Matthew Herbert’s notes for the Brexit Big Band’s performance at London’s Barbican on 23 October 2017

This show was originally designed to tour Europe as a kind of ‘goodbye and thank you’ party and we’ve done a few shows abroad already, but it’s been repurposed a little for tonight. It is part of a much bigger protect that started when Theresa May triggered Article 50 and will culminate in an album released in March 2019 when the UK is due to leave the EU.

The proiect itself is attempting to live, rather than just talk about some of the values that I have always taken to be critical to our collective wellbeing and survival: the warmth of compassion, the fizz of collaborative creativity, the prioritising of tolerance and love over hate and violence.

Since the Brexit campaign began, these values seem to be increasingly under vicious attack from a variety of powerful, mainly male, voices. Shortly after the result was announced it became clear to me that I had to do something musically that sought to keep the line of cultural communication open with the citizens and institutions of European countries that had not only welcomed me so generously over the years, but changed my life and that of so many people I know, for good.

The process of making the record then, is a giant collaboration with foreign big band musicians and choirs. We will take a few key musicians to as many European countries as we can, to work with a big band and as many local singers as we can get to each of the sessions. We will then spend a day in workshops and rehearsals, a day recording new music and finally a concert.

The resulting album will be made up of all these different recordings eventually hoping to capture the work of over 2000 musicians and singers. In some ways it hopes to be the exact opposite of Brexit. To that end we have also set up the Brexit Sound Swap to allow anyone to collect and exchange noises with others for free. Some of those sounds are in the show tonight.

As for the Westminster politics of Brexit, it all seems incredibly bleak at the moment. I have no confidence in this government. I’ve also no tolerance for the hypocrisy of unaccountable billionaire press barons who don’t live in this country, who don’t pay tax here, telling provocative, divisive stories about what it means to be British that are rarely true, kind or necessary.

I’m fed up reading about who this country’s chief diplomat has insulted this time. it’s hard to look at the mechanics of leaving the EU at the moment and think that it’s going well for the UK or indeed that the government is representing the broad spectrum of opinion within the population rather than small factions of the Comervative establishment.

It’s hard not to see them as out of control, out of their depth,and out of ideas. There is no clear viable vision articulated by the government as to what this country stands for either today or in March 2019. The ill-judged referendum proposed by David Cameron was the wrong question at the wrong time and as a consequence it created the wrong answer. It is the wrong answer in this context because there was never any plan. There is still no plan. There are legitimate reasons to leave the EU, but you don’t dismantle people’s lives without first working out how to put them back together again. You don’t rewrite the rules of British governance without first publishing researched studies on the impact of such decisions. You don’t trigger Article 50 and then call an election. You don’t ignore the narrowness of the result of the referendum, or the lives of the EU nationals who have been living and working here for many years. It’s a disgraceful mess and considering the amount of money it’s costing each of us, we deserve to be listened to.

This concert then is the start of our own plan. It doesn’t matter if you voted leave or remain, it’s a plan that tolerates dissent, but prioritises collaboration. It’s a plan that prioritises joy over misery. It’s a plan that tries to show that so much good in the world comes from opening your door a little wider rather than adding another lock. As part of this plan maybe we could measure the success of a nation not just on the metrics of a failing economic system, but on how many new things it learned today, or how many people met someone from another culture for the first time, or how many people could aftord a holiday from their wages, or how many people walked instead of drove, or how many women were promoted at work, or how much extra time people spent with their family that week, or played an instrument, or tried a new flavour in their food, or visited an elderly person living on their own.

The failings or otherwise of the EU is rarely at the top of the priorities list of many British citizens. The many repercussions from the current, profoundly exploitative and violent, white-men-first hegemony on the other hand…

Amongst all of this Brexit noise is the greatest threat we have ever faced as humans, that of climate change. At a point when we should be pulling together, we are choosing to set ourselves apart. In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari argues that the human imagination and its ability to tell stories was right at the forefront of our evolutionary processes. Tonight is supposed to be a celebration of the capacity of music to remind us that we are bound together by something profound, something invisible.

Whether we like it or not.

So we may as well stand and sing ourselves a better future.

And if you want to sing along with Shelley’s words:

Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with tail and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

chorus:
women of england!
men of england!

Wherefore feed and clothe and save
From the cradle to the grave
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat-nay, drink your blood?

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love’s gentle balm?
Or what is if ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?

The seed ye saw, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.

Sow seed-but let no tyrant reap:
Find wealth-let no imposter heap:
Weave robes-let not the idle wear:
Forge arms-in your detence to bear.

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells-
In hall ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

With plough and spade and hoe and loom
Trace your grave and build your tomb
And weave your winding-sheet-till fair
England be your Sepulchre.

Source: matthewherbert.com

Following a Daily Mail attack on the Brexit Big Band, band leader Matthew Herbert clears up some misconceptions.

Following a variety of news stories about the Matthew Herbert’s Brexit Big Band project, I feel I should respond.

Most importantly, this is not an anti-Brexit project. This is a project that, having accepted Brexit will occur, attempts to work out what a new kind of relationship with our European neighbours may look like. That relationship I believe should be founded on respect, curiosity, creativity, empathy, collaboration and love. I am unclear which of those ideals are controversial.

This project is not simply one person’s vision or pet project; it has already had contributions from over 1000 people from here and from all over the world who think those values are worth nurturing.

One of the things I value most about this country is its tolerance for dissent and, having performed with my big band in places such as Syria, China and Russia, I feel like the project is representing some of the very best things about Britishness abroad whilst at the same time providing hundreds of people with jobs or income in the creative industries – one of Britain’s biggest and most respected exports.

Having recently successfully applied to the BPI for part of a grant to assist with exporting British music abroad, some of the musicians fees will be covered by this. None of it is a wage or money to me. According to the BPI website every £1 they invest brings a return of £10 so it is clear that they consider this an investment rather than a subsidy.

The state subsidises many things in this country, including a lot I don’t agree with: wars in the middle east, the arms trade, processed food manufacturers, giant american tech companies who avoid tax, the DUP, fossil fuel companies and so on. If parts of our democracy can’t cope with an industry body supporting musicians in trying to bring ideas of tolerance and hopefully even some joy to others then maybe we’re in worse shape than I thought.

I reserve my democratic right to hold the government accountable in public and to propose an alternative comment that reflects what I believe to be important British values such as inclusiveness and kindness. I created this project to be part of the conversation with ourselves and with Europe about what it means to be British post-Brexit. This and any plan should aim to bring people of all identities and beliefs with it. I reject the forced distinction between Remainers and Leavers, and all are welcome to contribute or be part of the show. It’s up to others whether they wish to be part of this expression of common values or not.

Matthew Herbert, November 2017

Electronic musician, band leader, dj, composer, producer, Matthew Herbert’s selects his political music playlist.

Source: The Guardian

Tom Waits – Step Right Up

I first heard this on the Annie Nightingale show at some point in the early 80s. Her show came immediately after the Top 40 on Radio 1 and it was a shock to hear such an engaged political position after the shiny pop stuff like Belinda Carlisle. It’s amazing there isn’t a similar, well-known track like this around these days when we need it most. Instead, we get Billionaire by Bruno Mars – a political gesture of a different kind.

Moby – Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?

No other record of recent times exemplifies the role that advertising now plays in disseminating music, and how musicians now deliberately attach their work to products to be able to make money and promote themselves. We always think of political music as being of the left, but this is the most political work I can think of from the last 20 years, and it’s crudely capitalistic. The fact that it’s a white male using black (often female) voices is equally vital to the criticism that the record and its subsequent commercial exploitation is a pungent expression of a distilled, modern neoliberalism.

Labi Siffre – Lose Myself in You

An unsung hero of British music who struggled to bring his brilliant songwriting to the mainstream after being dropped by labels for his refusal to stay quiet about being gay. Record companies are as much to blame for censorship as radio stations, not only of political music but of music and ideas that don’t fit the status quo. He did have a hit with (Something Inside) So Strong, which is typical of his emotional, moral perspective, but not representative of the invention and clarity that characterises much of his best songwriting from the early 70s. One assumes that nowadays the music industry is more tolerant of difference and variation, but with such corporate structures and a business model in choppy waters, genuine risks are still rarely taken, resulting in a blur of conservative conformity.

Billy Bragg – Levi Stubbs’ Tears

Nearly all of Bragg’s albums from the 80s were a vital part of my political musical puberty. The shock of seeing the notice on the front of Workers Playtime in Our Price that said “Capitalism is killing music – pay no more than £4.99 for this record” is still with me. There is a maleness to the bloke-plus-guitar instrumentation that has become a standard shorthand for authenticity that I’m less enamoured with, but he’s a brilliant poet and melody writer, and his songs introduced me to all sorts of political ideas – from the importance of collective action, to Robert Oppenheimer, to the mess of Mao.

NWA – Fuck Tha Police

I grew up on a small estate in a village in the country with no TV and church every week. The policeman lived over the road and occasionally came for tea. The shock, then, of hearing someone say “Fuck Tha Police” was profound: hardly subtle, but then injustice itself rarely is. Later, I realised Public Enemy were more on the money politically, but there was a crucial sense of place that was an eyeopener here. Compton wasn’t just a country, an area or even a city: it was a county. That sense of identity located in a precise place was something that again was at odds with my understanding of which stories music usually carried. However conflicted some of NWA’s messages were, there was still a tangible sense that these were voices rarely heard – and that felt electric at the time.

Charlie Puth feat Meghan Trainor – Marvin Gaye

Now that even oil companies are accepting of climate change, the status quo of constant growth and consumption becomes an extremely dangerous state. Seen through this prism, then, in its wilfully naive insularity, this song is toxic waste. Not all music needs to be deadly serious, or try to change the world or smash capitalism, but with the ridiculous pastiche of the 50s – both musically and in the video – you can’t escape the feeling that shit like this is made by the CIA to push the idea that Americana is still on top, and that we shouldn’t take anything too seriously. Everyone involved in making this record should get a minimum of three points on their entertainment licence. The fact that the top 10 is overrun with this painfully comfortable but overly-sexual fluff ironically feels infantilising for producer and audience alike, and is the witting soundtrack to economic and ecological collapse. What’s going on?

Source: matthewherbert.com

Matthew Herbert’s range of innovative work extends from numerous albums, Ivor Novello nominated film scores as well as music for Broadway and TV. He has performed solo, as a DJ, with his big band, and with musicians as diverse as Bjork and Dizzee Rascal.

Matthew Herbert’s personal contract

This is a template for my own work and not intended to be a definitive formula for writing music, either by me or by other people.

1. The use of sounds that exist already is not allowed. Subject to article 2. In particular:
   • No drum machines.
   • No synthesizers.
   • No presets.
2. Only sounds that are generated at the start of the compositional process or taken from the artist’s own previously unused archive are available for sampling.
3. The sampling of other people’s music is strictly forbidden.
4. No replication of traditional acoustic instruments is allowed where the financial and physical possibility of using the real ones exists.
5. The inclusion, development, propagation, existence, replication, acknowledgement, rights, patterns and beauty of what are commonly known as accidents, is encouraged. Furthermore, they have equal rights within the composition as deliberate, conscious, or premeditated compositional actions or decisions.
6. The mixing desk is not to be reset before the start of a new track in order to apply a random eq and fx setting across the new sounds. Once the ordering and recording of new music has begun, the desk may be used as normal.
7. All fx settings must be edited: no factory preset or pre-programmed patches are allowed.
8. Samples themselves are not to be truncated from the rear. Revealing parts of the recording are invariably stored there.
9. A notation of sounds used to be taken and made public.
10. A list of technical equipment used to be made public.
11. Optional: Remixes should be completed using only the sounds provided by the original artist.

Matthew Herbert (2005), revisited 2011