Matthew Herbert will be performing his controversial One Pig at the FutureEverything festival in Manchester before moving onto Brighton on May 21st.

The tantalising smell of bacon, tucking into a hot sausage roll - two of life's simple pleasures relished by many. But how often do we sit back and reflect on the nature of what we're ingesting and how it transmogrified from a living creature to a lump of edible flesh? Probably not that often and probably not in such an unorthodox way as Matthew Herbert.

Continuing his dalliance with music and food and as part of his trilogy of 'One' albums made from single sounds, the intrepid electronic music producer recorded the life of a pig from birth to the abbatoir and onto the plate then turned the sounds into a highly challenging and disquieting electronic music album in 2011.

For the live performance of the album, a unique instrument, a 'Styharp,' was created to mimic the habitat of the pig and form a physical 'sty'.  The instrument is used in the show to, 'trigger, control and and effect sounds in real time by pulling, plucking, and twisting the strings.'

Never intended as an exercise in lurid fascination, artistic irony or even a call to vegetarianism, One Pig boldly invites us to consider the more egregious components of food production, invisible suffering and  nose-to-tail eating as well as honour the lives of the animals that enrich our lives and provide for us.

Photos courtesy of Marc Sethi.