The Many Forked Tongue

It’s Not Unusual plays in a carpeted room. The singer breathes twice, speaks twice, speaks with a forked tongue, as it were. This has the desired effect: the performance redefines what is unusual within the room. One singer, a crowd of tongues. Meanwhile, in Nevada, Tom Jones gives a fake name to a hotel concierge, who politely pretends not to recognise the celebrity.

The Many Forked Tongue is a sound installation based on 11 conversations about karaoke and the situations that made singing together possible. Voices speak about stickiness, magic, romance, ambiguity, performance, permission and shame. Their speech has been adapted into experimental music with thin MIDI traces of the pop sounds remembered.