Performance: Field System presents May Day Revels – Film and Folk
Friday May 1st, 19:30, Ashburton Arts Centre
Field System presents an evening of May Day revels, beginning with a film presentation by Stone Club and culminating in the raw, dark folk of Craven.
Stone Club’s short film is a fantastical exploration of the Cornish landscape, myth and magic, featuring the ancient sites of Penwith. The film is accompanied by ambient and experimental electronic music by Matthew Shaw, weaving place, folklore and sound into a dreamlike ritual of image and noise.
Craven are a part-English, part-Welsh dark folk trio based in the South West. Their music is at once grinding and symphonic, delicate and ethereal — a beautiful Frankenstein’s Monster of British folk. Their songs move through transness, queerness, yearning and bitterness, erupting into white-hot rage against injustice.
Craven are Will Bremner (accordions), Elian Moisey (double bass, viol) and Rhiannon Takel (violin, mandola). Using stomp boxes, a foot-keyed harmonium and a pedal-operated drum, they create a maximal sound with minimal musicians. This live, raw approach to folk is central to their visceral storytelling, and it’s just a hair’s breadth from carnage!
Images: supplied by Craven, Stone Club