Key External Influences on my Practice

Over the years, my interest has shifted between a variety of different artistic disciplines, styles of music and ways of expressing these. I cant explain for sure the catalyst for losing interest in one subject and gaining interest in another so quickly, but a benefit of this was exposure to a vast array of different styles of art, music and writing; some of which have had a profound effect on my practice.

In this post I want to discuss some of my most dominant influences over my practice and also explain the extent to which these figures / ideals have impacted not only my creative practices but also the way in which i live my life.

I’d argue that one of my biggest influences over the past year is the work of artists such as Blackhaine, Richie Culver, Florence Sinclair. In my head, these artists all share the same values and approach to music and art by choosing not to dwell on creating art based around nostalgia, but choosing to reframe their experiences and therefore memory into new contexts, whilst maintaining their strong roots in origin and place.

Thie Blackhaine piece was formative in influencing my practice, the sonic manipulation of his raw vocal/lyrical performance struck a chord with me; i really liked how the effects reflected the industrial bleakness of his work. With Blackhaine, everything links back to place, particularly the North, and everything feels so intensely considered. The use of text-to-speech voice contrasting with soft drones is both brutally raw and intimate but also a great sonic interpretation of a dull, prolonged, numb pain.

Richie Culver’s website was also a great source of inspiration throughout the years. His works, either visual or sonic, also evoked this bleakness and sense of place as Blackhaine’s work.

In a spoken word piece, performed at The Haggerston in London for Adult Entertainment, Culver, deadpan, describes how there is a ‘fine line between jealousy and hatred’ which himself, or the character ‘snorted with a blood-stained five pound note’, a harsh symbolism of the struggles of being creative.