TROUT HOUSE REPLICA
TROUT HOUSE REPLICA (2023-24)
"Trout House Replica" is a scale reconstruction of the "Red Room" from Captain Beefheart's Los Angeles house, where the Magic Band lived in isolation for eight months while creating their influential 1969 album Trout Mask Replica. Beefheart essentially kept his band captive in this room, drilling them obsessively on impossible parts, pushing them beyond normal musical competence into something genuinely alien. The resulting album bridges formal innovation and popular song structures - it has verse-chorus forms and guitar-based rock music, but with radically experimental rhythms, harmonies, and production. When released in 1969, it was largely ignored by mainstream audiences. Rock critics championed it instead, positioning it as "difficult art" rather than radical popular music. It became a cultural shibboleth - proof of your avant-garde credentials if you could appreciate it.
Through residencies, performances, and collaborative work, participating artists were invited to engage with this history by asking: what if Beefheart's fractured rhythms and radical innovations had been celebrated by the public rather than dismissed? What if these innovations had become mainstream rather than remaining marginalised? How might popular music have evolved differently? Contributing artists included Andy Abbott, Ray Aggs (Trash Kit), a.P.A.t.T., Agathe de Bailliencourt, Britizen Kane, Bryan Biggs, Gina Birch, Celebratory Cake, Paula Chambers, Sophie Cooper, Alan Dunn & Merseytrout, Dani Ingham & Olli Tipling, Vanessa Govinden & Jagun Meseoria (Whitelands), Malcolm Garrett, Helen McCookerybook, Nguvu, Novacane, Redell Olsen, Shoehorn, Slumberman, Chardine Taylor-Stone, David Wilkinson & Jon Gardner (Mamas of Dada), Bianca Wilson (Peg Wells), Joan the Wad & Thought Universe, and Gillian Wylde.
The project was created in collaboration with artist Derek Tyman as part of "Rooms to Live", which ran at Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre from November 2023 to February 2024. The project was funded by Arts Council England and Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre, Bury, UK.