WOMAD 1 - Secret Forest

After last year's miserable, overladen journey I hired a car to get Secondborn and me to WOMAD. We intended to camp in last year's ideal spot but mistook our tree clump and found ourselves closer to the arena where, surprisingly, there was loads of space. Well, why not? It was maybe a little close to Molly's Bar, which plays loud music till 4am, but we agreed we were just about far enough away so we pitched the big tent that having a car had allowed us to bring, pumped up our mattresses and went out to explore.

Firstborn was no longer at the place from which he'd sent the message we'd just received so we messaged back our plans and went to the Moon in a clearing in the Secret Forest for a conversation between Luke Jerram, the artist behind the Moon, and Jason Singh who wrote the electronic music to accompany it this year. He's a beatboxer/DJ/composer who uses the sounds of the natural world; for this 'soundscape' he recorded electrical signals coming from some of the nearby ash trees and converted them into an ethereal sound. Because of ash die-back, the recordings are all that is left of some of those trees. The music was compelling and he was an engaging speaker and we promised ourselves we'd come back at 10pm for his DJ set under an illuminated Moon. We knew Firstborn would love it and although our messages were leapfrogging time-zones we hoped that was enough notice.

Jason Singh was billed to do an ambient set and started with his gentle electronic music accompanied by the astonishing bird and animal sounds he can produce. Firstborn missed that part of the performance but joined us just as Singh started joining  his tracks with more conventional beatboxing (never thought I'd put those two words together!). The audience reaction was huge. He responded to the mood, upped the rhythm and soon everyone was up and dancing. Far too fast for night-time photos but in any case I was too busy dancing with my Borns to try.

Extras.