The idea of these songs is a rag-tag bunch of settlers in 1820 or thereabouts, corralling their carts for the night and singing songs. A few have guitars, a consumptive child plays violin, and someone else has an early version of garageband. They are sitting around the fire, ever more drunk and maudlin. The next day they're butchered to a man, by Apaches or some stray pack of soldiers on the escape from a Cormac McCarthy book. 

The grand plan is for other people to sing and play on these songs, to stealthily build some of them up to full orchestra and choir. Some songs seem to work recorded drunkenly with one guitar, whereas others seem to ache for sweeping strings and four part harmonies, like Gustav Mahler with a cowboy hat on.

Louise Riley, Veronica Thompson, Rasp Thorne and Shimrit Elisar have been the first to come wandering in barefoot and wild-eyed out of the vast imaginary emptiness and stand close to the fire for a couple of songs apiece. There is also some beautiful fiddle on a few tracks, played by Sophie Loyer. Nicola Cunningham sang and played glockenspiel at a recent live show. Sarah Gill has played most impressive cello on some of the songs.

Photo by Karla Da Silva

Insect Trainers are a gamelan-inflected dream folk duo based in London, UK.

Insect Trainers is a duo formed of two composers, instrumentalists and song writers, Victoria Major and Nick Gray. We use two Balinese gendér wayang gamelan instruments along with guitar, violin, keyboards and vocals to create a web of urban dream folk with postminimalist, surrealist tendencies. With a name conjured from a phrase in a Chloe Aridjis novel, Insect Trainers invites you to worlds of magic animals, sonic vibrations and Swedenborgian correspondences.

Gendér wayang is the name given to a small group of bronze metallophones used in Bali to accompany shadow puppet plays and ceremonies.

Composes ballads and guitar pieces for performing. Aims to explore the continually surprising turbulence and sensitivities of being human; the melodrama and lightness. Attention sways between performance based improvisation and concise control of structure, so naturally songs (un)rest somewhere in-between. Overall, a basic set up, but a highly emotionally charged performer....

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