Gaggle - The Brilliant & The Dark Live At The ICA

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4...according to our Clinton on Thu 28 Apr, 2011.

Gaggle are a 30 strong feminist choir so I have been terrified into liking this record. There are 30 of them and only one of me with just the two balls between me so its an unfair contest really. Luckily, although an acquired taste, this is a rather impressive outing. What we have is a performance recorded live at the ICA of a choral work for women's voices first performed by 1000 (!) people in 1969. As you can imagine its a mammoth sounding thing from the outset. Huge thumping drums, clanking percussion with chanted vocals veering off into an almost hip-hop inspired section with added drum and bass drums for good measure...... and that's just the first minute and a half. It's a lengthy complex piece which seems to veer off into a different mood/ style at whim. I'm sure there are other more apt comparisons but initial impressions are kind of like a ballsy all female Polyphonic Spree tackling the Tom Tom Club back catalogue in full on rock opera style. Later we get spoken word interludes, school choir like chant-alongs and on the flipside we get sample elements of the performance for you at home to remix if you like. All in a gatefold sleeve with colour insert.

The Brilliant and the Dark is a limited edition 300 copy 12” released by Transgressive on Record Store Day documenting a live performance at the ICA on 2nd Dec 2010 in which Gaggle were invited by artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White tore-interpret a 1969 cantata for women's voices.

The radically remixed cantata uses elements from “The Brilliant and the Dark”, a work for women’s voices composed by Malcolm Williamson and Ursula Vaughan Williams, and first performed by 1,000 women
volunteers at the Royal Albert Hall.

The libretto approaches history from the Middle Ages to WWII through the eyes of women, via characters including witch-hunters, embroiderers, crusaders’ wives, plague stricken women, mourners and war workers, transposed into a modern light by Gaggle who reference
2011 issues such as militarized rape in the DRC or "honor" killings in
the UK.

The Brilliant and the Dark is released under a copyleft license – generating a new resource available for the future reflected by the B-side of the 12” containing samples from the performance for future artists to manipulate as they see fit.

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