Pod Inspiration: Playlist

From 30 Nov – 1 Dec Guildhall School presents Pod: a brand-new work created and directed by Jamie Bradley and Vicki Igbokwe (the team behind 2019’s Provok’d: A Restoration), and devised with the Company of Guildhall actors.

The bold piece of dance-infused theatre – live streamed for free – celebrates club culture and House music, merging it with the world of orcas to explore themes of family, culture, heritage, belonging and relationships.

Here, composer Kweku Aacht explains this specially curated playlist.

"Vicki and I have worked together on productions since 2013. Usually, in rehearsal and devising, she uses produced tracks, and then she'll choose the ones that really start to make her create, and send those to me. With this production the musical references went a bit deeper when I discovered Vicki would be co-directing with Jamie Bradley, who I know from the late 90s. We had a shared party/art life/night life history, and he suggested we put this list together. The first set of songs on this playlist are actually Jamie's: beginning with house classics from way back into the mid/early 90s.

The opening track on the playlist is by Björk, There's More To Life Than This, and that is to do with sound design. It's recorded in the Milk Bar, which was a popular club back then, and plays with the sound when she closes the door to the loos and it sounds like it's filtered from outside the door. The Pod creative team knew that they would have a bathroom scene, so they wanted us to recreate that kind of acoustic.

Then it flows into classics by artists like Danny Tenaglia, Armand Van Helden and Frankie Knuckles – all people that we used to party to back in the day – and some contemporary tracks like Disclosure. There’s a part in Pod where things start to go a bit awry. Jamie had the idea that the music would feed that and it would be a bit chaotic, so he sent me this Disclosure track My High as a reference point. That’s how it works; getting the feel that fits with the scene and then using that as a foundation. It’s the energy that I use as a reference to create the sounds.

The next section of the list was compiled by Vicki. There’s a scene in the second act that I think is one of the highlights of the show, but it's not set to house music – Vicki was playing things like Slave’s Just A Touch Of Love and Earth Wind & Fire Boogie Nights; so her section of the playlist continues with more disco classics, many of which have huge productions. I thought “Well, we are at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, let's see if it’s possible to work with any of the music students here”. Pod’s Sound Designer and Guildhall student Sam Levy put a call out, and we got some great musicians.

To get the musicians into the space I put together two playlists – one for singer songwriter Nikisha Reyes and one for the instrumentalists.

The section I compiled for the musicians ranges from funk and jazz fusion and R&B to progressive rock – we went to town on it. We’ve got Abbie James (violin), Rory Hudson (bass guitar), Ralph Porret (electric guitar), and Sam Levy on drums, so a couple of the tracks turned out to be quite dramatic. The musicians were really cool and open. For example, I asked Sam to play Patrice Rushen’s Forget Me Nots, (a big eighties classic with a real nice slap base) to Rory to get him in that space, he did a great job.

Then with Nikisha Reyes on vocals (who was a joy to work with) I pulled out some Rosie Gaines, I pulled out some Whitney, I pulled out some En Vogue… there were all kind of different icons of voice in there as reference points. I really enjoyed the way the students took on the opportunity, they were really up for it and it was a nice process and a good exchange.

In the research, what was interesting was looking at the overlaps and the disconnects between the different scenes. The music ends up going all the way through progressive rock, disco, house, techno, funk, and soul. You look through history at things like the anti-disco movement, and moments where hip-hop and house come through as different kinds of subcultures, but now, looking back, we can all see that was great music in all those different areas. I enjoyed that contextualising, seeing what happens to people when things change, how people become uncomfortable and fearful. I even got to record elements of the soundtrack in Ghana with traditional African Musicians Dela Botri and Worlali Konu to add authenticity to the Afro House elements of the soundtrack, particularly the show finale.

It's been a blessing to see a lot of people connect to the music, and I think it's a lot to do with the times. People are craving that clubbing space, to hear music at that volume that has that energy behind it, which is about unity, togetherness, acceptance, uniting people from everywhere. When you get into this space with this music, let’s party!"
 

Pod will be livestreamed via Guildhall School's website on Monday 30 November (7.30pm), Tuesday 1 December (2pm & 7.30pm) and Wednesday 2 December (7.30pm).