Celebrated lighting director Chris Bushell chose a powerfully compact Quartz
console from British manufacturer Avolites to busk the emotively impactful lighting
for James Blake’s gig at Brixton’s o2 Academy, London. The show was part of the
minimalist electronica star’s world tour to promote his third album, ‘The Colour in
Anything’ – the much-anticipated follow-up to his Mercury-Prize-winning second
album, ‘Overgrown’.
Bushell has been Blake’s lighting director for over six years – accompanying him on
his meteoric rise from unknown music graduate to Best New Artist nominee at the
2014 US Grammys.
The compact Quartz console is the latest and smallest addition to the Titan Mobile
family. It comes complete with on-board processing and a bright, vibrant 12.1″
screen. Featuring the same high quality faders and hardware users expect from
Avolites, it is small enough to be taken as hold luggage on a plane – making it ideal
for life on the road.
As Bushell recommends, the Quartz can be combined with a Titan Mobile Wing,
which gives direct access to a range of powerful features – such as 30 precision
playback faders, 50 programmable buttons, solo and flash buttons, shape overlay
cues, blinders, house lights, smoke machines or performer key lights for TV
productions.
Blake’s show was designed by Bushell in partnership with United Visual Artists
(UVA). Bushell was responsible for lighting, while the London-based creative
practice crafted the video elements. UVA had previously created promotional videos
for ‘The Colour In Anything’ and ‘I Need A Forest Fire’, which features a subdued
aesthetic that focused on orbiting virtual and real life sources. The brief was that
this was to be taken into the live shows and used holistically. Accordingly, Bushell
and UVA agreed that a ‘clean’ stage free of props or gimmicks was required. That
way lighting and video could be seamlessly blended in an immersive interplay of
light and shadow – creating a unique artistic landscape and blurring the lines
between the real and the virtual space. As a result, light sources were hidden from
view by being recessed into shrouded trusses.
Each of the three musicians on stage was lit separately in a square of light.
Bushell’s rig contains GLP X4 Bar 20s to define the shape of the square with Martin
Aura XBs clustered inside the square to light the subject within, along with SGM Q-7
and Source 4 par fixtures to vary the palette above.
The pods were combined with similar hidden fixtures to the sides; Martin Viper
Profiles hidden up beyond the shrouded pods and Martin Quantum Wash luminaires
on the floor beneath the LED video screen. Par16 footlights cast silhouettes onto the
screen when not in use.
Newly established rental and production house LCR (Lights, Control, Rigging)
supplied the lighting package.
