Lea Cummings
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Lea Cummings is a British musician and artist. Born in September 1974 in Lancaster and currently based in Glasgow, Cummings was the bassist for hardcore rock trio Phobophilia for some years before leaving to form Opaque in 1997. Although the line-up of Opaque has changed on several occasions with Cummings the only constant, the unit built up an extensive discography, culminating with the release of the New Ways To Criticise CD in 2004 and a full European tour in July of that year. Their live performances could polarise opinion, with one particularly volatile show captured on the Live In Dundee 28.11.02 EP; an audience member disliked the group so much that he unplugged one of the amplifiers. Opaque was put on hold in 2004 with Cummings beginning a series of new projects, most notably his Kovorox Sound label which provided a platform for most of his new music and that of peers whom Cummings admired and respected, including Birds Of Delay, Birchville Cat Motel Noma and Nackt Insecten as well as artists from as far afield as Russia and China. However, he has become best known performing solo as Kylie Minoise, garnering a considerable reputation for his loud, confrontational Live Aktions which are often brief and invariably culminate in broken microphones and, occasionally, in personal injury. Described in The Wire (issue 274) as "a short sharp shock of slobbering one-man hara-kiri and gonzo pantomime nihilism", these performances capture the raw, cathartic spontaneity of Cummings' aesthetic and he has toured extensively with this project. Interviewed by Plan B, he said "Kylie Minoise is the side of me that likes to make a few cracks in normality, cause a bit of discomfort and increase a few pulses" (issue 17, Dec 2006/Jan 2007).
Cummings is also developing a reputation for his visual artwork and has recently enjoyed his first solo exhibition An Involuntary Movement. In the programme, he described his art as "work that contains movement and does not remain static on a flat canvas; work open to individual interpretation. I use repetition and layers of basic colour"[1].
More recently, he has begun KMVSNI, a head-to-head with Sanachan's Nackt Insecten and recommenced work on Opaque, with new material set for release in 2007. In April 2006, he undertook a month-long Kovorox Sound European tour both as Kylie Minoise and as a member of Temple Of Static Christ (with Sanachan and Alan Sinclair), with Noma and Nackt Insecten completing the bill. The label and tour were the subject of an hour-long special on Belgium's Radio Panik. He undertook a 5 date tour of Russia in September 2006, an experience he described to Plan B as "the most extreme two weeks of my life", and performed in Poland in December. He performed at the Instal festival both as Kylie Minoise and as leader of Opaque and released a new Kylie Minoise album Spank Magic Lodge, described by Volcanic Tongue as "the broadest overview of his work to date, running from short assaultive fists and cut-up junk through a beautiful cream of extended psychedelic tone and works as the perfect way in to his intensely personal sound-world"[2].
