Bring the Noise

Featuring Simon Thorne, the founder director of Wales Jazz Composers and Melanie Pappenheim and Rebecca Askew, Vocal Sonics strays into musical theatre with a sharp intellectual edge.

Thorne has been agitating music for years: Man Act wowed the golden days of Tramway with men in suits and visceral rock, and he is as likely to be composing serene piano music as he is opera inspired by Frank Zappa's eclectic energy. Neandethal, his latest offering, is inspired by the idea that early humans used song as a sort of map to their environment: relying on four unadorned male voices, it traces sound back to the very birth of human consciousness.

Flam pairs Pappenheim and Askew for a duet that starts as a simple coffee meeting, but evolves into a competition between Askew's jazz vocals and Pappenheim's ethereal voice.

With both women involved in genre-splicing music – Askew has performed with bass playing DJ Robin Whitnell, while Pappenheim has recorded Derek Jarman's poetry and been recorded for Dr Who – this simple premise journeys through virtuosic display, sharp contradictions towards an object lesson in the possibilities of the human voice.