Jem Finer & John Matthias

Jem Finer Since studying computer science in the 1970s, Jem Finer has worked in various fields, including photography, film, experimental and popular music, sound recording, sculpture and installation. Much of his work relates to systems, extended processes and extremes of scale and includes Longplayer, a musical composition repeating once every 1000 years, and the Gurdy and Hurdy stones, ancient rocks set upright in fields in East Sussex and Gloucestershire with Jimmy Cauty. Their work together includes a band, The Standing Stones, whose most recent release is Twa Sisters, featuring Iona Zajac and Daragh Lynch. He was a founder member of The Pogues, with whom he has played, written and recorded since 1981. Recent music revolves around a fascination with the hurdy-gurdy and includes hurdy-grdy, a cassette released by Benedict Drew’s Thanet Tape Centre, and this new album with John Matthias. John Matthias Since studying Theoretical Physics in the late 1980s and 1990s, John has created music and sound in many forms, including for installation, popular music, music for film, for dance and orchestra. Much of John’s work plays with the physics of complex systems but he is also greatly influenced by stories and song. John has collaborated with Matthew Herbert, Stanley Donwood, Jay Auborn, Radiohead, Thom Yorke, Nick Ryan and many others to create music with a variety of textures and sonorities. He is particularly interested in simplicity and form and how context informs the way music sounds.