Jack Barnett

Bringing Transcender to a close this year will be a performance of Different Trains 1947, a brand new audio visual composition that will bring together the historical and contemporary cultures of the UK and India in this commemorative year, which marks the 70th anniversary of Indian independence. The project is a collaboration between filmmakers Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard (directors of the celebrated Nick Cave documentary 20,000 Days on Earth) and critically acclaimed musicians Jack Barnett (currently completing work on These New Puritans fourth album in Berlin) and Darren J. Cunningham (who, under his Actress moniker, recently released his new album AZD on Ninja Tune). Joining these pioneering UK artists will be Indian music producer Sanaya Ardeshir.Though the project will comprise entirely new work, the composers will use the conceptual and formal framework of ‘Different Trains’ (1988), by the genre-defining minimalist composer Steve Reich, as a primary source of inspiration. Reich's original piece incorporated speech samples from interviews taken in America and continental Europe. In this new work, the collaborators will apply a similar compositional approach, but will shift the locations and timeframe as a means of distilling this larger narrative of life in 1947 during India's transition to independence and the wider impact of train travel on the human experience. Live visuals by Forsyth and Pollard will also incorporate the use of archival film content representing both countries during this period in history.