Orlando Gough: That Feeling

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Çiğdem Aslan is an Istanbul-born singer who sings in many languages and regional styles. Coming from Kurdish Alevi background, in which music is one of the pivotal elements of the culture, she grew up with the rich sounds of her culture and then gradually met with the other sounds of Istanbul and beyond. While studying English literature at Istanbul University, she regularly performed Rebetiko, Sephardic and other ethnic music of Turkey.

Cigdem has been performing and touring her debut album Mortissa which has been released from Asphalt Tango Records in October 2013. The album focuses on Rebetiko and Smyrnaic songs from Asia Minor and Greece mainly from 1930s.

The album received great reviews from all around the world and entered the World Music Charts Europe. It was chosen as one of the best albums of 2013 by Roots and Songlines Magazine which nominated and shortlisted Cigdem in the 'Best Artist' category for Songlines Music Awards 2014.

In 2014 Mortissa won the prestigious “Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik/ German Record Critics Award"

Çiğdem studied music at Goldsmith’s University.

From players with the earth and deep soul of of african rhythm to the high court flute of Korea via stunning Western classical and jazz musicians and composers Peter Wiegold's Club Inégales band has found a new kind of boundary-crossing chemistry in a unique venue: its underground bar at Euston. The music was recently described as "absolutely mesmerising! Fantastic, beautiful, organic and inspiring" in feedback for its Original Voices series. There will be Dionysian grooves, Appolonian grooves and sweet soul from the soloists. A special experience of real new, spontaneous performance.

''This is a Rolls-Royce of a band - it can turn on a dime." - Will Self

Amaraterra is the first pizzica ensemble in London – the traditional music dance and music from Salento, the "heel" of Italy. The millenary stratification of Greek, Roman, Byzantine traditions and the relative insularity of the Salentine peninsula has conjured to keep alive a timeless musical treasure. "U pizzicu" is the poisonous bite of the tarantula spider: in rural Salento, the traditional exorcism to "heal from the bite" is to dance relentlessly to the frenetic, hypnotic beat of thetambourine till a state of trance is reached and healing is achieved. However, pizzica and tarantella are also the dances of the village fete all over southern Italy, an always welcomed opportunity to socialize and flirt ("pizzica de core") or friendly settle scores through simulated fencing ("pizzica scherma"). Tarantellas and popular ballads are the backbone of italian folk tradition, one of the richest and oldest in the world. One of the oldest musical expressions of the mediterranean is brought to you by a group of passionate musicians and dancers living in London and enriching its great and diverse, cultural life. The ever present tambourines are accompanied by a variety of instruments – mandola, guitar, mouth organ, recorder, accordion, castanets, the hypnotic singing, and the thumping of dancing feet!

The Bee Symphony was created to explore the vocal harmonies between humans and honey bees in a unique choral collaboration around and within the hives of an English country garden. The recording consists of recordings of bees by Chris Watson, the world's leading wildlife sound recordist, and Mike Harding (Touch), and a vocal score and live performance made and conducted by Marcus Davidson. The Bee Symphony was originally conceived by Chris for "Pestival" in and first performed at The Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

In our pluralistic society, the supposedly rational individual is fast taking over from any abiding sense of community, group consciousness, morality, and structure. We talk of the conscious self, yet, we behave as if there is more in the world, and more in the ether that surrounds us, than what we see and experience in our conscious state. We accept the idea of 'day dreaming', or the power of dreams to come true. We have premonitions, déja-vous, and we don't seem to mind our children playing with invisible guests. Some of us talk of ghosts, of good and evil spirits, of God or gods. My starting point in a discussion on ecstatic religion has to be that our conscious self, our rational self, is in reality far from real. This may seem a curious gambit with which to open a discussion, but our rational selves tend to position religion towards the irrational, the unprovable, as something subjectively felt rather than objectively known. So, to experience ecstatic religion, and to use music and other stimuli to access it, means we have to stop our rational selves requiring explanation and verification. Put together, religion and music both allow us to move into what some call 'ecstasy' – others might say 'altered states of consciousness' or 'trance'. So many societies across the world use 'ecstasy' to experience something other than the rational world that it is hard to say they are all wrong.

Which came first: music or religion? Without thinking, most of us will reply 'religion', but is there actually any reason to say so? Broaden from 'music' to 'music and dance' and the question becomes even harder to address. Babies think in movement, and explore sounds, long before they speak. They identify the world in terms of its sounds and its physical interaction with their bodies. Even Charles Darwin once wrote: 'the progenitors of man probably uttered musical tones before they had acquired the power of articulate speech.' Music, though, is emotional; we typically react to it before thinking about it. It isn't based on reason, and doesn't necessarily have to do with the rational self, because it is received – first – by the most ancient part of the brain, the archipallium (archicortex) and the lymbic system. This is precisely why music is used for wellness and for healing. And it explains why music is so integral to religious practice. So, why should music not be a primary force in the development of religion? Now, there's a thought: let's see where it takes us...