In The Loom of Mind, Icelandic folk singer Mugison, his bosom friend Pétur Ben, and Flemish baroque ensemble B.O.X. join forces. What does that sound like: melancholic Icelandic blues with 17th-century instruments? Like a stand-up storytelling concert performance? Or like a drunken panda who wants to have a game?
How did you find each other?
Pieter Theuns, lutenist and founder of B.O.X.: "I first saw Mugison live ten years ago. I have all his records and am lifelong fan. Two years ago, he played in Brussels as support act for another artist. He was great, but the main act was disappointing so after two songs I took my leave. Afterwards, I stepped into a random bar and there he was drinking a beer. I spoke to him."
Mugison: "There is a strange sickness among artists. They go to the bar, start talking to each other, like each other, get drunk, and by about twelve o'clock they have vowed to each other that they will ab-so-lutely one day work together to create a masterpiece. I have had a thousand or so such conversations in the past 15 years. Usually, it turns out to be nothing. That meeting with Pieter is one of the few times it did work out. I didn't expect that. The morning after I thought: nice guy. We'll see. But he kept in touch: 'Mugi, we have to do this! I was converted. Pieter has such a cool, energetic spirit. Some people have an extra-large tank of petrol to get things done. He gave the whole project the breath of life. It's his baby, but with our music. Ever since day one."
Theuns: "I was still working on We Us You All, and at a meeting with the artistic director of de Singel, I dropped that I wanted to do something with Mugison one day. At the time, I had just received an e-mail that he was keen on the collaboration. You can't control things like that. We found out than one of my favourite tracks on his CD, Salt, was co-composed by Pétur Ben. It has a beautiful classical arrangement that flies in all directions. Then Mugi suggested asking Pétur to join it - the two are childhood friends. Half a year ago, the arrangements were broadly finished and I flew to Reijkjavik to work them out further."
Who came up with that philosophical title?
Mugison: "While surfing YouTube, I came across a video of an old woman behind a loom. I sat and watched it breathlessly, going from clip to clip. Such a loom really is a magical, hypnotic invention. The rhythm, the colours - wonderful that the human mind could come up with such a complex thing. The title suddenly came to mind in a later conversation with Pieter. It is broad enough to encompass everything, but also ambiguous. Pieter and his brother also very quickly envisioned what the stage design should look like, with the Loominon, a scenic installation (designed by Jeroen Theuns) that serves as a collectively playable musical instrument. A loom that we can all relate to. In our lives, we have so many emotions, instincts, ideas. They are thousands of threads that come together and get tangled."
Theuns: "The Loom of Mind - the loom of mind - is a very captivating title. Looming means 'looming menacingly out of the fog', and combined with 'of mind' you immediately get a very flipped metaphor. The mysterious, looming aspect of mind. We've talked a lot about it, and actually, in a loose-fitting way, the music also deals with that theme. We try to weave some poignant personal anecdotes with that. The thing is, of course, that our minds are simultaneously all kinds of things. Very beautiful and creative, but at the same time also very fragile and elusive. That metaphor of a loom with all those threads is a beautiful image, because those threads can also get tangled or break. Life is wonderfully complex."
Is it theatre or music?
Theuns: "BOX's previous production - You Us We All with Shara Worden - started with a light-theatrical dimension that grew into a kind of opera. Actually, with this production, we wanted to dive a little more into that theatrical dimension. That said, it's still a bunch of musicians on a stage giving a performance. We're not going to act or anything. There are no characters or stories. How to imagine it? I tried to describe it once at the set-up as a stand-up storytelling concert performance. There's a bit of everything in it. It's not an overarching story, but for each song we do make time to tell a story."
'Monkey Music' is what Mugison calls his musical creations. What kind of animal is The Loom of Mind?
Mugison: "I think it is related to the monkey. Or no, it's in the bear family. A panda? It's soft, beautiful and cuddly. But it can also be a mean bitch that wants to eat the audience as well as the musicians. It is a beautiful animal, I think, a bit melancholic. So: a drunken panda that wants to have a fight?"
How does that sound?
Mugison: "We are playing songs that have not yet been released, which have been given totally new arrangements. By the way, this is the first time I've worked with classically trained musicians who don't have to read from paper. A breath of fresh air. The timbre of their instruments is also fantastic. A viola da gamba like this looks like a mutation. You recognise different instruments in it, but it is much older than the guitar or the cello. And such a strange flute, a kind of shoehorn. We have a very strange palette of atypical sounds. That feeling is woven into the performance. But also Chinese scales and passages of contemporary cluster musicscheisse pass by. It is very modern, but also bluesy and baroque. With a twist."
Theuns: "Our musical dna, the timbre of our instruments, is of course very much baroque. We are knee-deep in that tradition, and we are also trained in it. But you have to be able to move beyond that. Yes, I am a specialist in baroque music, but I grew up with Jimi Hendrix just as much. In musical dialogue with others, those baroque roots still resurface. What we do is not fusion or crossover, because we make new music. We let our influences play along subconsciously. At the same time, we are in the here-and-now, in improvisation and dialogue. That's how you arrive at a result that is quite new. The first few performances were very well received. It's already sitting well, now this music can only become more lived through, and delve into the soul of musicians."
Mugison: "Above all, The Loom of Mind is imbued with a sense of loneliness and morbid humour. We focus on the fragile side of the human spirit. Therein also lies the beauty, a recognisable sense of human compassion. Life's tough, and we're all just trying to sing our way through it."
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