COVENTRY Music Museum curator Pete Chambers BEM writes for the Observer.
The LAMP CD
Over in Leamington Spa, LAMP have released a CD that showcases some of the artists that have benefitted from the organisation.
Leamington LAMP was established as an alternative education provider in 2013 specialising in working with young people with autism and/or high anxiety who struggle in mainstream education settings. It also works with 14 to 19-year-olds, some of whom may have been out of the education system for some time.
The team continues to develop LAMP’s alternative education practice, using its award -winning ingredients – switching young people back to learning by empowering them through their own ideas and creativity. It provides access to cutting edge facilities and engaging young people in the planning of their education.
As well as being proud winners of the National Autistic Society Professionals Award 2019, LAMP was also winners of the 2019 Education Award and was shortlisted for the National Association of Special Educational Needs Awards 2019.
With the generous support of Youth Music, LAMP has produced its first of many albums. All of the tracks on the playlist were composed and performed by neurodiverse young musicians, on the autism spectrum.
This is not your average album – each track from each artist is a testament to their resolve with each track having them say how it is.
This is not throw-away music, this is their real lives. Take the song ‘Misery’ by Electric Blue and her lyric ‘My Father thinks is bad that I write about things so sad, but it’s my life it’s all I have’. WOW! It doesn’t get much more powerful than this.
The whole album has that feeling of artistic defiance, like when Lily Hayes sings the line: ‘You try and put me down with your words, but no, it won’t work this time, don’t you see how far I’ve come’. You know that’s a real life narrative, her life.
Another powerhouse lyric comes from Harry Irvine in the song ‘We Sell Everything’ when he tells us the listener that ‘we are still inside the box’, yeah he’s probably right.
The track-listing looks like this: 1. Who’s That On The TV – Lily Hayes. 2. We Sell Everything – Harry Irvine. 3. Whachuherd – Neko. 4. Nexus – Gxth Marley. 5. Just Believe – Snooping Hog 6. Misery – Electric Blue. 7. Dichotomy – Avery Green. 8. Fierce – JFlo. 9. Ghosts – Niamh Toni. 10. Tugzinoo – Prod OJ. 11. Space – Gxth Marley. 12. Project Big Hair – Ethan Dixon. 13. Danbo – Neko 14. Jettatura – Weaponised Autism.
I can’t stop playing it, it really is that good.
Everyone should support this amazing project (funded by Youth Music) and buy this superb CD.
More information is available www.leamingtonlamp.co.uk.
It’s available on Bandcamp and at Seismic Records in Leamington.
Specials number one again!
Last week in Music Matters we reported the release on Record Store Day of the 2-Tone 10ins release of ‘Jerry Dammers – Demos from the Home Organ ft. Ghost Town plus Theme from The Boiler with John Shipley’.
It was the song recorded on the actual organ we have in the museum and now that song is number one in the vinyl charts, hot on the success of the Ghost Town hitting number one again – also on the vinyl official charts on its 40th anniversary.
