Harry Górski-Brown and Annabelle Playe on their Sonica collab

When Harry Górski-Brown was playing the bagpipes for an audience recently, someone asked with a hint of derision: “Do you know how to play that tune far away?” 

“The imposing nature of the sound makes it easy to joke about the instrument,” he says now, on a video call from Stirling.

That commandeering characteristic of the bagpipes, coupled with its potential for playfulness, is part of the make-up of a new project which will premiere at this month’s Sonica festival in Glasgow, an annual showcase of envelope-pushing audio-visual work put on by arts programmer, and incubator of exciting talent, Cryptic.

Górski-Brown started life playing traditional music, was trained classically, and now works in a more experimental sphere, most recently through a tape for the excellent GLARC label called Durt Dronemaker After Dreamboats. It's a reimagining of Gaelic folksongs using the pipes as well as organ, fiddle, bouzouki and other instruments. He is collaborating with Annabelle Playe, a French artist (joining the call from the south of France) who has worked in classical and opera, before moving into a more electronic mode. Their piece – entitled Elephant You Shake Your Sheep – is billed as an attempt to test the limits of the bagpipes via visceral performance and extensive electro-acoustic manipulation.

“The first time I heard the bagpipes was in Boulogne-sur-Mer [on the north coast of France] as a child,” says Playe about her earliest experiences with the instrument. “I didn’t know why they were being played there and it was probably the kind of playing that’s too touristic for Scottish people now.” Meanwhile, more familiarly, Górski-Brown started in school, then joined a pipe band, before stopping playing for around a decade – until he joined up with Playe.

The duo emphasise that the pipes are just one component of the project, but its distinctiveness is clearly a draw. “Certain instruments – the bagpipes or organ for example – fascinate me due to their power and their link with space, the sound in that space, their timbre,” says Playe. “There is a relationship with the breath and the body. It’s a very physical instrument.”

Górski-Brown adds: "[Performing with the bagpipes] can be very simple and set in its ways. That can be a good thing. But I wanted to extend it, to make it louder, make it bigger.”

Harry Górski-Brown. Image credit: Siyao Li.

The two artists figured out the piece over durational improvisations, later working out its composition, structure and flow. They are still rehearsing and tweaking before the performance proper, but the short teaser available via the festival promises something dark, kinetic, vibrational – guttural even – employing the low drone of the bagpipes twisted in strange ways, but also of percussive and ambient elements triggered by glowing electronic consoles.

“We kind of want it to shake your mind,” laughs Playe. “Okay, we don’t want it to hurt the audience, but if we go down a route, we want them to follow, and if we change direction suddenly, we want them to go there too.”

Of course, as with all the pieces performed at Sonica, Elephant You Shake Your Sheep deploys a strong visual element. In this case, it’s the manipulation of the staging cast in light and shadow by designer Rima Ben Brahim, who often works with dancers.

“She’s elevated the piece in a way that Annabelle and I wouldn't be able to create if it was just us standing facing each other,” says Górski-Brown. “And because it's light, the space extends beyond its parameters – the whole of the stage becomes used which wouldn’t be the case if it was just a projection on a screen. It’s unique, and Rima uses simple techniques [to achieve it].”

Annabelle Playe. Photo: Quentin Chevrier

Returning to the impetus behind the project, perhaps what’s most enticing is Górski-Brown and Playe’s willingness to sidestep the usual trappings of the presentation of experimental music – they see no requirement to be self-important or heady about it. 

“It’s not taking itself too seriously,” explains Górski-Brown. “Sonically it’s big, and all the light and sound are big statements. But it’s supposed to be light-hearted, like playing a game, or a weird childish journey, as me and Annabelle would call it in our discussions – there’s no thesis-like explanation outlining its meaning. It’s a bit intense, it’s a bit fun, and you don’t need a programme note to understand what’s going on.” Playe agrees: “Experimental music has this rigid stylistic code. If you don’t stick to it, people are shocked. It’s too closed off.”

Using the title as an example, it could be a reference to the animalistic nature of the performance, the quaking resonance of the electronic drones and the air of the pipes. And for the two artists performing, there's an unmentioned significance. But ultimately, it’s a magnificent jumble of surrealist, stream-of-consciousness language. Like the project as a whole, says Górski-Brown, it isn’t too prescriptive. 

“The appeal of creating stuff is you're feeding your audience ideas and suggestions and they can make up their own minds. I'm pretty hopeful that we've created something that will be an experience, that will lift people out of having to worry what it’s all about.”

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Elephant, You Shake Your Sheep takes place as part of Sonica at Tramway, Glasgow, 26 Sep