In the midst of the Lockdown, whilst realising that everything he usually does is a collaboration with a group of people standing in the same room, Phil came across a Lou Reed interview where Lou talked about writing the song Vicious and about how it was an assignment from Andy Warhol. Andy gave Lou the title and the first line and, according to Lou, the rest was easy because it became about finishing an assignment. The first difficult step had been done by someone else. Phil then wrote to some fellow artist colleagues around the planet and asked them for an assignment – the title and first line of a song – Maybe there’s a song they’d like to hear that no-one’s written yet?
ASSIGNMENTS #1 contains seven songs written by Phil
after song titles and and first lines were suggested by:
Jacob Wren – a writer and performance-maker based in Montreal
Paloma Ayala – an artist focusing on social-based artistic practices, originally from Mexico, now based in Switzerland
Charbel Haber – a composer, performer and songwriter from Beirut, Lebanon
Erin Hawkins – a writer and teacher living in Ontario, Canada
Renée van Trier – a musician, performer and painter from Tilburg, Netherlands
