FILTHY LUCRE

2011-2024: ARCHIVE

Filthy Lucre was co-founded by Anthony Friend and Joseph Bates in 2011. Between then and 2024, along with Music Director William Cole, Filthy Lucre ran events, made recordings and held exhibitions.

Filthy Lucre brought together different genres of music, art, dance, film, poetry and more. 

Filthy Lucre brought artists together and made the space for them to create remarkable work.

Filthy Lure made work that was uncompromising and immediate.

Filthy Lure made events that expand our sense of what performance can be.

Filthy Lucre explored the best new work from artists of all kinds.

“Whose mouths must be stopped, Who subvert whole houses,
Teaching things which they ought not, For Filthy Lucre's sake.”
Titus 1:11

11 January 2014: Cults

The Bussey Building, Peckham

Filthy Lucre 3: Cults was an immersive music ritual that moves from the stage to the dance floor while exploring cults, religion and premonitions of death.

Robert Hugill, Planet Hugill

"Filthy Lucre 3 was a fascinating and daring experiment, performing some challenging 20th century music in an entirely new and different context. All the performers were impressive in the way that the were able to play despite any surrounding distractions, and produce performances of concentrated intensity."

"Orazbeyeva was spectacular"

"[Geoff Clapham] displayed a fabulously resonant voice, combined with a confident manner... he cut an atmospheric figure."

"[Andreasen used] a vivid gestural language. You felt that there was a drama hidden behind the athletic choreography."

Photos: Paul Vernon

11 July 2014: Lost in the Nameless City

The Bussey Building, Peckham

Filthy Lucre returned to Peckham to explore shining cities and urban decay, ruinlust and abandonment, suburbs, utopias and the towns they built to change.

The Clash – London Calling [Geoff Clapham, singer]
Fausto Romitelli – Lost (UK premiere) [Lore Lixenberg, soprano]
Arcade Fire – Sprawl I (Flatland)

Steve Reich – Electric Counterpoint [Rob Luft, guitar]
With a new film by Paul Vernon.
Luke Newman & Cecil B Demented [poets] – New Works
with Emma-Jean Thackray [composer]

Emma-Jean Thackray – New Work
Aaron Parker [composer] – New Work
Gil Scott-Heron – Home Is Where The Hatred Is
Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX – I'm New Here [Luke Newman, poet]
Saul Williams – Twice The First Time [Cecil B Demented, poet]
Arcade Fire – Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

DJ Napper and Ilghazi

Hilary Glover, PlanetHugill.com

'Forums like Filthy Lucre are essential to music, providing a home for new works and experimentation, and allowing composers and performers a chance to grow. Everything I heard had some interesting ideas in it and brought a new look at the lives of people living in this city. '

Our surveyed audience members

'I used to go to classical music concerts, many years ago, as a student. I got sick of attending events playing only the music of dead composers - wonderful though they were. I resolved to go to concerts of new music but could find none. The radio told me I didn't like new music. I am delighted to find the situation is now changing and it's easier to find LIVING composers.'

‘even though I've never seen this genre live I didn't really notice it as 'out of my comfort zone' because of the over-arching theme.’

‘Without such a tight-knit theme it might have been very confusing having such different genres juxtaposed, but it hung together so well.’

'the event had a very lively, young and creative feel, very exciting.’

Photos: Nick Rutter

4,5, 7 March 2015: The Prisoner

The Crypt, Camberwell

In the dark of Camberwell Crypt, Filthy Lucre explored imprisonment and release, confinement and ecstasy, through light, noise and song. Inspired by Gil Scott-Heron's searing work, The Prisoner, Filthy Lucre performed music ranging from the murder ballads of Tom Waits to the numerological experiments of George Crumb.

George Crumb – Black Angels [Aisha Orazbayeva & Philip Granell, violin; Richard Jones, viola; Colin Alexander, cello]
Tristan Murail – Vampyr! [Nick Goodwin, guitar]
Dirty Projectors – Police Story [Geoff Clapham, singer]
Edmund Finnis – Brother, Sister
Joe Snape – lärmlicht
Gil Scott-Heron – The Prisoner
Jacob TV – Grab It!
Tom Waits – Hell Broke Luce, Gun Street Girl
Nick Cave – The Mercy Seat
James Blake – Retrograde

https://youtu.be/7uoGYFwwQH4

Photos: Crystal Ding

2 October 2015: Sound Icons

Shapes, Hackney

Horatiu Radulescu created instruments he named ‘Sound Icons’. Drawing upon Romanian Orthodoxy and Pythagorean mathematics, he upended grand pianos, stripped them of their mechanical components and retuned the strings to create a stark instrument with a unique sonority.

With two Sound Icons, orchestra, singers and DJs, Filthy Lucre explore the transformation of objects into sound.

Peter Quantrill, The Amati Magazine – ★★★★☆

'The Filthy Lucre Orchestra gave a confident, well-prepared performance under William Cole.'

'Shi wove in and out of his instrument’s snowline with hardly less authority than Vincent Royer for whom Rădulescu composed the work.'

'[Kerry Andrew] cut a stylish and self-contained stage presence, generous to her colleagues as they enjoyed Cageian riffs in Emma-Jane Thackray’s arrangement of Four Tet’s 128 Harps but channelling leftfield divadom in Hannah Dilkes’s take on Solstice by Björk.'

Jonny Venvell, joinencore.com – ★★★★☆

'works by Grisey and Gal showcased a group at the top of their game, confidently exploring music at the very fringes of instrumental possibility.'

Photos: Nick Rutter