At the V&A's Shhh... exhibition, Roots Manuva's "You Rang Me Lord?", for example, pounded through my headphones as soon as I entered the opulent, gold-encrusted, 18th century music room, immediately making clear the fact that the room was built on the spoils of slavery.
Ex-Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Frazer's ethereal and bewitching chanting elevated Raphael's cartoons to even higher dimensions.
And David Bryne's symphony of flushing toilets and gushing water in the V&A's disabled toilets meant I will never take visiting a public convenience forgranted again.
My favourite piece was the soundscape created by artists Jane and Louise Wilson for the Cast Room - the V&A's dark, dank and decrepit collection of High Victorian plaster cast sculpture. The happy voices of children playing - clambering over architectural ruins - abruptly and horrifyingly interrupted by the dull, silent thud of a body falling to the ground.
I'm seeing Edward Hopper at the Tate Modern next week. I wonder what music I should take to accompany my experience? Something plaintive, solitary, melancholy perhaps. Or something joyous and stirring to bring out new dimensions in his pieces. Listen to this space...
A tasty aside: a transformative experience of a different kind, afterwards, in the V&A cafe, where I had the most delicious and decadent pot au chocolat - so thick my teaspoon stood up in it. It's still sticking to my teeth. Yummmmmmmm.
Related links:
BBC review of Shhh...
Other links today:
The Armish have a website - yes, it's owned by an Armish!
Those kool Tokyo kats! (photos)
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