05/10/23
In March, we started writing for our next theatre project of the year: Protest by Hannah Lavery. The project was co-commissioned and co-produced by Fuel, Imaginate and Northern Stage – in association with NTS – and was part of this year’s Edinburgh International Children’s Festival.
The piece instantly appealed to us – it’s a story about the strength of little girls without feeling, looking, or sounding ‘girly’. We wanted to make music that could excite and inspire a young audience and, with it being a really physical piece, we were drawn to the beats of Sylvan Esso, Little Simz and Self Esteem’s debut album.
We built the opening track from three programmed percussive ideas – representing each of the girls – that were reprised individually throughout the piece. While we were keen to keep the track minimal, we wanted to integrate the voices of the girls and women in our lives. So a few WhatsApp voice notes later… we had Here Is A Girl.
We challenged ourselves to encapsulate the energy of each girl’s individual story using a hybrid drum sound and layered vocals without lyrics (Alice, Jade, Chloe). The majority of this project was recorded on our Maschine MK3 so it was a great opportunity for us to explore new libraries of sounds, work against the idea of having a lead melody and adding finer detail to the drum parts, bass lines and vocal licks. This approach allowed us to merge the tracks and represent the three girls’ individual journeys as well as one shared story.
It was great to hear these tracks through the subs at Northen Stage – (and it’s always a bonus when you have a team that asks you to turn up even louder during tech!)
You can listen to the full Protest album here ☺
Lauren & Audrey x
