Now traversing their second decade, the ambitious post-folk trio, Dead Rat Orchestra, embark on an eighteen-date multimedia performance tour of English public execution sites. The work will comprise of a live soundtrack to James Holcombe‘s new film, Tyburnia. Named after London’s ‘Tyburn Tree’ gallows, the experimental film explores the different social and historical events surrounding the site’s 700 year history. Shot in 8mm and 16mm, using hand processing and primarily edited in-camera, Tyburnia attempts to access the ‘presence and absence’ of capital punishment in our collective memory.
Dead Rat Orchestra’s accompanying score is the result of a years’ extensive research into capital punishment and aims to highlight contemporary events that resonate with brutal executions of the past. “A lot of the songs were composed for the days of execution,” explained Daniel Merrill, the group’s fiddle player, when interviewed on London’s Resonance FM last week, “so they were actually sold at the site when people were being executed. These were the newspapers of the day, but in song.” This project follows on from last year’s intriguing three-week tour of English canals, appropriately titled The Cut, whereupon the Dead Rat Orchestra initiated a 273 mile odyssey to map and gather “an informal history of England’s once thriving industrial arteries”. Watch the band perform songs from the upcoming Tyburnia tour on Dexter Bentley’s Hello Goodbye Show below.
Details of the ‘Tyburnia’ tour can be found here.
27th May – London – The Carpenters Arms 29th – London – Apiary Studios
30th May – Norwich – Norwich Arts Centre
31st May – Colchester – Colchester Arts Centre
5th June – Bristol – Cube Cinema 6th June – Lewes – Westgate Chapel
7th June – Cambridge – Castle End Mission
11th June – Winchester – St John The Baptist
12th June – Reading – Rising Sun Arts Centre
14 June – Royal Holloway University of London- The Boilerhouse Lecture Theatre
19th June – Taunton – Museum of Somerset 20th June – Lewannick – Lewannick Community Cinema
21st June – Exeter – The Cavern 25th June – Devizes – Wiltshire Museum
26th June – Ipswich – Think Tank 3rd July – Oxford – Modern Art Oxford
4th July – Northampton – The Victoria 5th July – Shrewsbury – Morris Hall
27th May – London – The Carpenters Arms
