Every night is an
experiment
Then we pass these briefs to our chef Adam
Thomasson and perfumer Sarah McCartney
with some placement ideas, such as where the
taste or perfume will come and at what point
in the performance, and what we want to evoke
from the music, like harmony, dissonance,
earthiness, lightness, silk, silence.
How did you choose the tastes – the
chocolate with flowers, the raw beetroot
– and why these flavour combinations?
Adam, our chef, came up with it all. We will give
Adam a series of sensations that the group of
devisors want the taste to enhance, and he will
come back with ideas.
For instance, the chocolate ganash and sechuan
bud (which gives the sensation of a mild electric
shock) came about because we wanted to echo
a moment in the music where this cloudy synth
overwhelms the whole sound. We gave Adam
sensations of enlivening fizz and he came back
with this curious taste.
Have you ever had any synaesthetes take
part in the performance, and what have
they said about it?
Yes! It’s very mixed. Some have increased sensory
experiences – more colours and shapes. Others
are interested in how it exposes the truth about
their own synaesthesia; if they are able to agree
or disagree. It puts their own synaesthesia into
high definition.
What does BitterSuite have in store for
the future?
LOTS of exciting plans coming up!
Hopefully we will be having our first NYC
concert in April and a series of concerts in
London from April through to December. We’d
like to travel to France and anywhere else the
performances are wanted! We have big oneto-one installations as well as small moveable
installations,too, so hopefully we can travel
around the UK a bit more with these. Let’s see!