It's all in
The Mind Shop…

The Mind Shop melds sung poetry with instrumental improvisation in a unique lyrical style. The group formed in 2001 to play at the Burns Night celebration at the Poetry Café, the headquarters of the Poetry Society in London. Armorel Weston sang her own setting of a Burns poem, ‘Bonie Bell’, while David Miller and John Gibbens made a range of music-type sounds on their respective instruments. Since then this simple but effective method has been applied to an expanding repertoire that includes lyrics by Yeats and Mary Coleridge and Bob Dylan, traditional spirituals, and poems by the two poets in the group. Subsequent concerts included Jazz Vespers at the Lutheran church of St Anne & St Agnes in the City of London; “Honey & Locusts”, a season of events celebrating poetry, music and spirituality at the church of St Edmund King & Martyr (a stone’s throw from the Bank of England); and an appearance as part of the 2001 Southwark Festival at Southwark Playhouse.

The Mind Shop are:

John Gibbens on electric guitar (find out more about him here), Armorel Weston singing (find out more about her here) and David Miller on clarinet. David Miller is a London-based poet, prose writer and musician, whose books include The Waters of Marah: Selected Prose 1973–1995 (Singing Horse Press, Philadelphia, 2003) and Collected Poems (University of Salzburg Press, 1997). He is a founding editor of Kater Murr's Press (http://home.freeuk.com/katermurr/) and one of the organisers of Crossing the Line, a monthly series of poetry readings at the Poetry Café.

Now The Mind Shop have released their debut CD, a 5-track EP recorded in the Wren church of St Anne & St Agnes in the City of London in December 2002. The five tracks are:

1. Bonie Bell (words by Robert Burns) [MP3]

2. What Waits For Me (words by Mary Coleridge) [MP3]

3. Dreaming Hill (words by John Gibbens & Armorel Weston)

4. Slides (words by David Miller)

5. To Live So Long (words by John Gibbens & Armorel Weston)

Go to the Trading Post
to buy The Mind Shop

Home | Books | Music | Events | New work | Contact & ordering