Biography
Two Swimmers.
There is something about the music of Nurse Predator which is difficult to grasp. It's sinuous and sophisticated, but is always slightly ahead of you. It goes where you don't expect it to. It's airy and light, yet rooted by a dubwise bass that will rattle your walls. It's not really like anything else.
So then, the perfect soundtrack to the images of Chris Hughes. A unique visionary with a draughtsman's eye and a sketchbook in hand. A mail art provocateur and hometown hero. A way of looking at the world that's not like yours.
One of the joys of the running the Subscription Library is having the freedom to TRY STUFF OUT. So when I heard Ade Hughes's cinematic productions and saw Chris Hughes's graphite reductions, the ludicrous idea to ask them to work together seemed spectacularly unludicrous.
And so work together they did.
Chris explains in his introduction, "It seemed nicely perverse to gather up the thrown to the wind drawings and wind them back into a linear composition whilst still knocking back a direct narrative. Working with Adrian I was able to adjust the content to swerve with the OST he was creating. He had all the images I was dropping into the book, so we were driving tandem from opposite sides of the country. I swear at times I could hear him and his process."
It's beautiful isn't it? Like a weird, magical jazz. Two unique talents finding the space between them to produce something extraordinary. Chris would send the sketches to Ade, who would compose and play while they were pinned to the studio wall. A psychic ley-line drawn in pencil between Newcastle and Lancaster.
As experiments go, I'm adjudging it to be an outrageous success. When imagining what the CiS Subscription Library could be, this was pretty much the essence of it. Good people doing good work that would be unavailable elsewhere. Ade and Chris are two very good people.
There will be more from Nurse Predator and Chris for CiS in 2022. Until then, enjoy these succulent fruits of their experimentation.
One table, four ashtrays and three empty chairs.
Colin Morrison. December 10th, 2021.
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