Milkweed (in the round)

What do we know of Milkweed? Enough, and nearly nothing. They are a duo. They use voice, guitar and banjo. They describe their sound as slacker-trad, which is both true and somehow insufficient. They perform as part of our in-the-round spatial series this October.

For three years Milkweed have refined a formula – taking existing source material (a folklore journal, a book on Welsh myths, another on bronze age human remains), cutting up the words and feeding them through a woodchipper of lo-fi production and experimental folk music. This time, however, they decided to push themselves further – to use all 400 pages of Thomas Kinsella’s masterfully stark translation of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, rather than manipulated snippets.

After it took an entire year just to process 20 pages, the band found themselves humbled. “It made us appreciate oral traditions in a completely different way, the intensity with which you had to engage with the work to feel like you could understand and transmit it.”

With Milkweed having applied energy befitting a 400-page epic to just the fragments of the Remscéla, the record bristles with more lifeforce than anything the band have yet produced. The band have raised the bar when it comes to their production, the blend of manipulated vocals, eerie beats and potent instrumental scraps twisting around each other like a thick, potent smoke.

Presented by Institute of Contemporary Arts & Broadside Hacks.

This is an 18+ event