LiTTLe MACHiNe bring poetry and music together (From Epsom Guardian)

LiTTLe MACHiNe bring poetry and music together

6:10am Friday 16th July 2010

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On Sunday, Teddington’s Landmark Arts Centre is hosting a Summer Sunday Special with music and poetry set to reverberate around the vast venue. One of the highlights of the day will be a set from LiTTLe MACHiNe, a band that specialises in bringing stanzas and guitar solos together.

Experienced multi-instrumentalists Walter Wray and Steve Halliwell formed LiTTLe MACHiNe in 2007 with the express intention of setting some of their favourite poetry to music, with guitarist Chris Hardy joining the band soon after.

Since its inception they have created scores for an eclectic series of poems with works by Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin and WB Yeats all getting the LiTTLe MACHiNe treatment.

Hardy says the band have found favour among poetry fans and he and his bandmates are delighted to be playing for an appreciative audience.

“It was the experience of playing in a blues-rock group in London pubs for 25 years that made me want to play to an audience, and I think the other guys agree with this, who are sitting down and listening to us rather than to a crowd with their backs to you, who are pouring beer down their throats,” he adds.

The variety of musical settings reflect the eclectic choice of the poems, with for example William Carlos Williams’ Red Wheelbarrow set to an American country style backing, and the band incorporates guitars, keyboards, ukulele, mandolins and other instruments into the mix.

“Of course you have these fantastic lyrics ready made and if you have a good tune you can usually find a poem to fit it,” says Hardy.

“I tend to work in that way whereas Walter and Steve will find a poem they like and work a tune around it. There are so many poems out there and so many lend themselves to musical settings.

“At the moment we are choosing poems we know and like - Walter and Steve have just done a great setting for Shelley’s Ozymandias and we’ve also recently done Blake’s London.

“The poems we perform are familiar to many people - anyone who has done an English A-Level would have come across many of them but when they are sung and performed like this they sound new.”

Joining LiTTLe MACHiNe on the bill for the Summer Sunday Special will be the Sheneka Jazz Collective and the Rodney Mendoca duo. There will also be performance poetry organised by Teddington’s very own music and poetry night, Rhythm and Muse, as well as a performance of the Twenty-First Century Curiosity Shop presented by Waldegrave School for Girls.

Landmark Summer Sunday Special, Landmark Arts Centre, Ferry Road, Teddington, July 18, noon, £4 (LAC members and under-16s free), 020 8977 7558/landmarkartscentre.org. LiTTLe MACHiNe’s self-titled new album will be available to buy at the venue. For more information, visit myspace.com/littlemachineuk

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