Tough Sell presents a hellish, twisted night of clown shit, including a full-length performance piece from dance and sound artist Samir Kennedy, and a characteristically deranged, spasmodic set from musician Laurie Tompkins. + Adam Reid (Schwet) DJ’ing before, between and after.

SAMIR KENNEDY - CHAOS BALLAD

Welcome to the pathetic world of Samir Campaign - nobodies favourite sad fuck faggot clown.

C’est le fin de la soirée, his inauguration into the world of the living. But will he make it? He rehearses and rehearses and rehearses a never ending rehearsal for a show that will never be. What vortex of sadness will he be sucked into now, and in turn suck you into along with him?

CHAOS BALLAD lurks somewhere between concert, cabaret and nightmare, bearing witness to the attempts of Samir Campaign as he just keeps on keeping on going in a world filled with terror, the terror of boredom and the boredom of terror.

Samir Kennedy is a British/Algerian dance, performance and sound artist based between the UK and France. He makes interdisciplinary works across video, sound, choreography and performance which centre the body as a site from which to perform notions of class, race, otherness, queerness and abjection using archetypal figures (such as the devil, the zombie, the clown) as vehicles from the collective consciousness which drive complex readings.

LAURIE TOMPKINS

Laurie Tompkins writes and performs playful, erratic music. From scores for samples, instruments and voices he creates a grabbable music that dreams and confounds. Bodies, things, words, and sounds strain under duress, looping their way through scenes of grubby presence, not-quite riff, mouldy echo, and swollen bombast. 

Releases of Laurie’s include ‘Sharp Love Slow Faint’ (2022) with Eliza McCarthy and Ashley Paul, ‘Ample Profanity' (2018), with cellist Oliver Coates; 'Heat, War, Sweat, Law' (2016); and 'Exorcise' (2021), as Yes Indeed with bassist Otto Willberg, justly hailed as “proper, mad scones” (Boomkat). He is co-founder of the Slip label which has released music by Yeah You, Mica Levi, Jules Reidy, Bass Clef, Object Collection, ilgendo, Chaines & Competition.

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TOUGH SELL says: Samir’s work is one-of-a-kind. Frightening, melancholy and kind of beautiful all at once - DIY performance making at its weirdest, unlikely best. Complemented by Laurie's croaks, cries and contortions, beloved among those who like their music unruly and impish. This one’s for the freaks and the weirdos.