The Sound of Silents @ the Octagon Chapel

On Friday night at the Unitarian Octagon Chapel the pews were full, and from the lectern a light shone down on the congregation. As part of Norwich’s Sound and Vision festival, Sound of Silents: Made in My City showcased archive shorts soundtracked live by local acts Birds of Hell and Mammal Hands. Provided by the East Anglian Film Archive the films were the work of amateur filmmaker Charles Scott, who started shooting parades and local celebrations after acquiring his first camera in 1933. Before the music newsreel footage documenting the renovation of Magdalen Street was shown with before-and-after shots of shopfronts cut to the opinions of bemused residents. Birds of Hell then began his set to silent images of the city from just before and after WWII: acrobats at a carnival, the Lord Mayor’s procession and soldiers marching through the Erpingham Gate into the Close. The song Our Beautiful Boys, written recently as a eulogy for Nick Cave’s son, was played over scenes of uniformed young men preparing to fight, and footage of vocalist Pete Murdoch’s grandmother as a young woman followed, its personal context providing a fitting end to the band’s set.

After an interlude of photographs from Katherine Mager’s portrait of Magdalen Street, This is the Place, contemporary jazz trio Mammals Hands took to the stage for the second half of the evening, playing tracks from their debut LP Animalia, plus a few new ones. Both the images and accompanying music were full of motion, with scenes of motorcars and cart horses shot by Scott presumably from rooftops. The filmmaker clearly had an eye for sunlight and shadows and it was fascinating to see the architecture of Norwich as it was 80 years ago; a church for every week, as the saying goes, and a pub for every day, so trying to identify every building was an impossible task. Tombland was an area thoroughly documented, and as the Smart brothers and drummer Jesse Barratt glanced up at the screen between improvisations they saw the weird angles of alleyways and shopfronts, empty streets and church towers against the sky. It was an evening that felt valuable, a rare glimpse into an era of pre-television Norwich; let’s hope that the EAFA are around this time next year to show us some more!