SleepDogs_

A dream-pop odyssey.

Here’s a little promo we made as part of the first phase of R&D in 2017. The prospective timeline is out of date (2019 has been and gone), but it’s a good intro to the ideas behind the piece.

This is a world where death exists. Loss is hard. Grief is like a river. It’s powerful and you can’t hold it back.

This is the story of a woman who goes looking for her friend – a friend who has vanished inside a city of his own imagination. Both have lost someone they love and it’s cracked the landscape of their lives. A Million Tiny Glitches is a weird and emotional dream quest through those fractures.

A Million Tiny Glitches has grown from our personal experiences of grief over the last few years – vivid and mysterious; you feel it in your heart and your gut. We believe songs can hold emotion very directly, so we thought we’d make a musical that goes deep and feels modern; that embraces sadness without being sombre. Something that’s musically influenced by artists like Bjork, ANOHNI, Nine Inch Nails and FKA Twigs; and narratively inspired by storytellers like Haruki Murakami, Jim Jarmusch and China Mieville.

And yeah, there’ll be a band.

We are seeking partners to help us make the finished work.

Tim’s written the script and we’ve just recorded an album, featuring all the songs written for the show. We’re VERY excited about it, and can’t wait to release it.

In the meantime, you can listen to demos on our soundcloud, which’ll give you an idea of the sort of vibe we’re working with in the music.

We shared some of fragments and possibilities from our initial R&D as part of the Ferment Fortnight at Bristol Old Vic on Wednesday 19 July 2017 (yup we’ve been working on this idea a loooooooong time). Here are some pics of the sharing, taken by Jack Offord:

BOV Ferment - A Million Tiny Glitches by Sleepdogs - Photographer Jack Offord-3229

BOV Ferment - A Million Tiny Glitches by Sleepdogs - Photographer Jack Offord-3216

BOV Ferment - A Million Tiny Glitches by Sleepdogs - Photographer Jack Offord-3224

BOV Ferment - A Million Tiny Glitches by Sleepdogs - Photographer Jack Offord-3247

BOV Ferment - A Million Tiny Glitches by Sleepdogs - Photographer Jack Offord-3256

BOV Ferment - A Million Tiny Glitches by Sleepdogs - Photographer Jack Offord-3288

BOV Ferment - A Million Tiny Glitches by Sleepdogs - Photographer Jack Offord-3306

BOV Ferment - A Million Tiny Glitches by Sleepdogs - Photographer Jack Offord-3312

R&D Company 
Story / Directed by Tanuja Amarasuriya
Story / Words / Music by Timothy X Atack
Movement Direction by Coral Messam
Musician collaborator Elena Pena
Performed by Kayla Meikle, Simon Mokhele, Zoe West, Timothy X Atack (Ferment Festival, 2017); Madeline Shann (Pulse Festival, 2018)

Credits

Produced by MAYK. Seed commissioned by the New Wolsey Theatre and Bristol Old Vic Ferment. Financially supported by Arts Council England. Thanks also to Ovalhouse London and Trinity Arts Bristol. Developed in residence at The Brunswick Club and at Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio.