The Mud Ensemble evolved from the need to develop a therapeutic, artistic expression of it’s member’s experience of living on the frontier, on the very edge of so called first and third worlds. The difficulty of defining both the beauty and trauma of this experience has led Mud Ensemble to a mystical aesthetic, in an endevour to continually search out a new language. The Mud Ensemble plays music which is simultaneously intuitive and serious, neo-classical, progressive – obscure. Members of the group draw on the migrated and transformed version of first world classical and avante-garde training, but mostly on the universal mystical power of the arts, to assert Romanticism.

KOOS, Jeppe Lokomotiev, Creed Ensemble, Ensemble Ensemble, Empty Radio Ensemble... Mud Ensemble has seen several incarnations and continues to mutate and evolve through ongoing collaboration.

Juliana Venter, Marcel van Heerden, Thomas Barry, Nick Hauser,
Manya Gietl, Kenny Marshall, Libbie du Toit, Graeme Feltham, Christo Boshoff, Dax.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 

On what wings dare he aspire? 

What the hand, dare seize the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art, 

Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 

And when thy heart began to beat, 

What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain? 

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see? 

Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

ATTRIBUTION

Composition: Mud Ensemble

Lyrics: William Blake

Vocals: Marcel van Heerden Juliana Venter

Bass: Kenneth Marshall

Drums: Nick Hauser

Violin: Libbie du Toit

Video: Thomas Barry