Addictive TV, described as creating “mind-bending live entertainment” by The Times, is a British electronic duo who create music with a difference – it's music you can see.
For their latest project, Addictive TV have been working on Welcome to the Forest, the epic immersive entertainment that will raise the curtain on Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture 2019. They told us a little more about the project…
Who are Addictive TV?
We’re music producers. But everything we create also has a video component, so what you hear is what you see. We get called everything from audio/video DJs and AV remixers to digital artists and live cinema performers. We very often remix films and mash-up music videos at festivals. Our current project, Orchestra of Samples, has involved us filming over 200 musicians around the world while touring and sampling them all to create the show. We’ve lived in Leyton in Waltham Forest for nearly 20 years!
What can people expect from your part in Welcome to the Forest?
We’ve created a 4-minute installation that will be projected on the Town Hall. It’s a celebratory track we created by sampling a huge number of local musicians we filmed in the borough. We took lots of little snippets and loops, and spliced them together to produce a song where everyone plays together, when in reality none of them met.
How did you go about finding musical local residents?
Firstly an open call went out inviting local musicians to participate. This led to us recording the huge range of musicians, from skilled trumpet players and incredibly talented youngsters from Walthamstow School for Girls playing steelpan drums to a whole family of musicians and even a great percussionist who plays daf – the Persian frame drum. We were also helped by local organisations such as the London East Jazz Network, Soundthread, London African Drumming and the Muslim Cultural Forum in finding musicians.
Why do you think Waltham Forest is the right place to be the first ever London Borough of Culture?
For an area of London, Waltham Forest isn’t particularly known as an arts destination in the same way Hackney or Camden are, but it is, in fact, an incredibly culture-rich area with really vibrant arts and music scenes, plus everything else from comedy and film to fashion and crafts! So it’s fantastic the borough has just been given one hell of a showcase…
In three words, what should people expect from Welcome to the Forest?
Lights. Camera. Action!