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Afore Ye Go – A Final Visit to A Year In The Country at Late Junction, Accompanied by Explorations of Pastures New in Starburst and Revisiting a Highland Lament in Willow’s Songs

AYITC image and Late Junction

Just a brief note to say that if you should fancy a listen there is only one day left to listen to the A Year In The Country piece with Verity Sharp on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction:

Day 16-Willows Songs Inside-Finders Keepers-A Year In The Country

Ah well, seeing as it is May the 1st we just had to kick off with that didn’t we? It’s a tune called May Day from The Hare And The Moon. They were a band that once existed but now are they say ‘as ghosts’. Which means that they slot perfectly into a genre called hauntology and that’s something that I’m going to be exploring a little bit later on with Stephen Prince, who works under the guise of A Year In The Country and he goes seeking out what he calls pastoral otherlyness in this sceptred isle.

You don’t have to look very far for it either. I wander how many of you were up at dawn watching your local Morris side dance as the sun came up? And forget maypoles in the imagined town of Scarfolk, children would once again be dancing around that May Pylon.

“And for me personally Beltane is the thing, that ancient Celtic tradition where you can light a big bonfire and join hands with your friends and share thoughts about new beginnings. Let us celebrate all of that tonight…
(Verity Sharp, from the introduction to the show.)

The Advisory Circle-Jon Brooks-Ghost Box RecordsGather In The Mushrooms-Bob Stanley-The British Acid Folk Underground-album-A Year In The CountryThe Duke of Burgundy-Cats Eyes

The Hare And The Moon-2009 album cover art-Reverb Worship-May Day-1px strokethe-forest-the-wald-weekly-track-03-the-hare-and-the-moon-a-year-in-the-country-bcA Coat Worth Wearing-Neil McSweeney

Wander amongst the spectral fields in the company of amongst others the just mentioned The Hare And The Moon, alongside The Advisory Circle, Trader Horne and Cat’s Eyes and enter a land of imagined plenty with Neil Mc Sweeney via the BBC’s iPlayer.

Previous posts about the episode and Late Junction can be found at A Year In The Country here and here.

Thanks again to Verity Sharp and Rebecca Gaskell for inviting me on and putting together the show.

Starburst-issue 448-A Year In The Country Wandering Through Spectral Fields book review

Plus this review for the A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields book recently appeared in issue 448 of Starburst magazine, which was nice to see:

…aimed fiercely at turning over soil in pastures new… if you’re already interested in folk culture and want to be astonished by how deeply its roots run, you’ll treasure A Year In The Country enormously… covers everything from folkloric film and literature to electronic music to acid folk to folk horror to the dystopian fiction of John Wyndham and the classic unearthings of Nigel Kneale to the formation of under-the-furrows record labels like Trunk, Ghost Box and Finders Keepers… there are excursions to Kate Bush and Broadcast, television shows like Children of the Stones and Sapphire & Steel, the psychogeography of the Uncommonly British Days Out books and even a visit to the gentler landscapes of Bagpuss and The Good Life.”

More details on that issue of the magazine here and the review can also be read online here.

Thanks to Ian White and Ed Fortune for that, much appreciated.

Day 16-Willows Songs b-Finders Keepers-A Year In The CountryPS The above maypole image is from the booklet that accompanies the Willow’s Songs album released by Finders Keepers records, which is a collection of 12 vintage recordings of traditional British folksongs that inspired the soundtrack to The Wicker Man.

Well worth seeking out, particularly for the wonderfully evocative version of Highland Lament and its tales of social dispossession.

At the time of writing Willows Songs can be found for but a few pounds on CD at Finders Keepers and in a previous post at A Year In The Country here.

 

Elsewhere:

Elsewhere at A Year In The Country:

 

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