Tomorrow night at the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh, Aidan Moffat and FOUND will be performing a live collaboration of their #UNRAVEL installation, which looked at the associations we make between music and memory.
Attendees will be able to interact with the gig by making suggestions as to what should happen on Twitter – more information and tickets can be found here. We got in touch with Aidan to ask about the gig, and to divine why it comes accompanied by a limited-edition whisky… to be given away free before the gig. Twitter and whisky? Uh oh…
Aidan Moffat: The FOUND guys have been doing a lot of work with Dewar’s recently, so they got together to produce an exclusive single malt for our #UNRAVEL gig, and there’s going to be a free dram for everyone at 7pm before the auditorium opens – for however long it lasts, anyway.
Because our gig is story-based with me doing mostly spoken pieces, I think the idea was to invoke the old Scottish ceilidh tradition where everyone gets a bit pissed on whisky and tells each other stories or does a turn.
What’s the gig it’s connected with tomorrow night?
AM: The gig is a live performance of our #UNRAVEL project, which was an installation we did earlier this year in Glasgow. It’s pretty complex, but the main gist of it is a series of short stories based on memories connected to my record collection, but each story changes depending on certain outside influences, such as the weather and public opinion.
It’s the public opinion one that we’re focusing on for the gig, so the audience are invited to tweet about the gig live (using the #UNRAVEL hashtag), and the audience’s opinion of the gig will affect the performance, so for instance I’ll either be reading the happy version or the sad version, and so on. The thing is though that most of my favourites are the sad versions, so I’m kind of hoping that the audience give us a slagging. We’ll have most of the installation onstage too, which is an amazing robotic drum kit and keyboard, plus some humans (i.e. FOUND) playing additional instruments and new parts. Plus Bill Wells and I are doing a special trio set, and Ziggy and Kev from FOUND are doing their solo stuff too. It’s a busy night.
How did you hook up with the Aberfeldy distillery? Is it a favourite?
AM: To be honest, I wasn’t really involved in that, it was the FOUND guys; I’m not much of a whisky connoisseur so I left it to the professionals. I’d actually forgotten all about it until last week when a delivery man turned up at the flat with a bottle for me, which was very pleasant surprise. But I haven’t opened it yet and I’m not sure I even want to, it looks so lovely as it is.
What’s your recommended way to enjoy a dram?
I usually end up drinking whisky at the end of the night when I’m already drunk, but I wouldn’t recommend that if you want to savour it. In good, close company, preferably on a patio with beautiful scenery outside and a good, gentle record on the stereo – that sounds about right.
