Sedbergh Music Festival 2010

Seaming To and Semay Wu

Seaming To and Semay Wu first worked together in Ninja Tunes’ Homelife over ten years ago, a highly influential Manchester band that helped shape their ideas on how a variety of musical styles can still fuse a very personal and fluid sound. They perform regularly as Mayming as well as with highly regarded musicians and performers including; Jean-Claude Vannier, The Earlies, Robert Wyatt, King Creosote, Mr. Scruff, Herbaliser and Graham Massey. They have also worked extensively in community and theatre projects, including; Forkbeard Fantasy, Punch Drunk and The Long Walk; a major community project that won the arts council funding award in 2007. Their project as Mayming is one of the more innovative and inspiring acts in the North West. They are both from a classically trained background and their music is charged with a variety of influences, forging a highly experimental and haunting sound that has reached an unusually wide-ranging audience. Semay uses the cello as a subtle and powerful instrument that complements and drives Seaming’s stunning vocals. Both are looped and sampled to create a hypnotic free-form soundscape delivering a consistently emotive human story. There is a sense of haunting torch song dramatics adapting to a new world of technical possibilities. A highly cinematic and evocative sound that can shape-shift into diverse environments, turning the most unlikely of venues into their personal world.