ANTHONY FRIEND
Clarinettist
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
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
2-15 November 2015: Sound Icons Installation
Somerset House
Horatiu Radulescu created an 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 sculptor Peter Shenai two Sound Icons we opened up two Sound Icons for experimentation and play. Peter crafted the Icons’ detritus into new ways of interacting with the Icons, which were installed alongside Radulescu’s visually stunning scores and presented with recording session and a talk.
Spectralism Talk & Performance – Sunday 8th November, 3.30pm-6pm
Kings College London Chapel, The Strand
Julian Anderson and Éric Tanguy presented a moving, personal talk on the works, ideas and life of Horatiu Radulescu, touching on everything from his ideas of time and rhythm, to his tangles with landlords and neckties. It was followed by a performance of Radulescu's Intimate Rituals.
Éric Tanguy is Radulescu’s foremost living student and authority on his work. He studied with Radulescu and Gerard Grisey for years, and has become one of the most widely performed and broadcast French contemporary composers. Julian Anderson is one Britain’s best known contemporary composers, described by the Evening Standard as ‘one of the most talented composers of his generation.’
Recording Sessions – 4th, 12th November, 1pm-9pm
The Sound Icons are stunning and flexible instruments. To allow visitors to make the most out of them, we offered recording sessions with sound engineer Nick Harding. A huge range of musicians produced material, which we look forward to sharing as it is worked into pieces, films and sound designs. You can hear excerpts from Julian Anderson's session below.
Photos: Julia Ninan
26-27 November 2016: Sounding Body
OMEARA
Concert, 26 November 2016
The concert opened with John Luther Adams’ Thunder from Mathematics of Resonant Bodies, a stunningly loud and resonant piece for low drums constructed in intricate polyphony. These works were performed alongside Julian Anderson’s Ring Dance, Jonathan Harvey’s tape piece, Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco and Globokar’s ?corporel, a violent piece for body that magnifies the natural resonance of the performer’s chest and skull in crackling detail. Experimental composer CHAINES was commissioned to create a new work for the event.
Alongside the principle players of the Filthy Lucre orchestra, the event featured the band Ex-Easter Island Head Playing solid-body guitars with mallets, they produce a unique sound by using familiar instruments in a new way. They played a set of their work and joined the ensemble for arrangements of math rock and Jean-Phillippe Rameau. Both integrate finely detailed, needle-sharp renderings of mathematical ideas with a striking strength of purpose and emotion.
Installation & workshops, 27th November
The concert was presented with Labrinthitis, an installation by sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard. Kirkegaard explores the tones generated in the inner ear: spontaneous otoacoustic emissions. These sounds are produced without stimulation by some people’s ears. Whereas the combinations of tones emitted from one ear can be dissonant, microtonal and complex, tones emitted from another ear might be harmonious and 'in tune'. Each ear produces something akin to an acoustic fingerprint. Through Kirkegaard’s intimate aural recordings, we can hear our own hearing.
Labyrinthitis works with otoacoustic emissions generated by the artist’s ears to produce otoacoustic emissions in the ears of the listeners. Critic Manuel Abreu describes the experience: ‘At a loud volume, the piece seems to turn one's ears into a bright resonant magnet, sound buzzing ticklishly out of it’.
Kirkegaard explained this process in a free workshop on Sunday 27th. Attendees had their ears recorded and explored the sounding body inside their ears. Percussionist George Barton performed Globokar’s ?corporel and discussed how this strange work uses the sounds of our bodies.
Photos: Hubert Libiszewski
24 February 2018: Linga Ignota
Hackney Showroom
On 24th February 2018, at Hackney Showroom in London, Filthy Lucre presented Lingua Ignota, a night of imagined languages.
Like music, imaginary language conveys a need for urgent communication but has unspecifiable meaning. We can glimpse what it means, but never truly grasp it. In this event, which moved from concert to gig to club night, Filthy Lucre continued its exploration of ambitious music in bold settings.
With chamber choir and synthesisers, the Filthy Lucre Ensemble performed Claude Vivier’s langue inventée; Hildegard’s lingua ignota; the nonsense of Bowie/Eno’s Warszawa and the electric babble of the Talking Heads.
New music by Laurence Osborn, art by Georgia Hicks, and film by Paul Vernon Filmmaker was performed alongside arrangements by Emma-Jean Thackray and Joseph Bates. Lead man Love Ssega performed the final set, bringing the night to a dynamic close.
Photos: Michael Grittani
12 May 2017: We Break Strings launch
Stone Nest
Set in an atmospheric abandoned chapel with drinks and music, this fundraiser was be a chance to spend an evening with Filthy Lucre’s varied band of supporters and artists. Ensemble x.y and VANA presented their music, alongside Filthy Lucre stalwart Geoff Clapham, who sang covers from previous events.
Thanks to high attendance and the generosity of our supporters, we were able to exceed our financial target of £750, taking in a total of £1350.
We Break Strings is an upcoming web project that will act as a hub for alternative avant-garde music in London, including listings, news, and more. Named after a recent book about this emerging scene, it’s an effort to work together to reach a broader audience. Twenty organisations are on board, covering a diverse range of artistic approaches. This cooperation will allow us to engage in bigger projects, like enlisting student representatives and is an important step forward for a scene that is beginning to achieve greater prominence.
Photos: Michael Grittani
13 October 2018: Fundraiser 2018
Stone Nest
Filthy Lucre raised funds for its 2018-19 season at Stone Nest, a stunning abandoned Welsh Chapel in Covent Garden. The event featured music from past and future events, including a screening of Paul Vernon’s stunning film Hildegard. Filthy Lucre also revealed the line-up for Digital Fragility and its events for 2019. The event featured:
Paul Vernon's film, Hildegard, with live vocals by Lucy Cox
An electronic collaboration between Joe Bates and Lucy Cox for Sansara Choir
Original electronic studies by Joe Bates
A sneak preview of Peter Shenai's Hurricane Bells
Photos: Paul Vernon
25 November 2018: Digital Fragility
Redon, Bethnal Green
Filthy Lucre presented music from broken machines, imagined games and toy pianos.
Digital Fragility saw Joe Snape return to Filthy Lucre with an extended work, Fleck Flob Flop, a love story performed with live typing, brittle electronics and acoustic instruments on the edge of collapse.
Three astonishing pianists (Ben Smith, Joseph Havlat and Siwan Rhys) then performed Matt Rogers's Mammals On The Edge, chiptune works that combine automated virtuosity with nostalgic whimsy. They also played Tristan Perich's qsqsqsqsqqqqqqqqq, for three toy pianos and electronics, and Thundercat’s Bowzer’s Ballad, a touching work dedicated to Nintendo boss Hiroshi Yamauchi.
The event closed with the London debut of Kinder Meccano, a duo composed of Vitalija Glovackyte and Michael Cutting. They make music using tape machines, home-made instruments, modified keyboards and lo-fi visuals, creating pulsing, semi-broken music.
Photos: Dimitri Djuric
8-15 February 2020: Hurricane Bells, Heong Gallery
Heong Gallery, Cambridge
In this project, Filthy Lucre presents music from across genres, exploring how cultures blend and fuse in migration. It begins with an exhibition of the Hurricane Bells at Heong Gallery, Cambridge.
Artist Peter Shenai has cast five bronze bells based on the structure of Hurricane Katrina. Each bell is a scale model of the hurricane at a particular point in its progression. Bell One represents Katrina as an infant hurricane out in the Gulf of Mexico. Bell Five shows Katrina just as it struck the coastal city of New Orleans at a terrifying strength two days later.
Hung in a line and struck in order these bells produce a series of descending tones, which indicate the growing power of the storm as it built through time.
Audiences are invited to play the Hurricane Bells using the beaters provided. Shenai encourages visitors to “strike them and listen. Turn them over and feel their weight. Investigate Katrina with your eyes, hands, and ears.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3OwWByo1-g8
The bells evoke the musical spirit of New Orleans – a place where even at funerals, people might dance and play music. And at a time when bushfires roar, and cities declare climate emergencies, Shenai’s musical instruments offer a meditative sound to memorialise a past tragedy, and they act as an alarm call to the current, unfolding crisis.
Audiences can also explore the artistic process, the climate science, and the cultural context behind the project, through printed materials and audio recordings, and two evening events.
You can find visiting information on the Heong Gallery Website.
Workshop: Drawing with your ears , led by artist Peter Shenai
Open to all ages – no musical/drawing talent required, just curious ears & eyes.
Evening talk: Hurricane Bells presentation from artist Peter Shenai, along with co-curator Dr Nicky Kozicharow.
4 Feburary 2022: Hurricane Bells
Rich Mix
In this project, Filthy Lucre presented music from across genres, exploring how cultures blend and fuse in migration.
Following on from our exhibition of Peter Shenai's musical sculpture Hurricane Bells at Heong Gallery, Cambridge, we presented a night of music at Rich Mix, London.
Filthy Lucre commissioned jazz trumpeter and composer Byron Wallen, whose work Hurricane Bells took Shenai's bells as its starting point. The bells' strange, discordant sounds were incorporated into an octet combining jazz and classical musicians.
Three soloists from the ensemble performed two works by Liza Lim; Ehwaz (Journeying) for trumpet and percussion, and Invisibility for solo cello embrace concepts from Viking and Aboriginal Australian traditions.
A set from Petit Oiseau concluded the concert. This duo brings together rare classical Indian string instruments and a custom software modular synthesiser.
Review: The Arts Desk ****
Review: Jazzwise Magazine
Photos: Dimitri Djuric
