Okay, I was expecting the theatre to be there, I’m not generally in the habit of wandering into damp, smelly tunnels in the hope of finding entertainment. No matter what you’ve heard. I was there because the Old Vic has commandeered part of the space deep underneath the train station for a series of events this year.

Last week saw two performances of graphic novel writer Alan Moore’s new spoken word album, ‘Unearthing’, with musical backing provided by Crook&Flail (aka Adam ‘Doseone’ Drucker and Fog’s Andrew Broder).

On paper, it doesn’t sound like much: Alan Moore delivers a biography of one of his friends, writer Steve Moore (no relation), set to abstract electronic music with accompanying photographs by Mitch Jenkins projected on a screen behind the stage. In fact, it sounds quite pretentious. And maybe it was a little, but that was easily diffused by Moore’s fantastic writing and unforced humour, all delivered in his distinct Northampton accent.

The story, told over the course of three hours (with two fifteen minute intervals), was far more grand, epic even, than you could possibly expect of a biography of a comic writer who has lived in the same house in Shooter’s Hill – “where Kent begins and London disappears” – for his entire life, save for a misjudged period of three months. It goes back through the history of the area, treating it as much as a character as anyone or anything else in the story, and through the eventual meeting of his parents before getting on to his travels through the words of comics and the occult.

As Moore spoke, Drucker and Broder’s soundtrack (played with the help of Jeff ‘Jel’ Logan), swooped and swelled behind him, rising up to add to the drama, or falling completely away to punctuate the story. Jenkins’ photography and graphical interpretations added yet more tone and colour, though the focus was always the words.

In fact, perhaps the most impressive thing was the delivery of the words. In three hours, Moore never fluffed one of them. Never stumbled, coughed or even, as far as I could hear, breathed. It was a completely hypnotic, gripping and intense show; that intensity ramped up by the fact that we were sitting in a damp, dark tunnel with rusted corrugated iron hanging from the ceiling and the entire space often shaken around us by the deep rumble of overhead trains. Simply stunning.

Taken from my editorial in this edition of CMU Weekly.

But what would a mixtape be without guests? Nothing, that’s what. So it’s lucky theFREEhoudini is packed full of them. Pretty much anyone you could name from the Anticon family is in there, including a very briefly reformed cLOUDEAD, as well as Buck 65, Aesop Rock, Busdriver, Lionesque, Slug Of Atmosphere, D-Styles, DJ Baku, Pedestrian, Sole, and Serengeti. And it was all mixed down by Odd Nosdam too, which was nice of him.

The download version is 40 minutes long and features no real surprises for anyone who’s familiar with Themselves, cLOUDDEAD, Subtle or any of the myriad projects that have involved Doseone and/or Jel in some way, but that doesn’t make this any less worth listening to. Their sound isn’t the only thing recognisable about them – the endless attention to quality control is in there, and each and every guest turns in a storming performance, with plenty of rapid fire rapping to warm up your ears.

All in all, it should be more than enough to convince you to part with your cash for the deluxe CD version of theFREEhoudini, which features an extra 16 minutes of music and some more guests – Passage, Alias and Fog’s Andrew Broder.

Go and download it from www.anticon.com/thefreehoudini/

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