Helena’s Cough (AKA SMASH GONDRY”S ARMS BEFORE HE PLAYS DRUMS AGAIN) features the high pitched incomprehensible caterwauling of Maggie Nichols mashed against a barely comprehensible libretto by Amanda McKittrich Ros.

The piece could conceivably be described as a 37 hour 93 act noise onslaught cum music hall circumlocution which enjoys an autonomous periphrastic status as an quasi-imaginary set of performance ‘rules’ derived either from one of my adapted ‘Kaffe’ Ouija boards or the conditioned reflex.
(Conceptually, this is the equivalent of Houdini dressing up as Annabella Lwin and singing lead vocals with Bow Wow Wow).

These ‘rules’ camouflage the deconstitutive capabilities of the text by re-transmitting over a selection of open network nodes (pirating reconditioned CB radios and Sky TV’s decommissioned satellites) and recompiling the audio via ‘point of contact’ bargain hi fi speakers concealed at selected points in a few carefully chosen high street boutiques.

Thus, a happy shopper rummaging through the panty rack in an Antwerp branch of Dorothy Perkins will be unawares that the sound they are making is being merged with extracts from the libretto and relayed to A Bathing Ape franchise in SoHo, NY.

This conceptual self indulgence prefigures further blood and bones magic. I find it all very chic, thrilling as it brings to mind an enthralling ‘voodoo’ documentary I saw a few years ago on Channel 4 – narrated by the dreamily shabby Stephen Rea.

After the show, Maggie Nicols insists I try a plate of her vegetarian sausages. They taste like burnt plastic bags stuffed with pieces of old twine. As a strict vegan, except during the week, I am naturally curious about the ingredients and how something purporting to be food could be so revolting. Maggie informs me that her sausages are filled with vegetarian pig blood and vegetarian cow parts and will put much needed hairs on my chest. I rush out into the car park and am violently sick over Trevor Wishart’s brand new lime green Audi Quattro.