One of the most remarkable live events that the Quietus attended last year was the first performance of Matthew Herbert’s One Pig album. On a stage strewn with straw, Herbert and three other musicians (dressed in white butcher’s overcoats) used the wires of what looked like a pig pen to trigger Herbert’s field recordings of a year in the life (and death and eating) of a farmed pig. After the moment of the pig’s death, a chef appeared at the back of the stage and prepared a pork meal, the smell of cooking pig blasted into the Royal Opera House by giant fans behind her.
Tomorrow (Wednesday, May 9th), this eloquent meditation on our relationship with the meat industry comes to London’s South Bank Centre, with tickets available here. Read Tim Burrow’s report on a One Pig performance at Cafe Oto here and our interview with Herbert here.
