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1982: Richard – The Corn Mother 29/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

I’ve been working on this film for far too long now. I’m not sure if it’ll ever be finished. I don’t know where the director is today, I’m not sure anybody does. It won’t make all that much difference if he does turn up, the state he’s likely to be in. It’s the booze you see. And that’s probably the least of it. Some people have a cup of tea and an egg on toast for breakfast. Not him. Not that I’ve ever seen. Breakfasts for him are a bit more likely to be purely liquid in form, and poured from a bottle that’s lucky if it’s survived from the day before.

I’m not all that high-up in the hierarchy of filmmaking, I never really have been and I’m not sure if I want to be. Yeh, I know, the higher up you go the more kudos you get, the more money. Also, though, the more politics and nonsense you have to deal with. The more likely it is that your ego will climb higher with you.

No, I’m not that important but without me, or all the unsung folk like me, your hour and a half or so of escape in the dream palace would be a blurry mess and the sound all over the place. And not in an arthouse manner. No, just a mess.

Which brings me back to this film. I’m not sure quite what it is that we’re making. Some days I think it’s more an intellectual arthouse piece, others it seems more like yet another of those films that are full of shock and horror, aimed directly at the shelves of the video rental shops that have sprung up across the land.

Those places are like stepping into an untamed frontier of culture. One that’s busy not even testing boundaries but just doesn’t even know that they exist. Nothing’s legally certified and I don’t know about you but at one of my local ones you’re as likely to be given a bootleg copy when you rent a film as the official cassette.

 

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1982: Gines – The Corn Mother 28/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

That Alain. Thinks he’s God’s gift to filmmaking. Made a few arty films that crossed over and made a bit of money and he still thinks he’s got it, still thinks he can do what he likes.

Well, this is my money he’s playing with. My hard-earned cash. If he thinks he’s sneaking all his highbrow ideas into the film he’s wrong. I want paying punters for this one, for all of them actually, not just column inches in the broadsheets.

He’s off the film. I’m telling him tonight. I know he’ll kick up a fuss but what can he do? He’s got the rights to nothing. They’re all mine.

 

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1982: Peter – The Corn Mother 27/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

Remember I said I wasn’t going to have all that much to do with the production of the film? That’s not quite what happened. It turns out that Alain was directing it, he got in touch with me, and the next thing I knew I was on set, making last minute changes to the script and tucking into the catering.

Mary wasn’t happy of course. I had to take an unpaid sabbatical from work but… well, I just had to do it.

I’d never been on a filmset before. There was a lot of sitting around waiting for things to be set up, take after take of some shots. And then there’s the British weather. Maybe setting a fair bit of the story in the country and outside wasn’t such a good idea. We had a particularly wet September but I managed to work some of that into the revisions. Storm-drenched villagers cowering from the rain and their guilt. I think it worked pretty well.

I’m looking forward to seeing the finished thing. I’ve got a vision in my mind’s eye of how its going to look but its hard to know for definite until you see it fully edited and finalised.

 

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Songs for A Year In The Country

The final main chapter in the new A Year In The Country: Lost Transmissions book is an Appendix called Songs for A Year In The Country which contains a list and writing about some of the songs that have variously acted as signposts, touchstones, significant markers and discoveries for A Year In The Country.

There’s also a Spotify playlist for the list which can be listened to via this link.

In some ways the list is also a form of Desert Island Discs but, reflecting the passage of the year, there are 52 songs, as there are weeks in the year, rather than the eight which the guests on the BBC Radio show choose for their imaginary time as castaways.

With that in mind, the selection includes some of the songs that I find myself repeatedly returning to, ones that I’d “save from the waves” or bundle up to take into the storm shelter if a Wizard of Oz-esque twister appeared on the horizon.

Below are some “rules” about the songs etc, which have been slightly relaxed since I posted the first 26 of these songs at the A Year In The Country site in 2021:

  1. No songs by or featuring myself.
  2. No television, film etc intro sequence theme tunes and so on that haven’t been commercially released on record, CD, streaming services etc.
  3. One song per artist.
  4. Only one version of a song and only one appearance by each performer.
  5. All songs must be available to listen to on mainstream streaming and download services (Spotify in particular but as “they” say “other services are available” and so they may also be available at Apple Music, Deezer etc).
  6. Further reflecting the cycle/weeks of the year, the writing that accompanies each song includes no more than 52 words.

And so, without further ado below is the list and the writing from the book chapter…

1. Magnet and Paul Giovanni’s “Gently Johnny” from The Wicker Man Soundtrack: It seems rather appropriate to begin this set of Songs for A Year In The Country with a visit to Summerisle, via this song which conjures a sense of a timeless and atemporal world…

2. Cat’s Eyes’ “The Duke of Burgundy” from The Duke of Burgundy Soundtrack: To quote myself on Radio 4’s Late Junction “[The Duke of Burgundy] seems to exist outside of time, almost in an imaginary never never European hinterland… and the track… has an [accompanying] hazy, dreamlike, almost half-remembered sense of being a semi-lost pop treasure from a time you can’t quite place.”

3. The Advisory Circle’s “And the Cuckoo Comes” from Mind How You Go: An early inspiration and reference point for A Year In The Country… a swirling pastoral “ghost box” of time out of joint.

4. Broadcast’s “Tears in the Typing Pool” from Tender Buttons: A subtly hazy dreamscape take on British New Wave cinema… and I always think “Interpret the rooms” is “Interpret the runes”.

5. Archie Fisher’s “Orfeo” from the album of the same name: This has a mystical, epic, cinematic folkloric quality and it has lodged in my mind for a fair few years now after I discovered it via an online mix compiled by members of The Owl Service folk rock collective called “An Introduction to the Roots of Psych-Folk”.

6. Jane Weaver Septième Soeur’s “Silver Chord” from The Fallen by Watchbird: The final track on The Fallen by Watchbird conceptual pop project album of “cosmic aquatic folklore”… the soundtrack to a Czech New Wave film from the edges of imagination…

7. Audrey Copard’s “Died for Love” from English Folk Songs: As also recorded by sometimes A Year In Countrycontributors Lutine… there’s a purity and simplicity to this 1956 version that feels like a moment of peace and calm.

8. Belbury Poly’s “The Geography” from The Belbury Tales: If Boards of Canada had recorded a female singer who was accompanying Archie Fisher on his aforementioned epic cinematic folkloric track “Orfeo” it might sound a little like this. Somewhere in a parallel universe, records that sound like this gave Fatboy Slim a run for his money in the pop charts.

9. Midnight Movies’ “Just to Play” from their eponymous album: Otherworldly pop with shades of Nico and Broadcast, all wrapped up in artwork by Julian House of Ghost Box Records. A B-side discovered a fair old time ago now via the “lucky dip”-esque racks of cheap promo CD singles that you used to find in second hand record shops.

10. Emerald Web’s “Flight of the Raven” from Dragon Wings and Wizard Tales: A rare vocal track from cosmic new age synth explorers Emerald Web… an arpeggiated fairy tale flight of fantasy…

11. The United States of America’s “Cloud Song” from their eponymous album: Gentle, drifting, softly woozy psych-ambient from 1968… Apparently the band were an influence on Broadcast and Portishead…

12. Kate Bush’s “Oh England My Lionheart” from Lionheart: Early(ish) Kate Bush that perfectly captures the otherly pastoral fantasia aspects of her work.

13. Midwinter’s “Sanctuary Stone” from The Waters of Sweet Sorrow: Early 1970s acid/psych folk rock that for a long time wasn’t even a privately pressed rarity but rather the master tapes sat in one of the band’s attics for a fair few years until eventually being released 20 years later. Enchanting work and well worth the wait(!).

14. Trader Horne’s “Morning Way” from Morning Way: I think more than any other song, this title track from Trader Horne’s 1970 album was responsible for opening something in my mind with regards to folk music and culture…

15. Boards of Canada’s “Gemini” from Tomorrow’s Harvest: There’s an ache and loss to “Gemini” and at times it makes me think of the soundtrack to a Bladerunner-esque slowly cancelled future, if it had been recorded in a dream and then the tapes left to quietly degrade for half a century or more as they slowly absorbed lost radio frequencies…

16. The Eccentronic Research Council’s “Another Witch Is Dead (Trad.)” from 1612 Underture: Non-populist pop from The Eccentronic Research Council’s “fakeloric sonic pilgrimage to the home of the Pendle witches” album. And it is mostly definitely “pop” music… in another of those (proliferating) para-
llel universes I can remember watching the band performing it on Top of the Pops.

17. Pentangle’s “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme” from The Pentangle: Traditional folk as reimagined in a smoky jazz club basement back when… the song made a surprising and rather welcome appearance in Ben Wheatley’s at times lushly dreamscape-like gothic romance film Rebecca.

18. Johnny Flynn’s “Detectorists” from the television series’ soundtrack: Uplifting and gently, melancholically heart breaking at the same time. That seems to make it somewhat appropriate as the title track for Detectorists. A lovely, entrancing contemporary take on folk music.

19. Silly Sisters’ “Fine Horseman” from No More to the Dance: Maddy Prior and June Tabor’s cover of Lal Waterson’s “Fine Horseman” which conjures a gently fluttering world unto itself (which towards the end wanders off into a guitar solo that always makes me think of the Edge of Darkness soundtrack).

20. John Carpenter and Alan Howarth’s “Main Title” from the Halloween III: Season of the Witch soundtrack: For myself Halloween III is possibly the most “Carpenter-esque” John Carpenter soundtrack. The film itself is an intriguing and curious piece of work that via its plot’s use of fragments of stone from Stonehenge that contain an ancient mysterious power still reverberates with echoes of Nigel Kneale’s apparently considerably revised original script.

21. Burial’s “Nightmarket” from Tunes 2011-2019: The soundtrack to a fractured urban landscape… spectres of spectres of dreams and hopes lost in a soundscape awash with static…

22. Steeleye Span’s “All Around My Hat” from the album of the same name: Folk goes pop by way of The Wombles. A version of the sung produced by Mike Batt, who also created The Wombles band, and was a top five hit back in 1975, just after The Wombles had albums in the UK charts for more weeks than any other act in 1974. Blimey.

23. Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner’s “The Miller’s Song” from the Bagpuss Soundtrack: Gently lilting, life affirming pastoral folk to soundtrack what Andy Votel of Finders Keeper’s records called a post-dinnertime “secret shop window” and the work of a beloved saggy old cloth cat and friends.

24. Espers’ “Dead Queen” from II: Released in 2006 this song still sounds decidedly contemporary while also being part of a lineage of reimaginings of folk that can be traced back to 1960s and 1970s acid/psych folk. As with many of the “Songs for a Year In The Country” it conjures a world, time and space of its own…

25. Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer’s “Original Theme/Main Title” from the Doctor Who soundtrack: 1963. The BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Adventures in space and time (and sound). The root of so much.

26. Oberon’s “Nottamun Town” from A Midsummer’s Night Dream: Stepping back to 1971 and this rather lovely version of a traditional folk song on an album which was originally released in a privately pressed edition of just 99 copies. Something to drift off and away with…

27. Simple Minds’ “I Travel” from Empires and Dance: To quote Bobby Gillespie, this is a slice of “really hard Euro disco” that still sounds like the shape of the future’s past today. Pair with “Today I Died Again” that follows “I Travel” on the album, which is an intriguing dystopic Cold War fever dream puzzle of a song.

28. Andy Votel’s “Return of the Spooky Driver” from Styles of the Unexpected: As I write elsewhere in the book, this has in part a glitchy spectral melancholia that wouldn’t seem out of place amongst contemporary hauntology; along which lines, it could be filed alongside Bridge and Tunnel, whose music shared similar characteristics and both could be seen as turn of the millennium hauntology precursors.

29. Noel Harrison’s “The Great Electric Experiment is Over” from the album of the same name: Opening with swirling unidentifiable noises this is a curiously upbeat post-apocalyptic slice of Americana sung in an almost received pronunciation way by a narrator who seems pleased that the modern ways have ended and now he can just enjoy watching the flowers grow on ruined city streets.

30. Hot Chocolate’s “Cicero Park” from the album of the same name: Not yet post-apocalyptic but heading towards a Soylent Green-like future where “concrete trees” have sprung up everywhere and are swamping nature. File under when pop goes odd alongside Roger Whittaker’s theme song for No Blade of Grass where we’ve reached the stars but flowers no longer bloom below our feet.

31. Sinoia Cave’s “Forever Dilating Eye” from the Beyond the Black Rainbow soundtrack: If you stumbled on a room full of John Carpenter’s synths from the early 1980s and proceeded to soundtrack a film which was a “Reagan era fever dream” it might well sound like this. An ominous, hypnotic entry point to “the new age of enlightenment”.

32. Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society’s “Blue Filter” from the duo’s eponymous album: As I discuss elsewhere in the book this makes me think of Brian Eno’s older ambient albums if they’d gone a bit more techno but were still beatless. It has a lovely warm vintage sound without being overly retro and I can listen to the wonderfully enveloping sub-bass dives again and again.

33. Earl Brutus’ “The S.A.S. and the Glam that Goes with It” from Tonight You Are the Special One: A rabble-rousing call to arms from an art project of a band that sound like they were thought up while listening to glam rock, The Fall and Kraftwerk and obsessing about “the age of the train” after too long an afternoon in a slightly dodgy pub that does a nice carvery.

34. Graeme Miller and Steve Shill’s “A Long Paleness” from the soundtrack to The Carrier Frequency: They just don’t make them like this anymore. Rescued by Finders Keepers Records from the faded history and furthest fringes of arthouse theatre. Experimental, accessible, haunting. Beautiful.

35. Sidney Sager and The Ambrosian Singers’ “Children of the Stones Opening Title” from the television series’ original soundtrack: And while we’re talking about rescuing artifacts from far flung corners of culture, hats off to Jonny Trunk and Alan Gubby for their years long dedication in bringing about an official release of the music to one of thewyrd and hauntological television touchstones.

36. Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” from Big Science: And while we’re talking about arthouse takes on things, well what should this be filed under? Arthouse pop perhaps? Missing the top slot in the UK charts by just a sliver it seems to point towards a lost future of experimental pop that is still going strong in a parallel universe somewhere.

37. Roxy Music “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” from For Your Pleasure: Stunning dystopic art pop rock played by a bunch of aliens in sparkles and feathers fronted by Bryan Ferry at his “plastic vampire” peak. In an alternate timeline their live performance of this from a 1973 episode of TV’s Old Grey Whistle Test is the only thing ever broadcast on state TV.

38. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s “A Song for Europa” from Orphée: A neo-classical soundtrack to accompany secrets plucked from the radio waves. An unknown broadcaster counts out numbers’ station codes and the world tilts on its axis once again.

39. Death in Vegas’ “Witch Dance” from Trans-Love Energies: A non-folk folk horror exploration of woozy lysergic post-dance electronic non-pop pop that plays as a hooded figure on horseback looks up at the sun rising through the forest and wanders if this may be the last of days.

40. The Detox Twins’ “Dreaming of Florida” single: Post post-electroclash yearning and travels in an imagined dreamscape. When the regime changes in one of those previously mentioned parallel universes, this will be the only thing broadcast on state radio while Sapphire & Steel plays “always and forever” on TV.

41. Kittin’s “Are You There?” from Cosmos: Further post post-electroclash by one of the originators of that now near forgotten moment in music and cultural time. Wistful, melancholic conceptronic pop that gently calls out to the cosmos as we slumber in our dreams.

42. DJ Hell’s “Car Car Car” from Zukunfstmusik: A post post-electroclash Kraftwerkian visit to the shape of the future’s past by another of the originators of that “near forgotten moment in music and cultural time”. A playful, joyous and subtly dystopian paean to our automobile “homes”, friends and refuges. File alongside Gary Numan’s “Cars”.

43. Sproatly Smith’s “Rosebud in June” from Times Is N’ Times Was: Here I’ll hand you over to The Gaping Silencewebsite: “…like something from The Wicker Man, if The Wicker Man had been a 1960s children’s TV series about time travel.” Traditional folk, folk rock and acid/psych folk reimagined for a “wyrd” cultural landscape. Lilting and lovely.

44. A. Cooper and S. McLoughlin’s: “Hexagons Above Dovestones” from Garden of Mirrors/Supernatural Lancashire Volume 2:This conjures just out of reach visions of an imaginary television series that was made a few years after that “1960s children’s TV series about time travel” when esoteric beliefs had gained a foothold or more in mainstream culture and broadcasting.

45. Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood’s “Some Velvet Morning” from Movin’ With Nancy: Enigmatic, mystical, gently strung-out pop from the soundtrack to Nancy Sinatra’s “Movin’ with Nancy” 1967 TV special where even the advert breaks exist in and belong to a dreamscape pop fantasia and which is well worth seeking out and taking a balloon ride away from it all with.

46. Satoshi Ashikawa’s “Still Space” from Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990: A moment of calm from a compilation which curates Japanese kankyō ongaku or environmental music, which through in part being sponsored by corporations in the 1980s and subsequently seeping into everyday life through being used in shops etc has parallels with the BBC Radiophonic Workshops’ “sneaking” of electronic music into Britain.

47. The Owl Service’s “Willie O’Winsbury” from The View from a Hill: A reimagining of folk rock by one of the first bands I discovered when I began discovering wyrd, hauntological etc culture. An upbeat, life affirming version of a traditional song that, if you listen to the lyrics, has at points an intriguing transgressing of social norms quality.

48. The Shock Headed Peters’ “I, Bloodbrother Be” from The Ruling Class – The Very Best of él Records: And while we’re talking about transgressing social norms… this was the first ever release on él Records, which for myself is one of the pinnacles of record labels creating their own parallel worlds, something which I still find myself drawn to in the likes of Ghost Box Records’ work…

49. Paul Weller’s “In Another Room” from the EP of the same name: Which in turn brings me to this track by Paul Weller, released on Ghost Box Records. I didn’t think I would ever be writing a sentence like that but I’m glad I can… intriguing, mysterious and melodic experimentation from somebody who is no stranger to creating his own parallel worlds.

50. Matt Berry’s “World in Action” from Television Themes: The theme song for the investigative current affairs programme from Matt Berry’s album of subtly reimagined classic TV theme songs. This is thrillingly nostalgic to hear, while also causing some part of my mind to travel back decades ago and worry about what threats to the world I was about to watch.

51. The Wombles’ “The Wombling Song” from The W Factor – 20 Wombling Greats: Once upon a time The Wombles were recycling television and pop music superstars and looking back, I think that alongside Bagpuss they were one of the “gentle wyrd” signposts that led to A Year In The Country. For myself, this and the glam stomp “Remember You’re a Womble” are their classics…

52. Coil’s “Going Up” from The Ape of Naples: Which brings me to other “beings” in furry suits… A sad, uplifting, playful hymn to those who are lost. Coil’s “hidden reverse” casts a long shadow across the cultural landscape that I’ve explored via A Year In The Country and it seems appropriate to end this particular part of its journey here.

 

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The A Year In The Country: Lost Transmissions book released

Dystopic Visions, Alternate Realities, Paranormal Quests and Exploratory Electronica

Released 5th July 2023.
Author, artwork and design: Stephen Prince. 237 pages. Paperback and Ebook.

Paperback and ebook available from Amazon UK, Amazon US and their various other worldwide sites and also from Lulu.

The paperback is also available to order from other online and bricks and mortar shops; please contact them directly for more information.

A Year In The Country: Lost Transmissions weaves amongst brambled pathways to take in the haunted soundscapes of electronica, the rise of the occult in the 1970s, cinema and television’s dystopian dreamscapes and hauntological work which creates and gives a glimpse into parallel worlds. It is a recording of a personal journey that delves amongst both the esoteric fringes and mainstream of culture, and which at times holds a shadowed scrying mirror up to the modern world and some of its ills, while also reflecting visions of a hopeful future in its depths.

Alongside other experimenters in electronic sound the book explores Boards of Canada’s invoking of “the past inside the present”; Paul Weller’s visiting of Ghost Box Records’ elsewhere universe; work by Cosey Fanni Tutti, Hannah Peel and the reformed Radiophonic Workshop, and their collaborations across time with electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire; Dominik Scherrer and Natasha Khan’s summoning of “pastoral spook” via a hidden language of angels; and takes a trip in the company of fairground and rural ghosts conjured up on records released by Castles in Space.

Alongside these it examines the paranormal and “worlds beyond” via the semi-lost supernatural-orientated television series Leap in the Dark which included work by Alan Garner and David Rudkin, Sharron Kraus’ contemporary investigations into the preternatural and the conjuring of modern-day phantasms in Luciana Haill’s artwork.

The book also includes an intertwined consideration of the “deluxe dystopias” that can be found in films such as Rollerball and Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca and prescient views of the future’s past and media collusion in film and television including Nigel Kneale’s work and the overlooked corners of science fiction.

The full chapter list is below:

Preface: A Definition of Hauntology, its Recurring Themes and Intertwining with Otherly Folk and the Creation of a Rural and Urban Wyrd Cultural Landscape

1. Leap in the Dark, Alan Garner, David Rudkin, Fay Weldon and Russell Hoban: The Rise of the Paranormal

2. 77 Posters/77 Plakatow, Quest for Love and The Man Who Haunted Himself: The Phantasmagoric World of Polish Film Posters and Other Celluloid Alternate Realities

3. Boards of Canada: The Past Inside the Present

4. Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca, In Time and Anon: Striving for the Stars and Tales of Near Tomorrows

5. Andy Votel’s Styles of the Unexpected and Bridge and Tunnel: Revisiting Hauntological Precursors

6. Rollerball, Three Days of the Condor and The Anderson Tapes: Deluxe Dystopias and the Cinema of Paranoia

7. Paul Weller’s In Another Room and Broadcast: Psychedelic Reimaginings and Signposts Towards Ghost Box Records’ Elsewhere Universe

8. Luciana Haill’s Apparitions: A Modern-Day Conjuring of Dreamlands

9. Burial: Spectres of Spectres Awash in a Landscape of Static

10. Death Watch, The Vision, The Year of the Sex Olympics and Network: Prescient Views of the Future’s Past

11. The Heartwood Institute’s Tomorrow’s People: Exploring Far Off Utopian Flipsides

12. Delia Derbyshire, Caroline Katz, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Hannah Peel, Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society, The Radiophonic Workshop and Drew Mulholland: Forging Bridges Across Time

13. Michael Radford’s 1984: Searching for a Last Inch of Space

14. Castles in Space, Nick Taylor, Pulselovers, Keith Seatman and Dave Clarkson: Otherly Geometries and Ghosts of the Seaside

15. Dominik Scherrer and Natasha Khan’s Soundtrack for Requiem: The Unexpected Appearance of the Language of Angels

16. Sharron Kraus’ Preternatural Investigations, Simon Reynolds’ “Haunted Audio” and Oliver Assayas’ Personal Shopper: Journeys on the Edge of Knowing

Appendix: Songs for A Year In The Country

As with the A Year In The Country project as a whole the structure of the book is inspired by the cycle of the year and the passing of time: as with the seasons in a year, the book is centred around four main themes: dystopic visions, alternate realities, paranormal quests and exploratory electronica.

A Year In The Country: Cathode Ray and Celluloid Hinterlands is one of a number of books released by A Year In The Country. More details on those can be found either by clicking here or using the site’s menu to visit the A Year In The Country book page.

All of which just leaves me to say thanks to…

All who have bought, streamed and otherwise supported the A Year In The Country music releases, books and artifacts and everybody that visits the website and/or shares etc posts elsewhere online.

All the performers who have contributed music to the A Year In The Country releases. It’s been a pleasure.

The people who have sold and distributed the A Year In The Country releases and/or lent their advice, including amongst others: Jim Jupp of Ghost Box Records, The state51 Conspiracy in particular, Shaun Yule and all at Norman records especially Ant and Phil and Justin Watson of Front & Follow.

All the many many people who have written about, commissioned pieces on etc A Year In The Country and its releases including to name just a few John Coulthart, Cathi Unsworth, Simon Reynolds, DJ Food, Jude Rogers, Ben Graham (who I must also thank for the “scrying mirror”), Neil Mason, Ian White, Matthew Sedition, Grey Malkin, James Gent, Massimo Ricci, Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills, Andy Morten, Melanie Xulu, David V. Barrett, Push, Sukhdev Sandhu, Alan Boon, Dave Thompson, Bob Fischer of The Haunted Generation and everybody else at Starburst, Fortean Times, Shindig!, Electronic Sound, Moonbuilding, We Are Cult and Moof. Also to all at, amongst other publications, sites etc Music Won’t Save You, Bliss Aquamarine, Wyrd Daze, The Golden Apples of the Sun, Mojo, Goldmine and Folk Horror Revival.

All those who have included A Year In The Country released tracks in their radio broadcasts, podcasts etc including Stuart Maconie, Gideon Coe, Nick Luscombe, James Papademetrie and Pete Wiggs of the The Séance, Kites and Pylons, Sunrise Ocean Bender, Flatland Frequencies, Gated Canal Community Radio, On the Wire and many others.

Ian Lowey for the dab hand design and editorial work for A Year In The Country and also Suzy Prince for the equally dab hand editorial work.

Verity Sharp for inviting me onto BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction and playing tracks from the A Year In The Country released albums and Rebecca Gaskell for her admirable production of the show, Gary Milne of BBC Archives for his compiling and curation of video spectres, Tales from the Black Meadow author Chris Lambert for the audio journeys he created to accompany the A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields book and William “Billy” Harron as always for accidentally pointing me in the direction of the undercurrents of folk.

Also, my family for the ongoing support and to everybody whose work has inspired me on the wanderings, explorations and pathways of A Year In The Country.

Thanks, and a tip of the hat to you all!

 

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1982: Sarah – The Corn Mother 26/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

I have to say I’m enjoying working on this film. I saw some of the director Alain’s earlier films back in my student days. They were the sort of films at that age you liked to be able to say you’d seen. You know, all arty and that.

Actually, though his films were arty, they were accessible to. Entertaining as well as being talking points. And although The Corn Mother is a bit trashy in parts, I can see that he’s quietly try- ing to elevate it a little, add a few extra layers of meaning to it.

Some of the visuals remind me of those pop videos that are becoming ever more popular and I seem to have spent quite a bit of my time looking like an extra in a Kate Bush video. All ethereal and otherworldly as the villagers see me in their dreams and nightmares.

 

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1982: Peter – The Corn Mother 25/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

Well, you’ll never guess what? I got a phone call today from David who used to be my agent. He says that the script for The Corn Mother has sold. It’s going into production later this year.

Blimey. I never thought that would happen. I’d not forgotten about it but I’d filed it away, under a heading of alternative lives. I’d been getting on with day-to-day life, being a good lad, coming to work, writing all this throwaway stuff for the paper and paying the bills. Mary had the baby, a bonny young lad we called Patrick and she’s expecting again.

We got a council flat after Patrick arrived and we’ve set up home. Life’s not too bad really.

I’m not sure how much I’ll have to do with the production. From what David was saying I can just step back and wait for the cheque to arrive.

 

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1982: Alain – The Corn Mother 24/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

So finally, The Corn Mother is going ahead.
I made all those arthouse films in the sixties and even some in

the seventies. Heady times and a lot of fun. A lot of freedom. The last few years the quality of things I get to work on has been not so great. I’ve been over in America making some stuff I’m not even sure I wanted to have my name on. Dross really but entertaining in its own way.

Conrad and Gines invited me over. Somehow or other they set up a successful film production company over there. Made a lot of money. It’s Gines’ company really, he has the final say but he lets Conrad work on a passion project every now and again. I think he realises that it helps keep him quiet, keeps him towing the line. Plus he knows that Conrad draws in the talent. Some of them prefer to know that they’re working with somebody with a critically revered background, rather than just someone who made tin cans and car tyres.

Gines has seen a couple of the more mainstream versions of the script. That’s what he’s given the green light for. I’ve still got one of the others stashed away and, I think, with Conrad’s help, I might be able to, if not make that one, then at least bring some of the ideas from it into the film.

 

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1981: Sarah – The Corn Mother 23/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

I’ve been called in for an audition. About time to. Work’s been pretty thin on the ground for the last few months. Well, actually, the last few years more like.

The film’s script seems to have been knocking around for a while now. Somebody else I knew, I think, auditioned for it in the seventies. Nothing came of it. I don’t know if anything will now. You can but try.

When they sent me the script I got two for some reason, they arrived separately and they’re both quite different. I’m not sure which one I’m meant to have read or be testing for. I phoned my agent to ask her if she could find out which was the right one. She phoned me back and said nobody at the production company’s office seemed to know, so I’ll just have to wing it a bit I guess.

I’m up for the part of Ms Jessop. It’s sort of the lead. I say that because although she features pretty heavily near the start of the film, she disappears part of the way through, possibly chased out of her village by other locals who think she’s cursed their crops. In one of scripts she comes back as a form of night monster who terrorises the villagers that persecuted her. In the other one though… well, it’s hard to quite fathom what happens. She’s reappears, or at least her spirit or phantom does, or maybe it’s just that the villagers think she has and their guilt drives them mad.

Anyways, time to get ready; I’ve got a taxi booked for three o’clock. Best try and make myself presentable, smarten up a bit, put on a good front and all that. Wish me luck.

 

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1979: Peter – The Corn Mother 22/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

That’s it. I’m done. No more. No more promises. No more getting my hopes up.

I’ve been offered a writing job. On one of the dailies. It’s just grind work but it pays okay and what with Mary expecting I’m going to take it. I want to if I’m being honest. This living on dreams isn’t working for me any more. It hasn’t been for a while if truth be told.

I’m just going to put the script away. Let The Corn Mother sleep for a while, maybe for good. I gave it a good shot. We all did but it just doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen.

There’s this one version that I really like. Not sure if anybody else ever did, apart from maybe that director Alain. It’s quietly unsettling rather than being all brash and upfront. You’re never quite sure what the villagers did and it’s not so overly straightforward. It’s more a portrait of the psyche of a community fracturing under its own dysfunction and the pressures brought to bear on it by internal and external conflicts.

I guess it’s in part a reflection of what’s been going on in Britain for much of this decade. Electricity blackouts and the Three-Day Week a few years or so ago and now we’ve had a load more strikes and general argy bargy this winter. It’s been darned cold as well, which probably doesn’t help. The Summer of Love seems like a long time ago now. Time to grow up a bit I guess.

Some people are talking about how this new government is the start of a clean sweep, a fresh start for the country. I don’t know. I don’t trust them. There’s something about that Thatcher, something in her eyes. It’s hard to properly trust somebody who took milk away from children.

In the meantime life goes on. I’m going to phone up the red top this afternoon and tell them yes. I’m kind of looking forward to it I think. Being part of society’s machine, a semi-willing cog. I might even enjoy it.

 

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1974: Peter – The Corn Mother 21/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

All these hours and years of working on the script and what happens?

I went to the pictures the other night to see this film The Wicker Man that had just opened. Really I just wanted a break from all the talk of the General Election and I’m sick of the electric going out at night ‘cause of all the power shortages, what with the miners’ disputes and trouble in the Middle East. They’ve introduced a three-day working week to save on fuel and half the time if you go to the pub you’re having to drink by candle light.

I didn’t know all that much about the film, I just wanted an escape for a couple of hours.

That’s not quite what I got. This film, it had everything I’ve been aiming for with The Corn Mother. And more. It’s sort of… well, indefinable really. Part horror, part detective thriller. Almost a musical. It’s set rurally. There’s a crop failure. People who live in a small community take matters into their own hands.

I was a bit knocked for six. At first I couldn’t see how we’d ever get somebody to make The Corn Mother now. It’s very different but there are enough similarities to scupper it.

Mind you, my agent says if The Wicker Man does well then that might help as producers might think that what worked once could work again.