Nick Pynn's compositions and musicianship defy category. A regular solo artist at Brighton and Edinburgh Festivals performing original material on violin, dulcimer and guitar, he's also worked as musical director and composer for multimedia community productions, Same Sky dance events, and with Herbie Flowers' Rockshop. From two-man acoustic gigs across the UK with Steve Harley to the pure pop of B*witched on tour and the eccentric and surreal world of Arthur Brown, Nick now plays regularly with Otis Lee Crenshaw (Rich Hall) and is working on his third solo album. www.nickpynn.co.uk

'A virtuoso performance on a series of instruments' Scotland on Sunday
'Unusual instrumentation…an individual voice' Mark Russell, Radio 3
'Exotic food for the ear - bursting with ideas' New Insight
'Excellent…the Pynn fiddle almost on fire" Q

Inspired by 2002, Jane Bom-Bane and Nick Pynn have written a new show of palindromic songs and music, which explores the reversible delights of round-a-way wrong rhythm 'n' rhyme.

Using an unusual combination of instruments - harmonium, violin, dulcimer, mandocello, guitar and theremin - they present an hour of melodies, lyrics and stories based on their various interpretations of the palindrome.

The songs are illustrated by one of Jane Bom-Bane's trademark
mechanical hats - this year's'Rotator' hat.

What they said at a recent preview:
"So Many Dynamos!" Radar
"Wow!" Time Emit
"Net Level: Ten!" Dr.Awkward
"Avid as a diva!" Reviver

Chloe Veltman

* * * *
MUSIC: Smirnoff Underbelly (venue 61)

THERE’S a very obvious yet little-known fact about the year 2002: it’s a palindrome. In honour of this auspicious omen, musicians Jane Bom-Bane and Nick Pynn have created Rotator, an entire show based on words, phrases, melodies and harmonies that read backwards the same as forwards.

While not all of the songs they perform are palindromes in the strictest sense of the word, these magi of mystical word and sound puzzles exploit the idea in some fascinating ways.

Palindromic Love, a beautiful and strange love song that reaches its climax midway with the line, "night becoming noon and noon becoming night," before sliding back on itself like a lapping tide, can literally be sung in reverse order, word by word.

Pynn got the idea for So Many DynamoS, a piece for harmonium, dulcimer and bass pedals, by accidentally putting a tape into a machine upside down. Exploring the palindromic potential of music, the work consists of flowing phrases that abruptly stop, before we hear their mirror image.

The palindromic funhouse doesn’t stop there: there’s Rotator, a song which makes little sense, but nevertheless is palindromatic by the letter; and a bizarre ditty about falling in love with a gangster, which, divided into two parts entitled Boy and yoB, becomes even more surreal in part two when Bom-Bane sings the chorus of the first part backwards. The effect makes the calypso-style song sound like a Welsh hymn.

The combination of Bom-Bane’s sweet, slightly shrill soprano and Pynn’s undulating strings gives each musical riddle an unearthly quality. The riddles are visual too: the old-fashioned wireless mounted on an altar at the front of the stage is put to unanticipated use.

There’s a lot more to Year of the Palindrome than meets the ear and eye.