‘The Island Tapes’ Screening

I was really quite inspired by this arrangement of silent black and white films of the Western Isles from the early 20th century put to live music. The music itself was very impressive, with Alyth McCormack’s haunting Gaelic singing combining with very Celtic guitar playing and David Allison’s epic live looping, and the films themselves were fascinating, a real window into the past and an obvious contributor to the art we have today, but when the two elements were put together the effect was quite mesmerising. These films stood up as a performer alongside the live musicians to deliver a well-rounded programme that took us through a range of emotions. This was definitely worth going to see and I’m sure there are a few film premises in amongst this dramatic and emotive material just waiting to be discovered...