SANCTUM | the sleeves + Arcai
Join us on Friday 10th July for some sonic explorations!
The Sleeves are the duo of Jack Cooper and Tara Cunningham, both likely known to you as one half of Modern Nature. Following an all-instrumental Mossy Tapes release last November, Cooper and Cunningham have recorded 10 new songs showcasing their vocal and guitar interplay with only the faintest echoes of prior efforts (individually or collectively), representing a fully realized leap forward from their largely improvised debut.
'The Sleeves' is a somewhat counter intuitive take on the guitar/vocal duo formula (provided you think there is such a thing) though it's not nearly as simplistic as "the space between the notes" -- it would be the height of exaggeration to say an album this simultaneously expansive and incandescent is unprecedented. But it doesn't happen nearly often enough, either.
“‘The Sleeves’ is the sum of our shared musical journey thus far, an exciting mix of familiarity and uncharted territory in its approach to structure and how we use our guitars and voices. It feels to me like we are both citing shared references and traditions, whilst floating in our own, single-cell world that is completely genre-less. That grey area is where we seem to thrive. As Jack says, it feels like music that really couldn’t be made by anyone else.” - Tara Cunningham
“Tara and I started playing guitar together at the start of 2024. It was an improvised music night in a railway arch in South London. The set was great but there was a couple of minutes in particular where Tara and I really sort of locked in. We made a record a few weeks later. There was something in the way we played together that felt very intuitive from the start. We recognised a shared approach right away and an affinity to the way each other played.” - Jack Cooper
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arcai is a solo project by drummer and composer, Kai Chareunsy. Under this pseudonym, Kai explores his Lao heritage through creating his own archives of Lao culture and composing with field-recordings, traditional folk instruments, and sensory percussion.
His debut EP Naak Dam Naak Dom is about the journey of his family. Featuring interviews with his grandparents, they detail their dangerous trip made across the Mekong River from Laos to Thailand before eventually arriving in the UK in the late 1970s. The first project of it’s kind in the UK, these interviews alongside music made from field recordings collected in Laos make for an engaging, thought-provoking listen, and an opportunity to learn and understand more about the Lao refugee experience. 100% of EP sales will be donated to 'Restoration Laos' a charity that clears unexploded bombs from the ground in Laos left from the Vietnam War. Clearing these bombs saves lives and allows communities to once again farm on their land.
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6-8pm- A pay as you can dinner will be available from The Long Table kitchen.
7:30pm- Doors open
Sanctum will start at 8.15pm in the Sanctuary
This is an intimate gig with limited spaces. Please choose from the tickets below and click through to the checkout page for either option.
