4 people honked in support, including an ambulance. Some protesters went inside to sit in the discussions about whether a climate emergency should be announced. We went off to the cafe ready to come back at twelve and hear the results and I ended up getting in a row with Johnny about whether it’s worth trying to change people’s minds about anything or if people are just rigid and deaf to new ideas. He convinced me that people can change but only if they’re open to new ideas.

When I asked Rick if it’s too late for diverting the climate catastrophe he said absolutely not. We know what we have to do and we just have to start convincing the powers that be to legislate for the health of our future of the planet. Johnny and I went for a wander and passed the time in the market getting veg for lunch and in Oxfam books. We headed back to the shire hall twenty minutes before the announcement.

I spoke to a lady called Patricia in a Wye Ruin It? T-shirt, asking which councillor was speaking. She spotted my ‘I love Walsall’ badge and asked if I knew Phil someone, and we got talking. She said there’s £8 million pounds of funding waiting to create decent cycle paths and bus services that’s being unused. She said if this motion for recognising a climate emergency goes through then action is required not just words. Meanwhile some of the politicians were talking sense, supporting acknowledgement of the climate problem. Many if not all of the speakers we heard through the loudspeaker on the windy front steps of the shire hall agreed with the motion and Anthony powers asked for a named vote so that individual councillors said if they were for or against.

The councillors started resounding « for » after their names; an avalanche of affirmation that the time has come for action on climate. There was hushed excitement as one councillor after another voted for the motion, ending with cheering and smiles of jubilation this cold day. A young man on the mégaphone said « over these past few weeks we are making history. Who cares about Brexit or the communist revolution, we are saving the planet. As a young person i want to say this will be our planet. Thank you for coming, thank you for caring. »

#climate #climate change #environment #climate emergency #hereford #protest #politics #news

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screemagazine · 7 years

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The Saddest Joy

On the release of Viktor’s Joy “I used to be clean”, a few words about the album, and a few more words with guitarist and songwriter Kaarel Malken… Having been tipped off by a musician friend from Herefordshire, I went to see Viktor’s Joy play in a pop up bar in some nondescript corner of Berlin when I was there last year. The walls were scoured and mottled with patches of paint over bare plaster, the lighting dim. Viktor’s Joy are led by Kaarel Malken (guitar, vocals). He played fingerpicked guitar with a gentle but technical drummer (Jim Good) on a stripped down kit. As we waited for them to come on music from Leonard Cohen’s first album set up the ambience, an obvious precedent. I think it is probably lazy journalism to write soundbites like “Viktor’s Joy are Estonia’s answer to Leonard Cohen”, but the restraint of the music and depth of the lyrics encourage such behaviour. Another comparison is Elliott Smith, particularly evident on the poetic and wearily lilting Parade Song #2, which even the title appears to be a conscious nod to the dear, departed American singer, sounding reminiscent of something off Either/or. The gig was beautiful, and swept us away. At the end of the gig I spoke to Kaarel about his music, and he was kind enough to give me a pre-release of the album in a handmade cover for review in SCree. I looked forward to playing it at home, and have played it sporadically since. The album is out now, and I recommend you hear it, particularly if you are keen on melancholy folky singer songwriter stuff as I am. Some music you hear seems to pose with miserable depth as a kind of sad expression forced to convince of profundity. This music speaks of genuine experience, and seems to talk of growing up in Estonia and life experiences that transcend the specifics of their birth. All the Promises Ever Made talk of the perils of addiction and how easily we fall into smoking, drinking, drugging. There is a nostalgia to it as well as regret. The refrain “never again” speaks of our brief determination to avoid destructive behaviour that is so easily forgotten. The music sits in a rolling groove that has something of the Velvet Underground in the swooping electric guitar part. There is variety on this record as well as coherence, in the instrumentation as in the arrangements. The following track The Taste I remember, She Became a Ghost, is woven through with fast picking and tells a story effectively and evocatively. It is haunting, ethereal and worn with a weary strength. The guitar playing is almost Spanish classical style, particularly in the interludes. He makes use of repetition to effectively show the tide of passing time. Even more Spanish is the virtuosic opening lick to Lake Ontario, which is a short flourish before the cyclical picking comes in. Again, there is an anecdotal narrative to it which is poetic and evocative. Characters are introduced alongside the places they live. Glacial vocals echo between verses. The production is reverb-heavy and deep. It sounds like it was recorded in an empty building. The closing track Sisters ends on a slightly different note. There is a warmth in the recording that offsets the wistfulness. Like the bittersweet end to an eventful journey.

A few questions: When did you first pick up the guitar? Growing up in a small town, surrounded by nothing but Soviet block houses, derelict playgrounds and seemingly endless fields of peat, there were really not that many options. Either you take to kicking around a ball or you take to kicking around other kids, most seemed to prefer the latter. Luckily my sisters, being ten years older than me, saw the last of MTV and VH1 . By the time I got there the funeral procession was over and the burial was about to end - the music industry, wearing shorts, was filming the open grave for a new reality TV show. I was the social experiment, the kid brother, the one who had to wear "Guns n’ Roses" T-shirts and grow his hair long - during a time of shaved heads and garbage disco music. In the late nineties my father got offered a job, in Moscow, as a warehouse keeper. A few times a year he’d return with a trunk full of shovels, power drills, hammers, saws and other tools he had managed to steal from the warehouse. Everything spray painted red to fool the Russian customs into believing they were used. There had been a snowstorm the night before my dad arrived. An endless carpet of pure white. I was leaning over the sill, looking out from the kitchen window. My eyes were watery from the cold, but my excitement got the best of me. He parked his Lada and from the backseat he would lift out a large cardboard box, with the words “Dolby Surround” printed on its side. Little did I know that the content of that very box would affect my day to day existence to an almost unhealthy degree. During the following years our collection of pirated cassette tapes and compact discs grew with albums from Nirvana, Offspring, Dire Straits, Korn, Kino etc. Anything the shopkeeper in Moscow could copy on a CD-R and send to my sisters. Perhaps it was the sub-woofer that ignited my obsession to become a drummer, perhaps not, but by the time I turned ten I had begun taking lessons in the local music school. My teacher was a middle aged marching band percussionist with a serious boozing problem. The four years under his tyranny taught me more about the side effects of binge drinking rather than drums. “For Christ sake boy, you keep missing the f*ing beat train!” : something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I called it quits after failing to perform to a handful of Sunday afternoon pensioners, my mother and my teacher, in the city hall. Years later, on my way to university, I walked past a plate glass window of a small music shop. The sign said : “20% off all instruments!!!” in big bright letters. With the little I had saved, working night shifts as a receptionist in a hotel, and with the help of my parents, I scraped together enough to buy a blue XS plywood guitar. I composed my first song three days later. A two chord, short lived disaster. Last time I saw the guitar, hung by its neck, behind a plate glass window of a pawn shop - once more, discounted. What have you been doing up until now? Do you have any other interests beyond music? I’ve worked as a dishwasher, pastry chef, phone agent, engineer, as an extra in low budget German TV-movies. In other words, you name it - I’ve done it. Right now I’m sitting in a cafeteria a few blocks down the street from my house. I’ve been coming here for years to read and write. The bohemian life…. you know. These days the place is full of prams and crying toddlers. One of them is drooling on my pants sleeve, as we speak. I find this drone of life calming. How did you find recording the album? Although the process started off in a proper studio, under the guidance of a fantastic sound engineer, Martin Fiedler, I decided to continue by myself in the comfort of my bedroom - for the larger part. I suppose I felt intimidated by the expensive Neumann’s and the professional approach, deeming myself unworthy. In the long run, the positives outweighed the negatives and I learned how to use the equipment I had bought or borrowed from my friends ( mainly from my good buddy and band member Jim Good), during the years I’ve lived in Berlin. I guess the hardest part was recording the drums. I used an old Russian Oktava that Jim brought back from Estonia a few summers ago - the only one that seemed to yield results. Jim is a subtle player , not a 4/4 rock drummer, and getting the sound I was looking for wasn’t as easy as I expected. It all worked out thanks to Jim’s infinite patience. Along the way Michael Brinkworth came to my aid with his beautiful 70’s Fender (I’m sorry if it wasn’t a Fender, Michael) and his ideas. Always a few hours late and out of breath - always passionate. He’s the most prolific songwriter I know and his input was more than welcomed. Some of my guitar tracks and vocal takes were done in a rehearsal room that used to belong to Nina Hagen (something the locals seemed to take a lot of pride in). A damp basement full of old carpets and stale air. I spent a few weeks locked behind that massive metal door singing the same lines, over and over again. It was the following Autumn when I met Mauno Meesit from Grainy Records. He was in the midst of recording his own album and was in need of a classical guitar. Our mutual friend, who knew I had one, got him to come to one of my shows. We barely spoke after the gig but in a couple of days I received an E-mail and from there on we got to speaking. Turned out he liked the show and was enthusiastic about the album I had been recording. Soon enough he proposed me to join his label and I accepted without hesitation. I saw how serious he was about his own music and my mind was made up even before he asked. I’m not the easiest person to work with but Mauno’s, Buddha like, calmness bridged our way. The result is on my table, boxes full of it. Who could have imagined… What was the inspiration for the songs? I consider “I used to be clean” a concept album. A retroperspective glimpse into my childhood and how it was to grow up in the East during a time of despair and poverty as well as unity and love. I’m sure these themes will carry on into the future of my lyrics. Inspiration is an entity. Some sort of an astral being that enters and exits one’s body whenever and wherever. During these times I’m nothing but a medium in a state of unconscious effortlessness. Many of my songs are not born out of inspiration. These are the ones I’m never fully satisfied with, the conscious ones, the ones I labor over. The beauty of these songs lies in their ability to grow and change as I do. I’m learning how to work without inspiration yet remain open to it - it’s not that easy. How do you go about writing? My day kick-starts in the afternoon after a few cups of coffee. I try to write something in my diary every day. Sometimes it’s a poem or a short story, but mostly it amounts to nothing more but everyday uneventfulness. It takes me weeks, months, at times even years, to finish a song. Lately I feel as If I’m in dire need of a break. Someplace quiet, outside this metropolitan cesspool. Someplace small where people go to sleep when the sun sets. Someplace where people talk about ordinary things, sit by a card table, eat canned sausages and drink clear spirits. Any place considered “culturally inactive” according to metropolitan standards. Where can we hear it? www.bandcamp.com/viktorsjoy or www.grainyrecords.com Where can we hear you play? The album release show, in Berlin, will take place in Neue Nachbarn on the 5th of April. https://www.facebook.com/events/1879058472306213/1879252808953446/?notif_t=like&notif_id=1490094469947888 What are your plans for the future? Organize a couple of shows in Estonia and focus on writing and recording new tracks.

#music #folk #singer-songwriter #viktor's joy #album review #interview #kaarel malken #I used to be clean #new album #Berlin #Estonia

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