WOMAD

cirKus

From Sweden

Born more out of an act of faith on the part of then Paris resident Matt Karmil & successful song writer & record producer Burt Ford as a reaction to the tedium that had become so called left field pop, a fusion of not just musical tastes, preferences & styles but also of actual generations (Ford, in the words of Karmil, being: "old enough to be my father"), rather than out of any kind of master plan cirKus was formed in London to a back drop of the invasion of Iraq and the impending threat of terror on the U.K.'s capital city. The music business was apparently "going down the drain" and mainstream pop was nauseating to such a degree that both Karmil & Ford could not stand to be a part of it any more. They tucked themselves away in the tiny office in Ford's London house that served both as Karmil's bedroom and a make shift recording studio night after night crafting the material for an album called laylow for a project that would be called cirKus.
Karmil (real name Matt Kent) was born and received his early education in Salisbury in the West Country of England, later moving with his family to Lincoln in middle England where he was diagnosed with M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). The onset of this often totally debilitating disease left KARMIL unable to attend senior school for long periods of time which led him, out of frustration and complete boredom, to turn to the extensive home study of the classical guitar, turntable skills and, eventually, into making his own music. During a brief period of relief from his M.E. Karmil fled his Lincoln bedroom prison and re-located to the cultural melting pot that is Paris where he intended to pursue his growing obsession with music.
Ford (under the pseudonym Booga Bear or his real name Cameron McVey) had built his career by helping launch the careers of his wife Neneh Cherry & West Country based artists Massive Attack, Tricky & Portishead (having previously, as one of the three founding members of Ray Petri's now legendary creative mafia Buffalo, worked as a photographer & video director) but had never felt comfortable being part of the music business system that he felt stifled real creativity (hence the constant refusal to attach himself to any one easily pigeon-holeable name for any length of time). He had in fact been turning more and more to making his own music and to singing as his discontent with the music business increased. He first surfaced singing the vocals on the London based musical collective Virgin Souls, which is how Karmil first got to hear Ford's voice.
Karmil was offered a job at Ford's London recording studio and was then quickly installed in a tiny office/bedroom at the Cherry/Ford house in Camden Town when it was discovered that he had been sleeping on the studio floor since coming back from Paris to work for Ford. Ford dragged an understandably skeptical Karmil (after years of unsuccessful attempts by many doctors to cure him) to his family doctor in London who proceeded to work a small miracle by banishing the disease from Karmil's body within weeks with a clever concoction of mushrooms, detoxes and duel purpose anti cancer drugs. The stage was set Karmil came back to life and was ready for action.
Unable to focus on the production work going on in the main studio, Karmil & Ford set to work in Karmil's make shift studio/bedroom/office on the labour of love that would become cirKus' first album, "laylow," joined nightly on vocals by Karmil's girlfriend Lolita Moon (who was at the time experiencing problems in her relationship with the British education system and therefore found herself at a loose end).
Obviously the noise emanating from Karmil's bedroom could not be ignored by one of the other residents of the Camden Town townhouse… and it was not long before Miss Cherry found herself filling the musical gap between Ford & Moon's recorded vocals and singing on the record. Ford explains: "Neneh is such an icon both musically and culturally for a whole lot of people out there. This reality can wear you out so she has been quite clever and ducked a little under the radar by choosing when, where & how to raise her head above the media water line. By immersing herself in cirKus as just one of the members and not being the 'lead' or 'featured' singer, Neneh can come and go as she pleases and take as little or as much responsibility as she see fit and, as the cirKus concept is such a solid yet flexible base from which she can stretch her musical muscles, she can use it to launch virtually anything she wants while still feeling less, shall we say, 'exposed' to the whims of the media or the music business. It's funny, we've had so much stick for Neneh being in the group and not being the main point of focus. The media always seem to want to focus on what they see as the main squeeze when in fact Neneh's contribution in cirKus has been very much as part of a team effort. In fact, in the live show she is often to be found playing keyboards and not singing vocals at all, which for her is a nice change. It's a real honour to share the stage with such great performers at Neneh, Lola & Karmil and it is really amusing when we get interviewed for a magazine or TV show and the only person they want to deal with is Neneh. She's real good at it though, she doesn't get rude with folks but she does have a way of shaming them into going back to do their research. The problem is not so pronounced since this project became better known but it still re-occurs whenever we hit a new territory. It's easy to see why I am not their initial target, after all I DO look more like a plumber or a roadie or the manager and not at ALL like I sound as a singer. It's really funny when we do a soundcheck & we constantly get asked when the group are going to arrive then the look on people's faces when I first open my mouth is usually a sight to behold!".
The wide range of ages within the group is something that the mainstream record companies and their related associates originally found it hard to get their heads around. Karmil is fierce in his defense of his decision to apply his talents as a songwriter, musician & producer to a project, which seems to break all the norms of today?s acceptable marketing ploys. He says: "I could never be some long haired indie rock kid looking like he'd just come off the smack or a young vogue wanna be groomed to f**k by some trendy stylist. I needed to be able to call on some depth, some experience and a LOT of lyrical bravery to help me realize the vision I had for my music and by pairing Burt's voice & experience with Lolita's youthful sounding vocals and underpinning, these two opposites together with Neneh's rich & easily recognizable sound, I was able to really break some rules. Besides, isn't it time we broadened our preoccupation with age and with youth over actual content or talent?"
The quartet released their debut album initially in France having decided to re-locate to Sweden (where they still all reside) as they felt (and still feel) a strong affiliation with France's attitude to music & culture in general which was logistically quite a challenge but which seems to have paid off. The album has now been heard & successfully received all over the world and the group have toured extensively to much acclaim ever since the debut release during late 2006. The cirKus live show has been aptly described by one critic as 'generous'.
Cut to spring 2009. cirKus have a new (second) album (entitled 'Medicine') ready to go. This album was written with more of a final concept in mind than the first. A lot of the songs (all bar one of which were penned by Karmil & Ford) were written & recorded in a more brash and aggressive style than "laylow." There are eleven tunes on the album and the group has already been touring with some of these in their live set. The new record was mostly recorded at the groups TENTmusic Scandinavian base having been 'mapped out' on the road and mixed at the legendary Nackving Studios in Gothenburg.
"We felt a little more secure three years down the line, although on a personal level, all four of us still felt the questioning twinges of panic & fear that reside within all souls and these 'twinges' or 'questions' obviously infiltrated the new batch of songs as they spurted out of the conduit that is the joint questioning nature of my shaky typing hand & Karmil's richly textured musical train crashes. We couldn't ignore the genocide(s), persecution(s), media witch hunts, pollution, advertising (although we're pretty anti TV), Obama's successful, peaceful & well supported election campaign, America's continued dumbing down, Robert Mogube's successful, peaceful & well supported election campaign, the death of more whales, seals, fish, humans any more than we could shut out the dub step, four to the floor, Cumbia and Nissenen Mondai. Hell, we soak up a LOT of information and, in some such a way or other, a LOT of it is
there in the songs." expounds Ford.
"I have an axe to grind." says Karmil. "I am trying not to resort to cheap gimmicks or sensationalistic attention seeking actions but it's getting close to the bone for me, this shit is hard work. I got through (knock on wood) the M.E. but now I am in the entertainment business. I LOVE my music, I LOVE music in general, not all music but good music and the TV channels, magazines, radio stations... they have to offer more choice or folks will just become immune to the constant pummeling they receive 24/7 from the over compressed noisy explosion that is the media and this immunity will result in some pretty extreme mutations and these freaks will eat us all and then blow themselves up out of shear ignorance by accident. Hell, how many young folks do you know who actually listen to the radio or watch television? Nearly 100% of my friends use their laptops to filter out all the dross and enable themselves to focus on what THEY want to take in, not what Rupert Murdock thinks they should ingest".
And so the story goes Appearing at a city or festival near you sometime in 2009.  
(Biography supplied by artist management-2009)