An evening of avant-garde poetry and music… in a historic Southwark setting
By James Brewer
A street in Southwark, London, where at the age of 11 or 12 Charles Dickens lodged while he laboured in a boot-blacking factory, has just hosted an event that the great author could hardly have imagined: an evening of avant-garde poetry alternating with pounding but perceptive techno music.
The young Dickens had two centuries ago been put to work to earn money for his father who was confined to a nearby debtors’ prison.
Fast-forward to the Saturday gathering on May 11, 2024, which was bookended by the feminist, heartfelt poetry of Marta Lola Boros, and the pounding Dark Wave electronic music of the brilliant, intriguingly named Aphrodite is The Jackal.
The venue was Studio Sienko on Lant Street, off Borough High Street just south of the Thames. As a gallery it was founded by Warsaw-born artist, printmaker and ceramicist Olga Sienko some 30 years ago. Hung with experimental artwork, its exposed brick walls are an atmospheric setting for unconventional creativity.
The boundary-breaking convocation of avant-garde domains was introduced by Federico Meccariello, a musician known as Fred, outlining a manifesto that: “art and poetry are the exhibitions of the spirit.” Although from a family of rebellion, he said, “We are pretty much pacifists and our message is… there are too many conflicts around the world and there is no reason to die in wars and in bloody conflict.”
Then Marta – a poet and painter living in London – came to the microphone to recite existential and autobiographical poems about love and the connection between people, in short – about life. Her lines frequently relate to romantic longing:
Fleeting moments of love/ Appear suddenly/ And pass away undecided/ Friend or love/ Friend of love…
Another keen verse was entitled Alien Woman. I can’t find love/ My mouth lies/ Sarcasm flows through the veins/ My body/ Is an artistic figure/ Of rejection…
With Infinity: I would like to grasp/ Infinity/ I feel it/ The secret of life/ Dreams flow in my blood/ Mirage and reality/ Infinity/ Where is it???
Marta’s poetry hero is Allan Ginsberg (1926-1997) of the Beat Generation, a radical activist who protested against the Vietnam War and abuse of power, and for a new vision of peaceful coexistence.
Her favourite Polish poets are Krzysztof Baczyński, one of the Generation of Columbuses, who died in 1944 in the Warsaw Uprising; Miron Białoszewski (1922–1983) who wrote a memoir of the Warsaw Uprising; Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855), Poland’s most famous poet; and Juliusz Słowacki (1809-49), a major figure in the Polish Romantic period. Marta published in 2019 in Warsaw a selection of her poems in Polish and English in the book Przenikanie (Penetration).
Further poems of Marta were read by Polish actress Karolina Szamfeber. Karolina graduated from the acting department of the Polish National Film School in Łódż and went on to work with leading theatre directors including Brazil’s Eduardo Tolentino de Araújo, performing in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and in Polish film and theatre productions. She studied acting in Los Angeles, before deciding to explore London, where she has played in several theatre productions, including as the Duchess in the 17th century play Revenger’s Tragedy. A skilled linguist, Karolina has a degree in legal interpreting in English and Polish.
Next on stage was Kevin Cosgrove. Born in London to Irish parents, his first poems were published in 1994 and he has self-published pamphlets and a book. He graduated from Cambridge University and has been influenced by the poetry of Ovid, Pulitzer Prizewinning Irish poet Paul Muldoon and the great 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson.
Kevin’s selection for the night was two of his untitled poems, the first beginning: Into the room of the half-lit faces/ Walks in the person who is twice as bright/ So that the corners are lit by their light/ And gaps can be seen between the spaces./ As conversation begins to outpace/ The unspoken idea of what is right/ To the brittle conclusions of the night/ And the close of evening’s embraces…
His second well-received poem began: When love told me to wait for the postman/ I sat myself down by the letterbox/ “We’ve been trying to reach your address, man/ But we were unable to force your locks./ We want you to meet us in the clearing/ We have placed it there for you in the woods”
To an insistent and compulsive groove, the energetic ‘dark wave electronica’ virtuosa Iva Marcon, backed by guitarist Fred Meccariello, rounded off the main proceedings with a set that did indeed have an electric impact on the audience. Since 2023, the duo has been active in the electronic project named Aphrodite is The Jackal founded by Iva, an Italian composer and singer.
Originating with 8bit chiptune (a function which uses programmable sound generator chips or synthesisers and is based on video game accompaniments), Dark Wave has been described as producing passionate and sometimes eerie sounds, but perhaps surprisingly, those who encounter it for the first time, find that its message does not have to be aggressive.
We asked Iva to tell us how she came to adopt her remarkable stage name, Aphrodite is The Jackal, and her reply encompassed a deep philosophical outlook.
She said: “The name was chosen by me and a friend in 2017 while living in Los Angeles. It came out of a can of spray, on a wall, somewhere in Downtown LA.
“In Greek mythology Aphrodite Is the Goddess of love. And love is the greatest force that moves life itself. With no love there is no healing. ‘The Jackal’ was taken from the name of a hard techno club I used to go to back in Italy. The club was called Jack Hole, which meant the lair of the Jackal. It was a place of reunion. Every Saturday we were there, dancing to repetitive beats. The experience was very tribal.
“[This was] in the industrial area of the city of Vicenza, which made it somewhat dystopian. We shared the human experience and life in a magical way. In good and bad, exchanging information, learning. I had a few spiritual epiphanies in that location. The strongest one was that we are One: therefore, connected spiritual beings sharing the human experience. Here to learn and make decisions that take us down common or different paths.
“Another interesting thought I had is that ‘if none of us went to the Jack Hole it wouldn’t exist’. Therefore Aphrodite “IS” the Jackal. We are creators creating in this 3D reality, interconnected with multiple dimensions. In 2019 while living in Berlin I had another epiphany and understood that the Jackal is also Anubis, the Egyptian god, the doorkeeper between this and other dimensions.
“Sound is vibration. Everything is energy. Therefore the vibrations of music is magic. Life is magic.”
Federico added: “The underlying idea [that he has followed over the years] is to show the essence of music in the process of making, as a spiritual endeavour and representation of human beings, their soul and inspiration, including all the shortcomings of it, such as the imprecise executing, out-of-beat or out-of-tune sounds, and imperfections. Furthermore, the perspective of the artist embraces the underpinned question mark on how technology affects human beings’ feelings, life and working conditions and in turn how this also impacts the creation of new technologies and the devices deployed (‘what machines did to humans and what have humans done to the machines?’)”
Iva added the word electronica to the characterisation Dark Wave because it is mostly produced with plugins and a laptop. Multi-skilled Iva produces the tracks, which point to her influences musically speaking which “have definitely been electronica, triphop, new metal, rock, reggae and hard techno.”
Her composition The Sea, the Monkey and the Butterfly was inspired by the surrealist Salvador Dali’s 1937 oil painting Ship with Butterfly Sails. Painted during the Spanish Civil War, it depicts a galleon with sails made of butterflies, leaving port and being blown by a strong easterly wind. Iva composed the song “between Italy (2009), Berlin (2020) and Manchester (2022)” to be produced at 160 beats per minute.
Credited to Aphrodite is The Jackal, the lyrics begin: In the eye /of a Monkey in disguise/ I find another I/ Shy I ask if I can go inside/ She smiles, shows me the star I / could ride /… oh now we sit (side by side). In the eye / of this Monkey in disguise… The sea looking at me/ Her purple stormy eyes show me what’s behind the black…
Waiting, a butterfly pours some tea/… She pours her wings to take me away/ To the zone where love beats evil. Musicians for this track are listed as Iva M, Francesco P, Kim H, Hendrik H, Clayton P, Beni and Karlo H. Instruments and digital audio workstations are Elektron Analog Rytm, Massive, Ableton and Elektron Octatrack.
Another track, entitled Louwize, is about the dark side of virtual reality. Iva says: “I do not condemn social media or virtual platforms completely. It is true though that they are bending reality somehow. I start talking about myself, tarot cards and dreams. The lyrics of this song are very much like a dream and go back to seeing Louwize waiting in front of a supermarket watching TikTok videos while there continue to be wars in the world.” An extract: When I/ Looking in the mirror of my mind/ I can find a fuse/ Finally I see you in/ My dream and I called/ and I called… Time flows by/ As a matter of fact it doesn’t even exist/ I insist/ When I found you in front of the supermarket/ Watching all your TikTok…
Iva says that they are seeking to make music stylistically comparable to Bob Marley, or American heavy metal group System of a Down, or radical activist band Rage Against the Machine, except that “we are not political. In my lyrics I treat universal matters, matters of karma and of the soul, of mankind and the collective consciousness. In any case the theme of our tracks aims to be for the awakening of the soul and the heart. I am still learning and evolving, so it’s a bit difficult to say sometimes what is right and what is wrong. I go by feelings but have been studying spiritual matters a lot since the age of 18 in every form, from the Bible, to aliens, to tarot cards, alchemy, esoterism, astrology. Whatever helps in the journey of the soul to become a better human.”
Federico Meccariello is an experienced song writer, guitarist and bass player, based in London, who has played in bands in Italy and the UK. He started a solo project in 2006 recording the self-released and produced album Meccanica, an all-instrumental CD based on the concept of home-music and shaped around thoroughly analysing and expressing a personal stance on the complex advancement of technology in society and the increasingly symbiotic interactions between human beings and machines. That album includes tracks where the electric guitar mimics the noise of devices and appliances used in daily life, such as photocopying, telefax, radio, police sirens etc.
Federico moved in 2015 to the UK and in April 2024 with Iva, in Aphrodite is The Jackal, they recorded their first EP, going live with gigs across the UK.
Federico’s credo is that music is the highest form of artistic expression based on the impromptu and unrepeatable nature of both the creation and representation processes. He says that music “often comes as an irrepressible obsession to the musician both in the form of its purest visualisation of the objective spirit and as a form of individual and collective rebellion to the brutal enslavement of modern society.”
The concept ‘avant-garde’ is hard to define. Years ago, one proponent. the late Patti Astor (she ran her New York street-culture venture Fun Gallery from 1981-85) memorably said that she was challenging the art establishment of the time which was “white wine, white walls, white people; the art world was closed off and boring.”
As to Charles Dickens, his memories of the locality were far from pleasant. He had to work ten hours a day in the blacking factory, wrapping labels on bottles of shoe polish, for six shillings a week, to pay for his attic lodgings in Lant Street.
