BLOG: MID YEAR SPECIAL 15 May 2010

Hello Bishi World

It was great to see you all, back in January, at my launch party at the Dalston Superstore. We had people from as local as Shoreditch to as far as Chile to celebrate the release of ‘One Nation Under CCTV.’

The party got some great coverage:

Check out Pippa Brooks’ Madame Says blog, which has recently made The Telegraph’s Top 20 Style Blogs

http://www.madamesays.com/

And Laura K Jones’ ‘London Dispatch,’ for Artnet, which is rumoured to have generated around a million hits!

http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/jones/vyner-street-destroy-all-monsters2-11-10.asp

Thanks to all of you who came in support!

The Triangle Media Group have developed a Global Achievement Award Scheme, for their Top 50 South Asian Achievers, over the past few years. I’m very honoured that I received A Global Achievement Award this year in Music.

http://www.trianglemediagroup.org/

To receive such an accolade means a lot to me as an Independent Musician running her own label. Many Thanks to all at the Triangle Media Group.

Other winners included some of my own Heroes such as the writer, Amartya Sen, Kingfisher Beer’s, Vijay Maliya & AR Rahman, famous for his soundtrack to Slumdog Millionaire. This year’s ceremony was dedicated to Human Rights with some amazing films shown by Nandita Das and Onir.

The Masonic Lodge in Holborn is one of my favourite buildings in London. In February, it staged The AW10 Menswear collection for my dear friend Stefan Orschel-Read. I composed the music & designed the soundtrack for the catwalk.

Unfortunately, I missed the show due to coming down with Tonsillitis. Fashion Week was truly transformed by the multitude of web updates & instant pictures, so I| never felt I missed a beat – or a look to be precise!

This photo above has to be my favourite piece from The Orschel – Read show! I tried it on in his PR office and resembled a turtle -it’s one of the few times I’ve ever wanted a man’s frame.

Ravi Shankar’s 90th birthday was in April and to celebrate, Radio 4 made a special documentary, which starred yours truly alongside, Nitin Sawhney, called ‘Sitar Hero.’ I got very passionate about Shankar’s seminal role in the story of 20thC music. I saw a link between Shankar’s teenage years in Paris as a dancer, to his innate understanding of the presentation of different art forms to a Western Audience. I hope to put snippets up of the interview on my website soon!

One of my favourite nightclubs at the moment is Divine Incest run by Dee Fodor of Oral Oral and Felicity Hayward.
http://www.myspace.com/divineincest

They’ve recently been taking over, Shoreditch Boozer, The George & Dragon for their guest hosted film nights. Previous guests have been Princess Julia, Mark Moore and Richard Mortimer of Boombox.

I hosted the evening with a showing of Jayne Mansfield’s, ‘The Girl Can’t Help It.’ For me; Jayne Mansfield is an all time sex icon. This film was one of Hollywood’s first Rock’n’Roll movies and featured guest appearances from Little Richard, Gene Vincent & Julie London. Watch the trailer here:

The Whitechapel Art Plus Music is a unique fundraising event inviting musicians to collaborate with Visual Artists. This year, the evening starred performances from Bat for Lashes, Primal Scream, SCUM & Jack Penate. The Show of mine opened the evening & was an interactive performance in collaboration with artist, Oscar Sol.

See his work on vimeo here: http://vimeo.com/groups/18557/videos/7907921

I wore a sensor suit that triggered all audio and visuals live. The Performance was an invocation to the Hindu Goddess Kali. The audio soundtrack featured a wall of noise made from samples of my voice while I triggered live analogue -synth filters. Think Hazel O’Connor’s ‘Eighth Day’ meets Laurie Andersen via a dose of Ray Harryhausen’s animation for the Sinbad movies. I loved every moment of it!

Thanks to Jamie Bull and Jessica Montonato for the pictures.

The Finalists for this year’s PRS Foundation Award for New Music 2010 have been finally announced on their website. Dubbed, ‘The Turner Prize of Music,’ the prize is a sum of £50k towards the making of a groundbreaking new piece of music.
http://www.prsformusicfoundation.com/newmusicaward/index.htm

I’ve been invited to be a judge alongside the likes Paul Morley, Martin Creed, Joanna McGregor and Charlotte Higgins & Michael Finnissy. I recently had the opportunity to talk to the lovely & {a glowingly pregnant} Lauren Laverne on BBC6 music, about the award.

I’m glad I did my homework because Lauren’s the sort of interviewer who knows EVERYTHING under the cultural sun. Damn, that girl is good. For more info on the finalists. Click here:

http://www.prsformusicfoundation.com/newmusicaward/2010shortlist.htm

And Finally:

Nina Butkovich – Budden & Issidora of Nina’s Vintage Hair Parlour opened Kuala Lumpur Fashion Week with a presentation of Avant-Garde Hair Couture. They used, the video of ‘One Nation,’ as the visuals for the presentation. Check out the video here:

Apparently the Queen of Malaysia was in the audience and she loved it. It’s those bunnies with their full body coverage catsuits isn’t it?

That’s all folks.
Until next time,
Bishi
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