Graham Dunning

This weekend I visited The Nest in Oxford, which is the new home for the Mammoth Beat Organ, to show the custodians the ropes and make some mechanical noises. The Nest is a “wholly inclusive space for young people wanting to express themselves through music,” based centrally in Oxford in a formerly empty shop space and ran by YWMP. Since getting set up in the space in mid-2025 they’ve hosted over 30 gigs, plus weekly hangouts, various courses and recording sessions. They have an active Safer Spaces policy to encourage accessibility and engagement from people who are underrepresented in music, and evidence of this can be seen in the space, including very visible safety protocols and things like free bike light and hi-vis hire and lift-sharing so people can get home safely.

The Mammoth Beat Organ is a big mechanical musical instrument, it takes up a lot of space. It was formerly kept in Sam Underwood’s workshop where we built it together. Sam and Beck have recently sold their house and alll their belogings to travel the world by bicycle – you can follow their progress at bimblingbybike.com – so the MBO became homeless. YWMP are kindly looking after it, with the plan to get some young people using it to make beats, drones and scraping noises – exploring the world of experimental mechanical music.

Me and two of the staff at The Nest started the day building the MBO. Though it’s big it’s designed to be somewhat portable, and various parts can be dismantled. Having assembled the parts and got everything in position we started the motor and everything was working fine. The drum module is possibly the most complex, with different gearing for different time signitures, a variety of cams in divisions of 4/8/16, 8 / 7 / 5 etc., and a load of different beaters to choose from. The air sequencer module has its own ideosyncracies too, and needs to be connected to the bellows (or a big pink balloon) in order to play. Swapping round organ pipes is a nice way to create variation in patterns, and as an unusual way of interacting with a sequencer is perhaps not the most intuitive way to play an instrument. The various noise makers – tombola, drone drum, rotating bin – on the utility module all required their own explanations. And finally the bass banjo with various different pluckers, hurdy-gurdy wheels and dampners.

I’ve got a few video clips to share which I’ll post here once I have time to edit them together. Hopefully the Nest crew will keep me updated with any future MBO activities, which I’ll share here too.