HARK! The Sound of Stories

HARK!: The Sound of Stories features live story-inspired music, along with readings from the texts that inspired the tunes.

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We celebrate summer and the best of HARK! with this special event featuring HARK! alumnus ME LOST ME and BRICK (the new duo from Bridie Jackson and Nick Pierce). 

Both acts played sold-out Hark! shows while the library was closed in 2022, and we were based in the smaller surrounds of Hash Bar and Kitchen. We are thrilled to invite them back to play new music in the gorgeous venue that is Crown Street Library.

Each extra-long set will feature an introductory reading and an in-set reading of work that has inspired the music, read by North East writers and performers Bob Beagrie, Bridget Hamilton and Amy Lord.

And don’t forget - you’ll be able to browse and loan books with a beer in hand, courtesy of the pop-up bar from Darlington micro-pub Crafty Merlins!

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

ME LOST ME delights in experimenting with songwriting, creating a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics that playfully push the boundaries of genre. The project of Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent who takes influence from folk, art pop, noise, ambient and improvised music, her work has been described in The Guardian as "stripping folk back to its bones while letting its future echoes bleed out".  Dent has notably performed live for BBC Radio 3's After Dark Festival and as part of the 2022 BBC Proms alongside Spell Songs, Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Voices of the Rivers Edge Choir. She received the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers and was 2020-2021 Artist in Residence at Sage Gateshead. With Me Lost Me’s third full-length album ‘RPG’, released in July 2023 on Upset the Rhythm, she took a deep dive into the question of what it means to make contemporary folk music. RPG presents the idea of songwriting as a role-playing game and invites the listener in to explore this strange new world of fantasy pastoral lands, sleepless unreality, and the joy of losing yourself in stories.

BRICK are Bridie Jackson and Nick Pierce. Bridie is a songwriter and Nick is a classically trained viola player. The duo write and produce ‘dreamy acoustic music’ with the occasional synth, from their home in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. They have received glowing reviews in NARC magazine and The Crack, received play on BBC Introducing and the latest music video for their single You’ll Make It Home, was selected for Sunderland Short Film Festival 2024.
Both Bridie and Nick spent their early life soaking up a huge range of different creative stimuli, collectively including the paintings of Stanley Spencer, the writing of Doris Lessing, Alan Bennet and Dylan Thomas and the music works of Schubert, Vaugh Williams and The Cure. This has hugely impacted their creativity, leading indirectly to frequent collaborations within other artforms, including regularly composing bespoke music for dance and theatre productions and sound installations. In 2023, Brick was commissioned by The Customs House Theatre to create the soundtrack for a dance production of Antoine De Saint Exupery’s beloved children’s book, The Little Prince, which fused song, acoustic, electronic, ambient and folk influences. 

THE READERS

Bob Beagrie is a poet and playwright. He has performed at numerous festivals and venues nationally and internationally, and collaborated with musicians. His latest poetry collection, Romanceros, was published earlier this year.

Bridget Hamilton is a writer and podcaster based in Washington, Tyne and Wear. She has created work for Kielder Observatory and BBC Radio 3, amongst others. Her novel-in-verse, Stone Galaxies, about grief and stars, won a Northern Writers Award in 2023.

Amy Lord is a writer from Middlesbrough. Her debut novel, The Disappeared, which won a Northern Writers Awards, is out now. She was shortlisted for the Dinesh Allirajah prize this year.