News / Bristol festivals
Edwardian toilets to host music festival
Toilets described as humming usually refer to the odour typical of public conveniences. In this case, however, it’s referring to a niche music festival taking place in the comfortable surroundings of a former Edwardian lavatory.
The Bristol Hum is a free festival that seeks to celebrate the city’s experimental music scene, with avant garde sound and film across four days from July 6-10 with more than 20 acts performing.
The event was conceived by Andrew Cooke, Caitlin Callahan and Liz Muir following the formation of Saltings, an ambient drone act.
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After gigging around Bristol for months, they discovered a flourishing underground experimental music scene they wanted to showcase. When the city council offered the opportunity to use the unique performance space of The Edwardian Cloakroom on the corner of Park Row and Woodland Road, the trio snapped up the chance.
“This mini festival is as much us wanting to share our enthusiasm for this burgeoning scene, and the extraordinarily creative folk we have met, as it is the opportunity for us to play,” Andrew explains.
“Plus, the idea of hosting a musical event in an abandoned toilet is pretty cool. The acoustics should be fairly interesting!”
The musical lineup includes drone artist Carter, cellist Hannah Marshall, punk-influenced jazz from Run Logan Run, violinist Yvonna Magda and the event’s organisers who will bring their own flavour of ambient music to the table with Saltings.
This isn’t the first time The Edwardian Cloakroom has hosted an event as unusual as its history. In 2014, a seven-foot-tall vagina and penis were installed in the appropriate gentlemen and ladies loos as part of an art exhibition by Claudio Ahlers.
Members of the public were then encouraged to interact with the black velvet sculptures as Ahlers photographed them.
For more information about The Bristol Hum, visit www.thebristolhum.weebly.com.
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