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Divine decadence, anyone? Well at New Great Britain's rather chi-chi border control in the CCA, you are invited to enter a post-apocalyptic state of indulgence (possibly religious, more probably veering towards the mortally sinful). A glass walkway, postered with story-board text and sketches, allows us to ingest the background to Josh Armstrong's latest venture for Cryptic before we reach the Embassy itself. There has been an almighty flood... The few survivors have created a New Great Britain, ruled by an unseen government of scientifically-sustained immortals who – with shades of Huxley's Brave New World – see the delivery of sensory delights as both a political mechanism and a tourist attraction.
So cue cocktails and Heston Blumenthal-infused morsels of food where the eye deceives and the tongue is surprised. Near-naked performers Tom Harlow and Vendetta Vain also tease, impassive of face but lithe and expressive of body .Especially when fluttering ostrich fans like angel wings on either side of the all-female Astrid String Quartet and soloist Steve Dugardin as they premiere David Donaldson's thrillingly sumptuous Requiem For A World. Dugardin's Latin text is rooted in the classic form of choral requiems, but Donaldson's score – the lushly live strings underscored by taped electronica back-beats and samples – sets the phrases to unlikely rhythms, while sending Dugardin's creamy, unforced counter-tenor vocals soaring and hovering, like spirals of incense in the air. You never want this music to stop, frankly. You want to live inside Dugardin's voice for ever, floating on the shifting intensities of Donaldson's debut score. The border is now sadly closed.
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