Music review: Flit

Leave-taking is a common theme in folk music and Lau accordionist Martin Green has tapped into that universality in the creation of Flit, a theatrically presented song cycle about migration which reunited him with previous collaborators Becky Unthank and Adrian Utley, while adding Mogwai bassist Dominic Aitchison, Edinburgh folk singer Adam Holmes, the songwriting skills of Karine Polwart, Sandy Wright, Anais Mitchell and Aidan Moffat and the handmade visuals of local animation duo white­robot to the picture.

FLIT sees award winning composer Martin Green bring together a live music score over animation by BAFTA winning animators whiterobot.

Star rating: ****

Venue: EICC

Green passionately makes the connection between his displaced grandparents who came to the UK on the Kindertransport before the Second World War and the treatment of migrants today but, political though this huge subject is, the writers have concentrated on the common humanity of migration, invoking imagery of trains, birds, oceans, suitcases, some of which was echoed in the narrative about a storm destroying a family home, forcing them to flee.

Film and stage set were hewn from brown packing paper with its associations of being sent around the world; the eerie twinkle and glistening whimsy of the music from a mix of distortion and effects, overlaid with the two most arresting instruments – Unthank’s haunting, breathy voice and Holmes’ rich, evocative baritone, bearing witness with grace, honesty and inescapable sadness.

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