Search Results for “grey frequency” – Page 4

Posted on 8 th November 20188 th November 2018 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Mechanisms – Reviews Part 2

Further reviews of The Quietened Mechanisms album:

First up is Kim Harten’s review at Bliss Aquamarine:

“An evocative album that effectively combines dark and strange electronics and field recordings. Held together by a common theme both topically and musically, the album makes for a complete, cohesive listening experience.”

Next up is Raffaello Russo’s review at Music Won’t Save You:

“…la raccolta offre un nuovo spaccato di un immaginario creativo condiviso da un cenacolo di artisti sempre più ampio, inesauribile come gli spunti narrativi, sonori ed emozionali che possono scaturire da ogni singolo miglio quadrato della periferia post-industriale britannica.”

You can also visit an online (approximate) translation here.

Thirdly the album was revisited by Terrascope and included at Terrascope’s November 2018 Rumbles roundup:

“Listening Center ‘Clarion of the Collapsed Complex’ is next, full of long dead factory machinery, echoes of once thriving industry, all rendered on analogue synths… Pulselovers give us ‘Fuggles’ which is the name of a variety of hop, visiting an abandoned brewery in the north of England, where ghostly bottles are delivered via Shire horse and cart to the surrounding alehouses… The record ends with A Year In The Country’s ‘The Structure/Respite’ a song referencing an old decommissioned railway track, slowly being reclaimed by the land, ghostly reminders encountered along the way, left to slowly rust and decay.”

Fourthly and finally Finlay Milligan reviewed the album in issue 46 of Electronic Sound magazine.

Links to previous reviews, broadcasts etc of The Quietened Mechanisms by John Coulthart, The Sunday Experience, We Are Cult, an earlier review at Terrascope, Goldmine, Shindig!, Flatland Frequencies, Sunrise Ocean Bender, Pull the Plug, Evening of Light and The Unquiet Meadow can be found here.

Thanks and a tip of the hat to all concerned.

The Quietened Mechanisms is an exploration of abandoned and derelict industry, infrastructure, technology and equipment that once upon a time helped to create, connect and sustain society.

It features music and accompanying text on the tracks by Howlround, Grey Frequency, Listening Center, Sproatly Smith, Embertides, Keith Seatman, Time Attendant, A Year In The Country, Dom Cooper, Field Lines Cartographer, Vic Mars, Depatterning, Pulselovers, Quaker’s Stang, The Heartwood Institute and Spaceship.

More details on the album can be viewed here.

Posted on 16 th October 201815 th October 2018 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Mechanisms – Reviews and Broadcasts / Scribings and Transmissions

A selection of reviews, broadcasts etc of The Quietened Mechanisms album:

“The theme of the new collection is the end of Britain’s industrial revolution, a period of social and geological turmoil whose ruins still litter the landscape, especially in the Midlands and North of England. This isn’t industrial nostalgia… but an often poignant commemoration. Another impressive installment in this ongoing series.” John Coulthart, Feuilleton

“As ever impeccably packaged… . As with previous editions, these as were, epitaphs or nostalgia notations, uncover in the main, forgotten histories, whether forgotten through sheer neglect, conspiracy or misremembered, these moments or passages in time are locked in our fading subconscious much like fleeting apparitions or images disappearing over time whether by design or by way of a past rewritten. The quietened Mechanisms turns its scholarly gaze on forgotten technologies and with it hosts of gathering of 17 intrepid travelers along for the journey.” Mark Losing, The Sunday Experience

“A soaring soundbite of seismic and sensory sounds, this is one of the most arresting A Year In The Country releases yet – and one of the best!… Through sounds of aural and dystopic unease, tape loops and keyboards introduce listeners to the buzzing and humming an industrial factory makes. Drum patterns pedal over growls and loops tick time through the waves of weary wordless wages.” Eoghan Lyng, We Are Cult

“This volume explores abandoned, mostly derelict and long forgotten mills, factories and other infrastructure and paraphernalia of our industrial past, much of it slowly reclaimed by nature… Listening Centre’s Clarion Of The Collapsed Complex is really quite beautiful… a synthesized folk valediction to the rise and fall of industrialisation and all its human and structural collateral damage.” Ian Fraser, Terrascope

“Seventeen artists place themselves in the shadow of what remains, choosing sites that may not lay on the tourist maps, but await the explorer regardless… It’s an incredibly evocative experience, listening to this album.” Dave Thompson, Goldmine

“A Year In The Country and a selection of their regular musical contributors here turn their attention to abandoned factories and technology, spending an enraptured hour or so wandering among their ghosts… each track reflects a specific location, combining field recordings, musique concrete and spooked electronica into a strangely transporting whole.” Ben Graham, Shindig! magazine, issue 84

And then on to a selection of the radio etc broadcasts:

Tracks from the album including Listening Center’s Clarion of the Collapsed Complex were featured on Flatland Frequencies. Originally broadcast on Future Radio FM, the episode is archived at Mixcloud.

Keith Seatman’s Rural Flight was on Sunrise Ocean Bender. Originally broadcast on WRIR, the show is archived here.

And another broadcast of Listening Center’s Clarion of the Collapsed Complex on Pull the Plug. Originally broadcast on Resonance FM, the show is archived here.

Howlround’s A Closed Circuit was featured on Evening of Light’s Ἀρέθουσα’s Elysian Dreams #02 podcast (alongside David Colohan’s How We’ll Go Out from The Shildam Hall Tapes). Visit that here.

Vic Mars’ Watchtower and Engine and Field Line Cartographer’s The Mill in the Forest were featured on The Unquiet Meadow. Visit The Unquiet Meadow at Ashville FM here and playlists for the episodes here and here.

A tip of the hat to all concerned. Much appreciated.

The Quietened Mechanisms is an exploration of abandoned and derelict industry, infrastructure, technology and equipment that once upon a time helped to create, connect and sustain society.

More details can be viewed here.

Posted on 2 nd October 201822 nd July 2022 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Mechanisms – album released

The CDs are now sold out but the album is available to download at our Bandcamp page, Amazon, The Tidal Store, 7digital etc and can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube etc.

Released today 2nd October 2018.

The album is an exploration of abandoned and derelict industry, infrastructure, technology and equipment that once upon a time helped to create, connect and sustain society.

It wanders amongst deserted factories, discarded machinery, closed mines, mills and kilns and their echoes and remains; taking a moment or two to reflect on these once busy, functioning centres of activity and the sometimes sheer scale or amount of effort and human endeavour that was required to create and operate such structures and machines, many of which are now just left to fade away.

Features music and accompanying text on the tracks by Howlround, Grey Frequency, Listening Center, Sproatly Smith, Embertides, Keith Seatman, Time Attendant, A Year In The Country, Dom Cooper, Field Lines Cartographer, Vic Mars, Depatterning, Pulselovers, Quaker’s Stang, The Heartwood Institute and Spaceship.

Available in two CD editions: Dawn Light edition £11.95. Nightfall edition £22.95.
CDs available via our Artifacts Shop, at Bandcamp and Norman Records.

Both editions are hand-finished and custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink by A Year In The Country.

Downloads will be available at Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon etc.

Dawn Light Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £11.95.
Hand-finished white/black CD album in textured recycled fold out sleeve with fold-out insert and badge.

Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Further packaging details:
1) Custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink.
2) Includes 2.5 cm badge, secured with removable glue on string bound tag.
3) 1 x folded sheet of accompanying notes, hand numbered on back.

Nightfall Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £22.95
Hand-finished box-set contains: album on all black CD, 2 x sheets of accompanying notes, 1 print, 3 x stickers and 3 x badges.

Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Further packaging details:
1) Cover, notes and print custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink.
2) Contained in a matchbox style sliding two-part rigid matt card box with cover print.
3) Fully black CD (black on top, black on playable side).
4) 2 x folded sheets of accompanying notes, printed on textured laid paper – one sheet hand numbered on back.
5) 1 x print on textured fine art cotton rag paper.
5) 1 x 2.5 cm badge, 1 x 4.5 cm badge.
6) 1 x 5.6 cm sticker, 1 x 3.5 cm sticker, 2 x 12cm stickers.

Tracklisting:

1) Birkby and Allbright Mine: The Heartwood Institute
2) The Hoffman Kiln: Quaker’s Stang
3) Of Looms in the Housen: Depatterning
4) Ash, Oak & Sulphur: Embertides
5) Metallurgy: Dom Cooper
6) The Mill in the Forest: Field Lines Cartographer
7) Nottingham Canal: Grey Frequency
8) A Closed Circuit: Howlround
9) Rattler to the Tower: The Soulless Party
10) Rural Flight: Keith Seatman
11) Clarion of the Collapsed Complex: Listening Center
12) The Stones Speak of Short Lives: Spaceship
13) Canary Babies: Sproatly Smith
14) Fuggles: Pulselovers
15) Hidden Parameters: Time Attendant
16) Watchtower and Engine: Vic Mars
17) The Structure/Respite: A Year In The Country

Posted on 11 th September 201822 nd July 2022 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Mechanisms – Preorder

The CDs are now sold out but the album is available to download at our Bandcamp page, Amazon, The Tidal Store, 7digital etc and can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube etc.

Preorder today 11th September 2018. Released 2nd October 2018.

The album is an exploration of abandoned and derelict industry, infrastructure, technology and equipment that once upon a time helped to create, connect and sustain society.

Available in two CD editions: Dawn Light edition £11.95. Nightfall edition £22.95.
CDs available via our Artifacts Shop, at Bandcamp and Norman Records.

Both editions are hand-finished and custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink by A Year In The Country.

Downloads will be available at Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon etc.

Dawn Light Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £11.95.
Hand-finished white/black CD album in textured recycled fold out sleeve with fold-out insert and badge.

Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Nightfall Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £22.95
Hand-finished box-set contains: album on all black CD, 2 x sheets of accompanying notes, 1 print, 3 x stickers and 3 x badges.

Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Tracklisting:

Posted on 21 st August 201822 nd July 2022 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Mechanisms – Preorder and Release Dates

The CDs are now sold out but the album is available to download at our Bandcamp page, Amazon, The Tidal Store, 7digital etc and can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube etc.

Preorder 11th September 2018. Released 2nd October 2018.

The album is an exploration of abandoned and derelict industry, infrastructure, technology and equipment that once upon a time helped to create, connect and sustain society.

Featuring work by:
The Heartwood Institute
Quakers Stang
Depatterning
Embertides (The Hare And The Moon / United Bible Studies)
Dom Cooper (Rif Mountain / The Owl Service / Bare Bones / Circle/Temple)
Field Lines Cartographer
Grey Frequency
Howlround
The Soulless Party (Tales from the Black Meadow)
Keith Seatman
Listening Center
Spaceship
Sproatly Smith
Pulselovers
Time Attendant
Vic Mars
A Year In The Country

Preorders will be available at our Artifacts Shop and Bandcamp.

Posted on 17 th July 201817 th July 2018 by — Leave a comment

Audio Albion – Further Wanderings Amongst the Airwaves, the Ether and Elsewhere…

A selection of further broadcasts, reviews etc of the Audio Albion album…

First up Audio Albion was reviewed by Mark Roland in issue 42 of Electronic Sound magazine, where you can find it nestled in amongst a cover feature on Mute Records, the usual selection of potentially bank balance worrying selection of gadgets and synths, The The, David Sylvian, A Flock of Seagulls, Finiflex/Finitribe etc. Count me in, as they say (!):

“Starting with the banjo of Bare Bones’ Marshland Improvisations, replete with birdsong and other ambient noise, Audio Albion continues on a gentle path of discovery. It traverses the electronic droplets of Field Lines Cartographer’s Coldbarrow, the wash of Howlround’s Cold Kissing and numerous other well fashioned reactions to England’s strange and forgotten corners.”

Visit the issue at Electronic Sound’s site.

Retromania author Simon Reynolds included the album in his June 2018 Hauntology Parish Newsletter, which serves as a gathering/round-up of all things (generally) musically spectral orientated. You’ll find Audio Albion in the company of the likes of Moon Wiring Club, Bloxham Tapes and Andrew Peckler’s Phantom Islands – A Sonic Atlas project which is described as “an interactive online map that charts the sounds and histories of islands that were once found on nautical maps but have since disappeared.”

Visit the Newsletter here.

Kim Harten has reviewed the album at her Bliss Aquamarine site, where it can be found in the company of previous A Year In The Country releases The Quietened Cosmologists and All The Merry Year Round, alongside a fine and eclectic selection of other album reviews:

“…each musical composition (incorporates) sounds of place whilst using music and sound-art to further explore the history, myth and atmosphere of these locations… Audio Albion is a fine selection of eerie, experimental, cinematic sounds inspired by folklore and landscape.”

Visit that review here.

Stephen Palmer and Andrew Young included a piece about Audio Albion as part of the Terrascope Rumbles for July 2018 gathering of over 40 (yep, 40) album reviews:

“There are some gems to be discovered… Time Attendant’s “Holloway”, is both immersive and impressive… Vic Mars Dinedor Hill… a slowly unwinding song all about said hill, a hill which Vic could see from his bedroom window as a child. Ebbing and flowing synth lines are punctuated by some very strange whir’s and pulses.”

Visit those Rumbles in amongst some rather lovely previous era letter press-esque designs and illustrations at Terrascope’s site.

In a rounding the circle manner, Audio Albion contributor Mat Handley of Pulselovers played Vic Mars’ and Widow’s Weeds’ tracks from the album on his You, the Night & the Music radio show, amongst the likes of Sharron Kraus, The Advisory Circle and Making Tea For Robots.

Originally broadcast on Sine FM, the show can be found archived here.

Stuart Maconie played Grey Frequency’s Stapleford Hill from the album on his BBC Radio 6 Music Freak Zone show, where it can be found alongside the likes of Spacemen 3, Hannah Peel, Harold Budd and A Silver Mt. Zion.

Visit that episode of Freak Zone here.

A selection of previous broadcasts and reviews of Audio Albion can be found here at A Year In The Country.

It can be found there at the likes of radio shows including Late Junction, Gideon Coe, Fractal Meat, Flatland Frequencies, Gated Canal Community Radio, Pull the Plug, The Unquiet Meadow, Sunrise Ocean Bender and The Séance, plus various sites, magazines etc including We Are Cult, John Coulthart’s feuilleton, Touching Extremes, Goldmine, Music Won’t Save You, The Guardian, The Sunday Experience and Shindig!.

As always many thanks and a tip of the hat to everybody involved.

Audio Albion is a music and field recording map of Britain, which focuses on rural and edgeland areas. The album features work by Bare Bones, David Colohan, Grey Frequency, Field Lines Cartographer, Howlround, A Year In The Country, Keith Seatman, Magpahi, Sproatly Smith, Widow’s Weeds, Time Attendant, Spaceship, Pulselovers, The Heartwood Institute and Vic Mars.

Further details can be found here at A Year In The Country.

Posted on 12 th June 201812 th June 2018 by — Leave a comment

Audio Albion – Wanderings Amongst the Airwaves, the Ether and Elsewhere…

A selection of some of the recent broadcasts, reviews etc of the Audio Albion album.

Aside from the A Year In The Country connection, the below links etc are well worth a wander and peruse as, like a good jumble sale, you never know quite what else you might find when you’re rummaging.

(PS Whatever happened to jumble sales? Largely supplanted by charity shops maybe?)

“A gorgeous collage of sound myths, emboldened stories and earthly sounds; a journey through the rims and roads of Britain.” From the review at We Are Cult, which joins something of a growing selection of other A Year In The Country reviews around those parts. Visit that here.

“On Stormy Point, contains a whistle recording made in one of the caves at Alderley Edge in Cheshire, an important location in the Rural Wyrd via the popularisation of its myths in the novels of Alan Garner… The Unquiet Grave by Widow’s Weeds… a marvellous interpretation of one of the spookiest English folk songs…”

John Coulthart posted about the album at his feuilleton site, where it joins a fair old selection of other posts on A Year In The Country related work and releases. Visit that here.

“…purely acoustic rarefaction to aggregated loops, layered/solitary voices to morsels of modern folk melodies, palatable soundtrack-ish electronica to eerie nebula…” Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes

“Captured in locations as diverse as a derelict workshop in Holloway, Hereford Cathedral, a flood marsh in the Roding Valley and the cavern beneath Peveril Castle, the sounds of the surroundings are then blurred and blended into newly composed musical pieces – ambient nature overlaid by ambient sound, in which the former forms the backdrop that then drives the latter along.” Dave Thompson at Spin Cycle/Goldmine

“…tutti impegnati a scandagliare prati, foreste, foreste e panorami extraurbani, ricavandone una nuova eterogenea mappatura del territorio rurale britannico, attraverso narrazioni immanenti in un lungo periodo, costellato da stille elettro-acustiche risuonanti…” Raffaello Russo at Music Won’t Save You (and an approximate English translation can be found here)

“Audio Albion is the latest brilliant release in an ongoing project to map landscape and memory through eerie instrumentals and twisted takes on folk culture.” Jude Rogers at The Guardian; in the newspaper and the piece can also be found online here.

“The haunting spectral that is ‘Winter Sands’… fashioned in twilight twinkles, its dissolving dream like palette chartering as were, mystical waterways beyond the veil, it’s here where nothing seems real, to world’s where imagination and dream collide into a perpetually shifting cortege seasoned in ghostly carousels and macabre mosaics.” Mark Losing at The Sunday Experience

“…’music and field recording map of Britain’ featuring 15 tracks that incorporate found sounds from rural walks, semi-industrials ‘edgeland’ and liminal spaces between this world and the next… The compositions often suggest unseen images and unrevealed narrative…” Ben Graham in Shindig! magazine, issue 79

And now the radio etc broadcasts:

Tracks from the album by David Colohan, Magpahi and Howlround were played on Graham Dunning’s Fractal Meat, amongst its audio scrapbooking of the likes of “sonic art and experiments, improvised music, textures and rhythms”. Originally broadcast on NTS, the show can be visited here.

Luke Sanger played a track by Bare Bones on Flatland Frequencies (and something of a welcome return for the show). The show was originally broadcast on Future Radio and can be found archived here.

Justin Watson of record label Front & Follow (always worth a look-see at what they’re putting out into the world) played tracks by Grey Frequency and Field Lines Cartographer on the Gated Canal Community Radio Show, where he was accompanied by Freak Zone and Late Junction producer Rebecca Gaskell. Originally broadcast on Reform Radio, the show can be visited here.

Talking of which… Verity Sharp played tracks from the album by Magpahi and Time Attendant on two separate episodes of BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction’s, amongst the shows around-midnight sonic adventuring and wandering. Visit those here and here.

Johnny Seven played Vic Mars’ Dinedor Hill on Pull the Plug, alongside the rather finely monikered Making Tea for Robots. Originally broadcast on Resonance FM, the show can be visited here.

The Unquiet Meadow have been wandering amongst a fair number of the various pathways of Audio Albion and over four episodes have played tracks by Magpahi, Widow’s Weeds, Vic Mars and Pulselovers. Originally broadcast on Asheville FM, the show can be visited here.

Sunrise Ocean Bender played Pulselovers’ Thieves’ Cant on the also rather finely monikered On a Satellite’s Wing episode of their radio show. Originally broadcast on WRIR, the show can be found here.

Grey Frequency’s Stapleford Hill was played on sometimes A Year In The Country fellow travellers The Séance’s phantom seaside radio show. Originally broadcast on/via Radio Reverb, Totally Radio and Sine FM, the show can be found here.

Gideon Coe has played Vic Mars’ Dinedor Hill not once but twice on his show on BBC Radio 6. Blimey. Visit the shows here and here.

…and it was also played on the now decades longstanding On The Wire radio show (on the air since 1984, blimey again). Visit that here.

Much appreciated and a tip of the hat to everybody involved in the above. Thanks!

Further details can be found here at A Year In The Country.

Posted on 29 th May 201822 nd July 2022 by — Leave a comment

Audio Albion – Released

The CDs are now sold out but the album is available to download at our Bandcamp page, Amazon, The Tidal Store, 7digital etc and can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube etc.

Released today 29th May 2018.

CDs available via our Artifacts Shop, at Bandcamp and at Norman Records.
Dawn Light Edition £11.95. Nightfall Edition £22.95.

Download available at Bandcamp, iTunes, Amazon etc.

Featuring work by Bare Bones, David Colohan, Grey Frequency, Field Lines Cartographer, Howlround, A Year In The Country, Keith Seatman, Magpahi, Sproatly Smith, Widow’s Weeds, Time Attendant, Spaceship, Pulselovers, The Heartwood Institute and Vic Mars.

Audio Albion is a music and field recording map of Britain, which focuses on rural and edgeland areas.

Each track contains field recordings from locations throughout the land and is accompanied by notes on the recordings by the contributors.

The tracks record the sounds found and heard when wandering down pathways, over fields, through marshes, alongside rivers, down into caves and caverns, climbing hills, along coastlands, through remote mountain forestland, amongst the faded signs of industry and infrastructure and its discarded debris.

Intertwined with the literal recording of locations, the album explores the history, myths and beliefs of the places, their atmospheres and undercurrents, personal and cultural connections – the layered stories that lie amongst, alongside and beneath the earth, plants and wildlife.

Both CD editions are hand-finished and custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink by A Year In The Country

Dawn Light Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £11.95.
Hand-finished white/black CD album in textured recycled fold out sleeve with fold-out insert and badge.

Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Nightfall Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £22.95
Hand-finished box-set contains: album on all black CD, 2 x sheets of accompanying notes, 1 print, 3 x stickers and 3 x badges.

Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Further packaging details:
1) Cover and notes custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink.
2) Contained in a matchbox style sliding two-part rigid matt card box with cover print.
3) Fully black CD (black on top, black on playable side).
4) 2 x folded sheets of accompanying notes from the contributors, printed on textured laid paper. Back of one sheet numbered.
5) 1 x print on textured fine art cotton rag paper.
5) 2 x 2.5 cm badges, 1 x 4.5 cm badge.
6) 1 x 5.6 cm sticker, 1 x 3.5 cm sticker, 1 x 9.5 by 6.5 cm sticker.

Tracklisting:

1) Bare Bones – Marshland Improvisation
2) David Colohan – On Stormy Point
3) Grey Frequency – Stapleford Hill
4) Field Lines Cartographer – Coldbarrow
5) Howlround – Cold Kissing
6) A Year In The Country – The Fields of Tumbling Ideas
7) Keith Seatman – Winter Sands
8) Magpahi – Shepsters in the Yessins
9) Sproatly Smith – Ethelbert & Mary
10) Widow’s Weeds – The Unquiet Grave
11) Time Attendant – Holloway
12) Spaceship – The Roding in Spate
13) Pulselovers – Thieves’ Cant
14) The Heartwood Institute – Hvin-lettir
15) Vic Mars – Dinedor Hill

Posted on 15 th May 201822 nd July 2022 by — Leave a comment

Audio Albion – Preorder

The CDs are now sold out but the album is available to download at our Bandcamp page, Amazon, The Tidal Store, 7digital etc and can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube etc.

Preorder today 15th May 2018. Released 29th May 2018.

Available to preorder via our Artifacts Shop, at Bandcamp and at Norman Records.
Dawn Light Edition £11.95. Nightfall Edition £22.95.

Audio Albion is a music and field recording map of Britain, which focuses on rural and edgeland areas.

Each track contains field recordings from locations throughout the land and is accompanied by notes on the recordings by the contributors.

Both editions are hand-finished and custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink by A Year In The Country

Download preorder available at Bandcamp. Available to download on release date at iTunes, Amazon etc.

Dawn Light Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £11.95.
Hand-finished white/black CD album in textured recycled fold out sleeve with fold-out insert and badge.

Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Nightfall Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £22.95
Hand-finished box-set contains: album on all black CD, 2 x sheets of accompanying notes, 1 print, 3 x stickers and 3 x badges.

Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Tracklisting:

Posted on 27 th April 201829 th June 2018 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Bunker, Waiting for the End of the World, Subterranea Britannica, Bunker Archaeology and The Delaware Road – Ghosts, Havens and Curious Repurposings Beneath our Feet: Chapter 17 Book Images

“Abandoned and decommissioned bunkers are a subsection of utilitarian brutalist architecture that has come to gain totemic significance and to have a form of romance attached to them.

This can take a hauntological form where Cold War bunkers in particular have come to represent and be symbols of the spectres of history.

This connects with a central defining tenet of hauntological strands of interest: explorations of and fascinations with lost futures and areas of culture, artifacts, buildings, institutions etc. which are imprinted with spectres of those lost histories.

In this sense such bunkers are physical embodiments of the (thankfully) lost futures of end of days conflicts: the unsettling and disquieting counterpart to social and municipal brutalist buildings from a similar epoch and the yearning for lost progressive utopian futures that they can represent…

(They can be) a somewhat spectral reminder of the Cold War, in both a hauntological and fear-instilling manner.

Or as writer, illustrator and designer John Coulthart has said bunkers are:

“…a source of contemporary horror that doesn’t require any supernatural component to chill the blood.””

“Connected to (their) sense of futility or delusional projections of their effectiveness, in 2014 as part of A Year In The Country a themed album called The Quietened Bunker was released.

This featured work by Keith Seatman, Grey Frequency, A Year In The Country, Panabrite, Polypores, Listening Center, Time Attendant, Unknown Heretic and David Colohan and interpreted the album’s theme via recordings that included field recording subterranean ambience, paranoid industrial distortion, Radiophonic inflected electronica and elegiac end of days sequences.

(The following is an edited selection of the accompanying notes for the album):

“The Quietened Bunker is an exploration of the abandoned and/or decommissioned Cold War installations which lie under the land and that would have acted as selectively populated refuges/control centres if the button was ever pushed.

These bunkers could be seen as once modern fortresses – reinforced concrete and blast doors replacing moats and stone battlements…

Now it can all seem like a dream from another world, one where for a number of decades populations lived under the day-to-day threat of total annihilation and where millions was spent on this network of shelters and defences; preparations to allow fiddling once all had burned, such bunkers possibly being nearer to utilitarian national follies than fortresses – indeed, today they are as likely to be signposted tourist attractions as operative defences…”

“(The Quietened Bunker) is part of a lineage of work that explores, is inspired by and documents bunkers, shelters and related infrastructure.

The book Waiting for the End of the World by Richard Ross published in 2004 is part of this lineage. It contains photographs of active and decommissioned bunkers and shelters around the world, both those built by governmental/military organisations and by private individuals.

One intriguing thing about some of the photographs of domestic shelters are the details of the way they have been made to feel homely and the amount of aesthetic consideration often given to their entrances, in the face of and opposition to what their occupants would be faced with if their intended purpose was ever called upon…

(Richard Ross) found a sense of hope and optimism in their repurposing as clubs in St. Petersburg, Russia and how these have become places where people go to celebrate life rather than anticipate destruction.”

“Other photography-based work which explores such buildings and installations is more strictly documentary in nature, in particular that done by the British based Subterranea Britannica society. Subterranea Britannica’s members:

“…study and investigate man-made and man-used underground places – from mines to railway tunnels, military defences to nuclear bunkers and everything in between.”

They have published a number of comprehensive books featuring bunker-related work, including Nick Catford’s Cold War Bunkers (2010) and Mark Dalton’s The Royal Observer Corps Underground Monitoring Posts (2011)…

Via its publishing activities, the collecting of archival material and photographs and notes from exploratory expeditions to locations by members which are viewable on its website, the society’s work represents a comprehensive mapping of these often once secret or inaccessible to the public places and infrastructure networks.”

“A predecessor to the above Cold War bunker related lineage of work is Paul Virilio’s book Bunker Archaeology, originally published in a French edition in 1975.

This collects his photography and writing on the abandoned World War II German bunkers and related installations that lie along the coast of France.

Along with their Cold War counterparts, these could also be filed as a form of brutalist architecture as they share a number of similarities in terms of the materials used and their aesthetics.”

“Viewed now they seem to almost be a form of accidental utilitarian art: something they share with the likes of similarly appreciated pragmatic constructions such as telegraph poles, pylons, Soviet era bus stops or even library music.

Although they were created with a very practical intent, looking at them now they seem nearer to monuments or tributes, reminsicent of the Cold War era Spomenik memorials that Jan Kempenaers photographed and which are collected in his 2010 book of the same name.”

“With the structures in Bunker Archaeology, whatever their original intents, viewing them today they could be artifacts from an almost science fiction-esque future that never was, a form of hauntology possibly but one that steps aside from or precedes many of the more often referred to British cultural history related tropes.”

(The original Planet of the Apes film from 1968 swims into view with its mingling of crashed future/past visitors and part-buried monuments to mankind’s folly.)”

(Decommissioned bunkers are even) available to hire for events: one such of which is The Delaware Road event organised by record label Buried Treasure in 2017 and which accompanies their themed album of the same name.

This event was deeply interconnected with hauntological themes and tropes, featuring a number of performers whose work has been to various degrees linked with such areas of work including Dolly Dolly, Howlround, Radionics Radio, Ian Helliwell and Saunders & Hill.

It was described as an immersive mix of theatre, film and live music and some of the notes that accompany the event are reproduced below:

“The Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker at Kelvedon Hatch, in the Borough of Brentwood in the English county of Essex, is a large underground bunker maintained during the cold war as a potential regional government headquarters. Since being decommissioned in 1992, the bunker has been open to the public as a tourist attraction, with a museum focusing on its cold war history…”

“This special performance takes place deep underground in a nuclear bunker, hidden in remote Essex woodland. The audience is free to explore the secret, cold war facilities where they will encounter a host of performers, experimental artists & musicians.”

As with some of the bunkers in Waiting for the End of the World which have come to be used as clubs, this is a repurposing of such structures for entertainment or cultural purposes, albeit in this case a form of cultural exploration which explicitly refers to and explores the history of them rather than being more strictly hedonistic socialising and abandonment.”

“Returning more directly to the heritage and tourist industry repurposing of such installations, on British roads you can find official road signs that direct you towards the tourist destination of a “Secret Nuclear Bunker”, often appearing on the same sign as one which also points drivers to an industrial estate and various towns.

Viewing these signs may bring kind of mental disconnect – a mixture of disbelief, humour and relief that we are no longer living in a political situation where these bunkers are considered necessary and possibly a touch of sadness, anger and grief for us having once done so.

In part this disconnect is due to the very Britishness of names like Chipping Ongar and Chigwell that the road signs also point to.”

“Accompanying and interconnected with such road signs are the estate agent signs for when a decommissioned bunker has been made available for sale; the hoardings name the property for sale as a nuclear bunker and list its square footage and acreage of land.

Begging the question: is this a buyer’s or a seller’s market?

There is scarcity value to the property but presumably only a very limited number of potential buyers and allowable uses (data storage seems to be one such usage that is mentioned on these boards).

It would be interesting to see whether these installations are listed on general commercial property websites, so that your search results might bring up a warehouse for rent, listed as having plenty of onsite parking and then a former secret nuclear bunker listed as razor wire and emergency air filtration system included.”

Online images to accompany Chapter 17 of the A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields book, alongside some text extracts from the chapter:

Details of the A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields book and the collection of its accompanying online images can be found at the Book’s Page, which will be added to throughout the year.

Posted on 24 th April 201822 nd July 2022 by — Leave a comment

Audio Albion – Album Preorder and Release Dates

The CDs are now sold out but the album is available to download at our Bandcamp page, Amazon, The Tidal Store, 7digital etc and can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube etc.

Album preorder available 15th May 2018. Released 29th May 2018.

Audio Albion is a music and field recording map of Britain, which focuses on rural and edgeland areas.

Each track contains field recordings from locations throughout the land and is accompanied by notes on the recordings by the contributors.

Featuring work by:
Bare Bones
David Colohan
Grey Frequency
Field Lines Cartographer
Howlround
A Year In The Country
Keith Seatman
Magpahi
Sproatly Smith
Widow’s Weeds (The Hare And The Moon)
Time Attendant
Spaceship
Pulselovers
The Heartwood Institute
Vic Mars

Preorders will be available at our Artifacts Shop and Bandcamp.

The A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields Book

Journeys in Otherly Pastoralism, the Further Reaches of Folk and the Parallel Worlds of Hauntology.

Paperback and Ebook are available at Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon Australia and their other international sites.

The book may also available to order from other bookshops etc, please direct any queries regarding that directly to them.

“The first book of it’s kind to catalogue all these disparate strands, many of which cross over time and space to influence one another.” DJ Food

“An essential field guide to a distinct aesthetic that remains loosely defined, like a fluttering night moth that would die if pinned down.” Ben Graham, Shindig!

“A new book caught my eye recently – the title A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields, that goes in search of the darker, eerier side of the bucolic countryside dream by looking at films of a certain genre, books, TV series, music; it is great to have this fascinating subject explored so thoroughly and brought together under one title.” Verity Sharp, Late Junction, BBC Radio 3

A Year In The Country is a set of year-long journeys through spectral fields; cyclical explorations of an otherly pastoralism, the outer reaches of folk culture and the spectres of hauntology. It is a wandering amongst subculture that draws from the undergrowth of the land.

As a project, it has included a website featuring writing, artwork and music which stems from that otherly pastoral/spectral hauntological intertwining, alongside a growing catalogue of album releases.

In keeping with the number of weeks in a year, the book is split into 52 chapters which draw together revised writings from the project alongside new journeyings. Connecting layered and, at times, semi-hidden cultural pathways and signposts, it journeys from acid folk to edgelands via electronic music innovators, folkloric film and photography, dreams of lost futures and misremembered televisual tales and transmissions.

It includes considerations of the work of writers including Rob Young, John Wyndham, Richard Mabey and Mark Fisher, musicians and groups The Owl Service, Jane Weaver, Shirley Collins, Broadcast, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Virginia Astley and Kate Bush, the artists Edward Chell, Jeremy Deller and Barbara Jones and the record labels Trunk, Folk Police, Ghost Box and Finders Keepers.

The book also explores television and film including Quatermass, The Moon and the Sledgehammer, Phase IV, Beyond the Black Rainbow, The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water, Bagpuss, Travelling for a Living, The Duke of Burgundy, Sapphire & Steel, General Orders No. 9, Gone to Earth, The Changes, Children of the Stones, Sleep Furiously and The Wicker Man.

“Author Prince has pulled together a mass of material culled not only from the website and its associated albums, but also a great deal more that was written specifically for the book. And the result is spellbinding.” Dave Thompson, Goldmine

“This incredibly well-researched book, which is obviously written by a man with an enormous passion for this subject, is probably as comprehensive as it is possible to be. Stephen Prince’s densely packed tome 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. 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. Almost every one of the 52 chapters sideswiped me with a revelation that is already making me look at a genre I love with new, more appreciative eyes. Books this culturally valuable don’t grow on hedgerows, so make sure you harvest it immediately.” Ian White, Starburst

“An excellent compendium of Prince’s musings and meditations on all things wyrdly bucolic, uncanny, and elegiac, spanning a spectral spectrum from Richard Mabey to Zardoz, Virginia Astley to Sapphire & Steel.” Simon Reynolds, author of Retromania and Energy Flash

Download two sample chapters at this web page: Contents list and sample chapters

Text extracts from the book can also be visited here.

The book has been designed/typeset by Ian Lowey of Bopcap Book Services and edited by Suzy Prince, who are the co-authors of The Graphic Art of the Underground: A Counter-Cultural History.

Book Chapter List:

1. Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music: Folk Vs Pop, Less Harvested Cultural Landscapes and Acts of  Enclosure, Old and New

2. Gather in the Mushrooms: Early Signposts and Underground Acid Folk Explorations

3. Hauntology: Places Where Society Goes to Dream, the Defining and Deletion of Spectres and the Making of an Ungenre

4. Cuckoos in the Same Nest: Hauntological and Otherly Folk Confluences and Intertwinings

5. Ghost Box Records: Parallel Worlds, Conjuring Spectral Memories, Magic Old and New and Slipstream Trips to the  Panda Pops Disco

6. Folk Horror Roots: From But a Few Seedlings Did a Great Forest Grow

7. 1973: A Time of Schism and a Dybbuk’s Dozen of Fractures

8. Broadcast: Recalibration, Constellation and Exploratory Pop

9. Tales From The Black Meadow, The Book of the Lost and The Equestrian Vortex: The Imagined Spaces of Imaginary Soundtracks

10. The Wicker Man: Notes on a Cultural Behemoth

11. Robin Redbreast, The Ash Tree, Sky, The Changes, Penda’s Fen Red Shift and The Owl Service: Wanderings Through Spectral Television Landscapes

12. A Bear’s Ghosts: Soviet Dreams and Lost Futures

13. From “Two Tribes” to WarGames: The Ascendancy of Apocalyptic Popular Culture

14. Christopher Priest’s A Dream of Wessex: Twentieth Century Slipstream Echoes

15. Sapphire & Steel and Ghosts in the Machine: Nowhere, Forever and Lost Spaces within Cultural Circuitry

16. Kill List, Puffball, In the Dark Half and Butter on the Latch: Folk Horror Descendants by Way of the Kitchen Sink

17. The Quietened Bunker, Waiting For The End of the World, Subterranea Britannica, Bunker Archaeology and The Delaware Road: Ghosts, Havens and Curious Repurposings Beneath Our Feet

18. From The Unofficial Countryside to Soft Estate: Edgeland Documents, Memories and Explorations

19. The Ballad of Shirley Collins and Pastoral Noir: Tales and Intertwinings from Hidden Furrows

20. “Savage Party” and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased): Glimpses of Albion in the Overgrowth

21. Uncommonly British Days Out and the Following of Ghosts: File under Psychogeographic/Hauntological Stocking Fillers

22. Gone to Earth: Earlier Traces of an Otherly Albion

23. Queens of Evil, Tam Lin and The Touchables: High Fashion Transitional Psych Folk Horror, Pastoral Fantasy and Dreamlike Isolation

24. Luke Haines: Our Most Non-Hauntological Hauntologist

25. Tim Hart, Maddy Prior and “The Dalesman’s Litany”: A Yearning for Imaginative Idylls and a Counterpart to Tales of Hellish Mills

26. Katalin Varga, Berberian Sound Studio and The Duke of Burgundy : Arthouse Evolution and Crossing the Thresholds of the Hinterland Worlds of Peter Strickland

27. General Orders No. 9 and By Our Selves: Cinematic Pastoral Experimentalism

28. No Blade of Grass and Z.P.G.: A Curious Dystopian Mini-Genre

29. The Midwich Cuckoos and The Day of the Triffids: John Wyndham, Dystopian Tales, Celluloid Cuckoos and the Village as Anything But Idyll

30. Folk Archive and Unsophisticated Arts: Documenting the Overlooked and Unregulated

31. Folkloric Photography: A Lineage of Wanderings, Documentings and Imaginings

32. Poles and Pylons and The Telegraph Appreciation Society: A Continuum of Accidental Art

33. Symptoms and Images: Hauntological Begetters, the Uneasy Landscape and Gothic Bucolia

34. The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water: Public Information Films and Lost Municipal Paternalisms

35. Magpahi, Paper Dollhouse and The Eccentronic Research Council: Finders Keepers/Bird Records Nestings and Considerations of Modern Day Magic

36. Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before: Whispering Fairy Stories until They are Real

37. The Owl Service, Anne Briggs, The Watersons, Lutine and Audrey Copard: Folk Revisiters, Revivalists and Reinterpreters

38. The Seasons, Jonny Trunk, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Howlround: A Yearning for Library Music, Experiments in Educational Music and Tape Loop Tributes

39. An Old Soul Returns: The Worlds and Interweavings of Kate Bush

40. The Stone Tape, Quatermass, The Road and The Twilight Language of Nigel Kneale: Unearthing Tales from Buried Ancient Pasts

41 Folklore Tapes and the Wyrd Britannia Festival: Journeying to Hidden Corners of the Land/the Ferrous Reels and Explorations of an Arcane Research Project

42. Skeletons: Pastoral Preternatural Fiction and a World, Time and Place of its Own Imagining

43. Field Trip-England: Jean Ritchie, George Pickow and Recordings from the End of an Era

44. Noah’s Castle: A Slightly Overlooked Artifact and Teatime Dystopias

45. Jane Weaver Septième Soeur and The Fallen by Watch Bird: Non-Populist Pop and Cosmic Aquatic Folklore

46. Detectorists, Bagpuss, The Wombles and The Good Life: Views from a Gentler Landscape

47. Weirdlore, Folk Police Recordings, Sproatly Smith and Seasons They Change: Notes From the Folk Underground, Legendary Lost Focal Points and Privately Pressed Folk

48. The Moon and The Sledgehammer and Sleep Furiously: Visions of Parallel and Fading Lives

49. From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, Wintersongs, Pilgrim Chants & Pastoral Trails: Lullabies for the Land and Gently Darkened Undercurrents

50. Strawberry Fields and Wreckers: The Countryside and Coastal Hinterland as Emotional Edgeland

51. Zardoz, Phase IV and Beyond the Black Rainbow: Seeking the Future in Secret Rooms from the Past and Psychedelic Cinematic Corners

52. Winstanley, A Field in England and The English Civil War Part II: Reflections on Turning Points and Moments When Anything Could Happen

“A Year In The Country is an excellent introduction to hauntology and related subjects, particularly as it guides the reader through some of the more obscure fields. There is a sensitivity here, and Prince has a talent for teasing out details.” Steve Toase, Fortean Times

“Embraces a wide range of avenues to bring together not only a sense of how far reaching and varied the origins, mainstays and current players of genres such as folk horror or hauntology can be, but crucially also how they intertwine and cross pollinate. Each chapter expertly charts its chosen subject’s impact upon the public consciousness as well as indicating that these artefacts are now part of a greater cultural cobweb that may well have threads and components that are radically different in genre or style but that equally have a strong commonality in their sense of unease and their haunted content; of similar ghosts in the machine (or spooks in the television and bookshelves). Further investigations delve into folklore, TV public information films and the landscape itself as a medium through which a certain mood, an uncanny, can be evoked.” Grey Malkin, Folk Horror Revival

“A written word accompaniment to the prolific hauntological label of the same name… a 340-page offering spread across 52 chapters, each one representing a week of the year. Bewitching stuff.” Electronic Sound – selected for their top ten books of the year in 2018

Below is an online “cut out and keep” set of visual accompaniments to the chapters of the A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Field book.

Chapter 1: Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music: Folk Vs Pop, Less Harvested Cultural Landscapes and Acts of Enclosure, Old and New

Left to right: the first and second British editions and the American edition of Rob Young’s Electric Eden book (2010-2011).

The gatefold cover and vinyl of Forest’s album Full Circle (1970).

The cover and vinyl of Kate Bush’s second album Lionheart (1978).

Construction scaffolding for statue in The Wicker Man film (1973).

Ghost Box Records logo/artwork.

The cover of one of the editions of Steeleye Span’s All Around My Hat single (1975) and characters from The Womble’s television series (1973-1975).

A period map showing enclosure/inclosure of the land.

Text extracts from Chapter 1 can be viewed here.

Chapter 2: Gather in the Mushrooms – Early Signposts and Underground Acid Folk Explorations

Artwork from the Gather in the Mushrooms: The British Acid Folk Underground 1968-1974 compilation album. Released in 2004 and curated by Bob Stanley.

Once upon a time lost-lady-of-folk Vashti Bunyan as featured in the sleeve notes to Gather in the Mushrooms.

CD insert cover for Trader Horne’s Morning Way album from 1970, featuring former Fairport Convention member Judy Dyble and Jackie McAuley.

Left to right: Cover art for The Pentangle’s Basket of Light album, featuring their version of Lyke Wake Dirge and The Sallyangie’s Children of the the Sun, featuring a young Mike Oldfield and his sister.

Gatefold photograph from Forest’s 1969 self-titled debut album.

Artwork from the Early Morning Hush: Notes from the UK Folk Underground 1969-1976 compilation album from 2006, also curated by Bob Stanley.

Text extracts from Chapter 2 can be viewed here.

Chapter 3: Hauntology – Places Where Society Goes to Dream, the Defining and Deletion of Spectres and the Making of an Ungenre

Text from the debate around whether or not to delete hauntology as a music genre on Wikipedia. Bottom left – artwork by Demdike Stare, bottom right Ghost Box Records artwork.

Left-right: stills from the intro sequence for The Owl Service, Children of the Stones and The Changes television series.

Left-right: Daphne Oram and others working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, flexidisc of an advert for Bruton Music library music company, the cover art for The Season album by David Cain and Ronald Duncan.

Left-right: cover art for the Ghost Box Records released Sleep Games and Stasis, both by Pye Corner Audio.

A still from Panos Cosmatos’ film Beyond The Black Rainbow.

Text extracts from Chapter 3 can be viewed here.

Chapter 4: Cuckoos in the Same Nest – Hauntological and Otherly Folk Confluences and Intertwinings

Left-right first row: The TV tie-in publication of Alan Garner’s The Owl Service novel, islanders in masks from The Wicker Man film and Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Left-right second row: cover art for the Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Withcults of the Radio Age album, cover art for The Owl Service’s The View From a Hill album, a still from the intro sequence for the Children of the Stones series and a Ghost Box Records logo.

Left-right: cover art for The Owl Service’s The View From a Hill album – designed by Dom Cooper of The Owl Service/The Straw Bear Band/Bare Bones, cover art for the Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Withcults of the Radio Age album – designed by Julian House of The Focus Group/Ghost Box Records and released by Warp Records and cover artwork from the Gather in the Mushrooms: The British Acid Folk Underground 1968-1974 compilation album – released in 2004 and curated by Bob Stanley.

Left-right first row: DVD cover art: the BFI’s release of The Changes television series, Network’s releases of Alan Garner’s The Owl Service and the Children of the Stones television series.

Left-right second row: DVD cover art: the BFI’s release of Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape, the Director’s cut release of The Wicker Man, Doctor Who stories The Stones of Blood featuring Tom Baker and The Daemons featuring Jon Pertwee.

Members of the BBC Radiphonic Workshop.

Text extracts from Chapter 4 can be viewed here.

Chapter 5: Ghost Box Records – Parallel Worlds, Conjuring Spectral Memories, Magic Old and New and Slipstream Trips to the Panda Pops Disco

Ghost Box Records logo and artwork.

Left-right: The Radiophonic Workshop album by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and The Seasons album – poems by Ronald Duncan, Radiophonic music by David Cain (the Trunk Records reissue cover art).

Left-right: a poster that accompanied the Ghost Box-released Belbury Poly’s Belbury Tales album and the CD front cover.

The sleeves and artwork for the vinyl version of the The Advisory Circle’s Mind How You Go album (revised edition).

The CD sleeve for The Belbury Poly’s New Ways Out album – design by Julian House, circle illustration by Jim Jupp.

Artwork for The Soundcarriers Entropicalia album and accompanying poster, plus various Ghost Box related artwork.

Left-right: poster artwork by Julian House, the cover to Sketches and Spells by The Focus Group, exhibition poster by Julian House.

Ghost Box related artwork by Julian House.

Left-right: mandala like Ghost Box related artwork by Julian House and the album cover art for The Invisible World of Beautify Junkyards.

Video stills from #1: Witch Cults – collaborative work between Broadcast and Julian House to accompany the album Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witchcults of the Radio Age.

Text extracts from Chapter 5 can be viewed here.

Chapter 6 Book Images: Folk Horror Roots – From But a Few Seedlings Did a Great Forest Grow

Left-right: stills from Witchfinder General, Blood on Satan’s Claw and The Wicker Man.

Still of islanders in folkloric animal masks from The Wicker Man.

The Wicker Man poster.

Curse of the Crimson Altar still: Barbara Steele in as Lavina Morley, Black Witch of Greymarsh, who is dressed in striking, opulent and almost surreal folkloric garb, including a behorned headdress.

A collage of images from Curse of the Crimson Altar.

Poster for Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, featuring an illustration of Barbara Steel as Katia Vajda / Princess Asa Vajda.

Stills from The Innocents.

Stills and posters for Roger Vadim’s Blood and Roses, aka Et Mourir de Plaisir and Il Sangue e la Rosa.

Left-right: introduction sequence images and text for Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape and Beasts and Alan Garner’s The Owl Service.

Introduction sequence images for Alan Garner’s The Owl Service.

Left-right: introduction sequence images and text from Children of the Stones and M.R. James’ Whistle and I’ll Come To You.

Left-right: image from David Rudkin’s adaptation of M.R. James’ The Ash Tree and Play For Today drama Robin Redbreast.

Image from David Rudkin and Alan Clarke’s Penda’s Fen.

Left-right: soundtrack artwork for Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and Queens of Evil aka Le Regine or Il Delitto del Diavolo.

Masthead for Folk Horror Review site.

Masthead for Folk Horror Revival site.

Left-right: photograph of an The Alchemical Landscape event and poster for A Fiend in the Furrows.

Left-right: cover art for Ghost Box Records’ In a moment… compilation album, Emily Jones’ and The Rowan Amber Mill’s The Book of the Lost and The Soulless Party’s Tales from the Black Meadow.

Artwork and photograph from She Rocola’s Burn The Witch/Molly Leigh of the Mother Town, released by A Year In The Country.

Image from Marshlight Software’s “psychogeographical folk tale” computer game Edgelands.

A collage created from a selection of the above Chapter 6 accompanying images.

Text extracts from Chapter 6 can be viewed here.

Chapter 7 Book Images: 1973 – A Time of Schism and a Dybbuk’s Dozen of Fractures

Packaging for the A Year In The Country released Fractures album.

Artwork from the Fractures album.

Delia Derbyshire / The BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Images from the early 1970 electricity blackouts in the UK.

Adverts from double bill cinema showings of Don’t Look Now and The Wicker Man.

A still from The Changes television series.

The cover of the first edition of Richard Mabey’s Unofficial Countryside and connected television footage with Richard Mabey.

Still from The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water Public Information film.

Still from the introduction sequence of Psychomania.

Left-right: Judy Dyble, Delia Derbyshire, the cover to Vashti Bunyan’s Just Another Diamond Day and Shelagh McDonald’s Let No Man Steal Your Thyme albums.

Still from the Michael Fassbinder-directed German television series World on a Wire.

Poster for Soylent Green.

Stills from The Final Programme.

Still from Blue Blood.

Still from the title sequence of the final series of Quatermass.

Text extracts from Chapter 7 can be viewed here.

Chapter 8 Book Images: Broadcast – Recalibration, Constellation and Exploratory Pop

Image of Broadcast from an Invisible Jukebox article in Wire magazine.

Left-right: Warp/Tommy Boy promotional photograph and a further promotional photograph.

Left-right: stills from the television series Children of the Stones, Sky and The Owl Service.

Left-right: the cover art to the Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witchcults of the Radio Age and Mother is the Milky Way albums.

Left-right: the cover art to the Haha Sound album and the Finders Keepers/B-Music edition of the Valerie and Her Week of Wonders soundtrack album, featuring sleevenotes by Trish Keenan.

Broadcast and The Focus Group video stills – collaborative work with Julian House of The Focus Group, Ghost Box Records and Intro design agency.

Left-right: Introduction sequence stills from The Tomorrow People, The Owl Service and Camberwick Green.

Left-right: photograph from Wire magazine interview with Broadcast, spread from Shindig! magazine and promotional photograph of Trish Keenan.

Left-right: cover art to The United States of America eponymously titled album, promotional photograph of the band, collage made from promotional photograph of the band.

Left-right: the cover of Ghosts of My Life book my Mark Fisher, Broadcast logo by Julian House, Wire magazine cover.

Text extracts from Chapter 8 can be viewed here.

Chapter 9 Book Images: Tales from the Black Meadow, The Book of the Lost and The Equestrian Vortex – The Imagined Spaces of Imaginary Soundtracks

Left-right: tales from the Black Meadow album cover art and accompanying photograph from the album/project.

Left-right: The Book of the Lost album by Emily Jones and The Rowan Amber Mill cover art, accompanying photographs from the album/project.

Stills from The Equestrian Vortex introduction sequence in Berberian Sound Studio – sequence art directed by Julian House.

Left-right: still from Berberian Sound Studio, poster art for the film by Julian House.

Text extracts from Chapter 9 can be viewed here.

Chapter 10 Book Images: The Wicker Man – Notes on a Cultural Behemoth

The Wicker Man’s film certificate.

The poster for the 40th anniversary restoration and reissue.

Various covers of The Wicker Man DVD and VHS releases, alongside book and record cover.

Artwork for Willow’s Songs album of traditional British folk songs that inspired The Wicker Man’s soundtrack. Released by Finders Keepers Records.

The Wicker Man collector’s cards, folder and print plates.

Left-right: poster artwork to accompany the 40th Anniversary soundtrack reissue and Nuada, a fanzine that focuses on The Wicker Man.

Various covers of books written about The Wicker Man, the book of the music score and David Pinner’s Ritual which was one of the influences on the film.

The first officially licensed soundtrack album, released by Trunk Records. A Record Store Day single of the soundtrack.

The cover to David Pinner’s Ritual, reissued by by Finders Keepers Records.

Left-right: the covers of the two editions of Allan Brown’s Inside The Wicker Man book, the first page of the chapter on The Wicker Man in Simon Wells’ and Ali Catterall’s Your Face Here.

Vic Pratt’s Long Arm of the Lore article on The Wicker Man, published around the time of the film’s 40th anniversary in the BFI’s Sight & Sound magazine. Also the cover of Sight & Sound which featured Rob Young’s Pattern Under the Plough article on the flipside of British folkloric film.

(First row, left-right): stills from Winstanley (1975), Akenfield (1974) and Sleep Furiously (2008).

(Second row, left-right): stills from Derek Jarman’s Journey to Avesbury (1971), Patrick Keiller’s Robinson in Space (1997) and Chris Petit’s London Orbital (2002).

(Third row, left-right): the cover art for a Blu-ray reissue of Quatermass and the Pit (1967) and a still from Penda’s Fen (1974).

(Left-right): cover art variations for Sneaker Pimp’s Becoming X album and Spin Spin Sugar, which featured How Do – a version of Willow’s Song. Cover art for a Record Store Day single issue of Willow’s Song/Gently Johnny.

(Left-right): cover art to Kelli Ali’s folk inflected album Rocking Horse on record label One Little Indian and self-released album Butterfly, which featured a version of Willow’s Song.

(Left-right, first row): back cover art for Pulp’s album We Love Life, which featured the song Wickerman, that included a sample from The Wicker Man’s soundtrack. Cover art to the sing Trees/Sunrise from the album.

(Left-right, second row): postcard of location featured in Pulp’s Wickerman song. Artwork from Ben Wheatley’s Kill List film.

Photographs of the construction of one of The Wicker Man structures used in the film.

(Left-right): production details sheet, still from a deleted scene and behind the scenes photograph.

Contermporary photographs of locations used in The Wicker Man.

Stills from the BBC 4 series Cast and Crew (2005), which focused on The Wicker Man.

Title and stills from the BFI documentary Sing Cuckoo: The Story and Influence of The Wicker Man Sound track.

(Middle photograph: Jonny Trunk of Trunk Records. Lower photograph Stephen Cracknell of The Memory Band and Mike Lindsay of Tuung.)

Text extracts from Chapter 10 can be viewed here.

Chapter 11 Book Images: Robin Redbreast, The Ash Tree, Sky, The Changes, Penda’s Fen, Red Shift and The Owl Service – Wanderings Through Spectral Television Landscapes

DVD covers for the BFI releases of Reshift, Robin Redbresat and The Changes.

Still from Robin Redbreast and late 19th/early 20th century photograph of folkloric costume by Benjamin Stone.

Title sequence stills from The Omega Factor, Noah’s Castle and Quatermass (all released in 1979).

Stills from The Tomorrow People television series.

Cover art for The Modern Poets books from the 1960s and 1970s and artwork by Julian House of Ghost Box Records.

Stills from The Owl Service television series title/intro sequence.

Stills from the Children of the Stones television series title/intro sequence.

Stills from the television series Sky (1975) and below promotional literature.

Stills from The Changes (1975) television series.

Still from The Ash Tree television drama from 1975: M.R. James’ story adapted by David Rudkin.

Stills from Penda’s Fen (1974).

Stills from Red Shift (1978).

Pages from the Filming the Owl Service book published in 1970.

Text extracts from Chapter 11 can be viewed here.

Chapter 12 Book Images: A Bear’s Ghosts – Soviet Dreams and Lost Futures

Images from Jan Kempemaers’ Spomenik photography book/project – his photographs of structures that were created in Yugoslavia in the 1960s and 1970s as memorials to the Second World War but which now apparently are largely abandoned.

Images from Christopher Herwig’s Soviet Bus Stops book, published by Fuel.

Images and the book cover for Danila Tkachenko’s Restricted Areas book from 2016, published by Dewi Lewis Publishing – the photographs focus on abandoned hardware, secret cities and installations from the Soviet Union during the Cold War period.

Ralph Mireb’s images of abandoned and incomplete Soviet era space shuttles (which are a curious simulacra of the American space shuttle in terms of design and can be found at the website Bored Panda).

One of Alexander Marksin’s photographs of discarded Soviet space shuttle wooden wind-tunnel models.

Soviet era hydrofoils and which were known as river rockets, made from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s.

The cover of Rebecca Litchfield’s Soviet Ghosts, a book released in 2014 which focuses on the extent of abandonment in the former Soviet Union and its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc.

Text extracts from Chapter 12 can be viewed here.

Chapter 13 Book Images: From “Two Tribes” to War Games – The Ascendancy of Apocalyptic Popular Culture

(Left-right): cover art for singles; Blondie’s Atomic, Nena’s 99 Red Baloons and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s Enola Gay.

(Left-righ)t: cover art for singles; The Pirahnas’ Tom Hark/Getting Beaten Up, Joan Lewie’s Stop the Cavalry and Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Two Tribes.

(Left-right): cover art for singles; Nik Kershaw’s I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me, Strawberry Switchblade’s Since Yesterday and Ultravox’ Dancing with tears in my eyes.

Cover variations for Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel On the Beach.

Video still from Blondie’s Atomic single.

Stills from the UK Government’s Civil Defence Protect and Survive information films.

Cover art for Kate Bush’s Breathing single and the Never for Ever album which included Breathing in its tracklist.

International variations of the posters for the WarGames film (1983).

Still from the1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; WarGames actor Matthew Broderick front right.

Stills of text created by the main computer in WarGames.

Poster artwork for the dystopic young adult orientated film The Hunger Games and the 1980s British television adaptation of John Christopher’s Tripods book series.

Still from WarGames showing the underground command centre.

Text extracts from Chapter 13 can be viewed here.

Chapter 14 Book Images: Christopher Priest’s A Dream of Wessex – Twentieth Century Slipstream Echoes

Original hardback cover of A Dream of Wessex – painting by Paul Nash, published by Faber & Faber in 1977.

Toward the Unknown Region chapter of Rob Young’s Electric Eden book, which includes writing on a Dream of Wessex in a chapter which focuses on hauntological work, Ghost Box Records and arcane contemporary cultural explorations of the pastoral.

Artwork by Julian House for Ghost Box Records

(Left-right): original paper back cover of A Dream of Wessex, photographs of the inner flaps from the book’s dust jacket.

Still from the Sapphire & Steel television series, which shares a similar use of eerie or otherly faceless imagery with the paperback edition of A Dream of Wessex.

Text extracts from Chapter 14 can be viewed here.

Chapter 15 Book Images: Sapphire & Steel and Ghosts in the Machine – Nowhere, Forever and Lost Spaces within Cultural Circuitry

TV Times television listing magazine with Sapphire & Steel cover, ITC promotional material and promotional image from the series.

Images from Sapphire & Steel’s intro sequence.

Still of faceless character from Sapphire & Steel.

Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life book cover and still from Sapphire & Steel’s final television episode.

Publicity still from Sapphire & Steel’s final television episode.

Cover to Nigel Kneale’s novelisation of the final series of Quatermass (also written by him).

Screenshots of glitches from one of the DVD releases of Sapphire & Steel.

Image from the Channel 4 television series Ghosts in the Machine, a programme which compiled experimental video artwork.

Television listings magazine scan for the first episode of Sapphire & Steel.

Text extracts from Chapter 15 can be viewed here.

Chapter 16 Book Images: Kill List, Puffball, In the Dark Half and Butter on the Latch – Folk Horror Descendants by Way of the Kitchen Sink

French poster for Ben Wheatley’s film Kill List and still from one of its final sequences.

Still from one of the domestic scenes in Kill List.

Still from Kill List and the symbol which is carved into the back of the mirror.

Cover to Adam Scovell’s book Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange and images from the final sequence of the films The Wicker Man and Queens of Evil.

Poster for Nicholas Roeg’s film Puffball.

Record label for Kate Bush’s Aerial album, logo/still from the television series Grand Designs and the cover to David Keenan’s book England’s Hidden Reverse, which focuses on the work of Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound.

Logo for the Play For Today strand of television dramas and stills from the Play for Today episode Robin Redbreast.

Newspaper adverts for the early 1970s cinema double bill of Don’t Look Now and The Wicker Man.

Images of Rita Tushingham from Puffball.

Film still (or possibly a publicity photograph) of Rita Tushingham from A Taste of Honey.

Covers for Kate Bush’s album Aerial and her single Cloudbusting.

Cover for Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes album and cover art for her film The Line, The Cross & The Curve.

DVD cover for Nicholas Roeg’s Devil’s Eyeball film, AKA Puffball.

Still from the film The Company of Wolves.

Poster for Alastair Siddons In the Dark Half film.

Stills from In the Dark Half.

Stills from Josephine Decker’s film Butter on the Latch.

Cover to the album of Bulgarian folk songs Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares which 4AD released in the 1980s and a still from David Lynch’s 2006 film Inland Empire.

Stills from Butter on the Latch.

Text extracts from Chapter 16 can be viewed here.

Chapter 17 Book Images: The Quietened Bunker, Waiting for the End of the World, Subterranea Britannica, Bunker Archaeology and The Delaware Road – Ghosts, Havens and Curious Repurposings Beneath our Feet

Photographs of decommissioned bunkers.

The Dawn and Night editions of the A Year In The Country released album The Quietened Bunker, featuring work by Keith Seatman, Grey Frequency, A Year In The Country, Panabrite, Polypores, Listening Center, Time Attendant, Unknown Heretic and David Colohan.

The cover of Richard Ross’ book Waiting for the End of the World and photographs from the book.

Subterranea Britannica logo and covers to the books Subterranean Britain: Cold War Bunkers by Nick Catford and The Royal Observer Corps Underground Monitoring Posts by Mark Dalton.

Images from Paul Virilio’s book Bunker Archaeology, featuring abandoned World War II German bunkers and related installations that lie along the coast of France.

Cover of and photographs from Christopher Herwig’s book Soviet Bus Stops.

Photographs from Jan Kempenaers book and project Spomenik, featuring former Soviet Union Cold War memorials.

Still from the final scene of the original Planet of the Apes film from 1968.

Flyer and map for The Delaware Road event featuring amongst others Dolly Dolly, Howlround, Radionics Radio, Ian Helliwell and Saunders & Hill. Organised by Buried Treasure, the event took place at Kelvedon Hatch decommissioned underground bunker.

The entrance to Kelvedon Hatch decommissioned bunker.

Road signs for decommissioned bunkers.

Estate agent’s sign for available for sale decommissioned bunker.

Text extracts from Chapter 17 can be viewed here.

Chapter 18 Book Images: From The Unofficial Countryside to Soft Estate – Edgeland Documents, Memories and Explorations: Chapter 18 Book Images

Photograph of an edgeland area from Karl Hyde and Kieran Evans’ Edgeland/The Outer Edges film and album project.

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Photograph of discarded industrial equipment by Veloelectroindustrial.

Covers of the original edition of Richard Mabey’s The Unofficial Countryside and the Little Toller reissue with an introduction by Iain Sinclair.

Image from a 1975 television programme also called The Unofficial Countryside, which featured Richard Mabey.

Covers of the book Edgelands – Journeys into England’s True Wilderness is a 2012 book by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts.

CD and DVD covers from the film, music and photography project by Karl Hyde and Kieran Evans’ Edgeland/The Outer Edges and a still from the film.

Cover of Edward Chell’s 2013 Soft Estate and pages from inside the book.

Soft Estate artwork by Edward Chell, featuring plant life illustrations roadside verges/soft estate land laser etched onto brightly chromed exhaust pipes.

Paintings from Edward Chell’s Soft Estate project.

Images from Edward Chell’s Soft Estate book, featuring artwork from the Soft Estate project in Little Chef roadside cafes.

Text extracts from Chapter 18 can be viewed here.

Chapter 19 Book ImageS: The Ballad of Shirley Collins and Pastoral Noir – Tales and Intertwinings from Hidden Furrows

Cover art and back cover text from the albums Folk Routes, New Routes by Davy Graham and Shirley Collins and The Harvest Years and Anthems in Eden, both by Shirley and Dolly Collins.

America Over the Water book cover design, in which Shirley Collins documents the time in the late 1950s when she went folk song collecting in the Southern States of the USA with Alan Lomax and a photograph from one of Alan Lomax’s song collecting journeys.

Cover art for Shirley Collin’s 2016 album Lodestar and the tracklisting.

Poster for the documentary film The Ballad of Shirley Collins, directed by Rob Curry and Tim Plester.

Images from The Ballad of Shirley Collins.

Cover and inner sleeve art for the vinyl edition of the No Roses album by Shirley Collins and The Albion Country Band, featuring a photograph of Shirley Collins and Ashley Hutchings.

Artwork from the CD compilation Early Morning Hush – Notes from the UK Folk Underground 1969-1976 released in 2006, compiled by Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne and featuring Shirley Collin’s version of Poor Murdered Woman.

Cover art and CD of the Fountain of Snow compilation of Shirley Collins’ work released in 1992 by Durtro / David Tibet of Current 93.

Cover art of Coil’s Horse Rotorvator album and one of the covers of David Keenan’s book England’s Hidden Reverse, which focused on work by amongst others Coil.

Cover art to Shirley Collin’s collaborator’s Cyclobe’s album Sulphur-Tarot-Garden and a photograph of Stephen Thrower and Ossian Brown of Cyclobe.

Images from the book Haunted Air, compiled by Ossian Brown of Cyclobe and which featured found photographs of Halloween from previous eras.

Image from The Ballad of Shirley Collins trailer, featuring Shirley and Dolly Collins.

Images from the exhibition Pastoral Noir, curated by Justin Hopper and exhibited at Wood Street Galleries in Pittsburgh, USA in 2016.

Text extracts from Chapter 19 can be viewed here.

Chapter 20 Book Images: “Savage Party” and Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) – Glimpses of Albion in the Overgrowth

Images from the folkloric-esque “Savage Party” trailer of British youth-orientated soap opera Hollyoaks.

Photograph of band Stealing Sheep and images from the video to their Shut Eye.

Image of the band Coco Rosie from newspaper periodical Arthur, plus Devandra Banhart and Joanna Newsom.

Image from the “Halloween on Hollyoaks” trailer which was was in part a homage to Dario Argento’s Suspiria film from 1977.

Images from the Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) television series that was broadcast in 2000-2001, which was produced by Charlie Higson, who also wrote and directed some episodes and starred comedians Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer alongside Emilia Fox and former Doctor Who Tom Baker.

Images from Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg’s Hot Fuzz film of 2007.

Cover art from the John Barleycorn Reborn series of dark Britannica compilation albums of wyrd, exploratory, underground etc folk that were released by Cold Spring beginning in 2007.

Images from Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).

Rotating from top left: stills from The Wicker Man, The Monster Club, The Curse of the Crimson Altar and Penda’s Fen.

Tom Baker as Doctor Who in the 1970s.

Image of Gareth Thomas in the cult science fiction television series Blake’s 7 (1978-1981).

Image from The League of Gentleman television series that was broadcast from 1999-2002.

Cover art of the Trunk Records release of The Wicker Man.

Image from Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Ken Russell’s film Altered States.

Image from the television series Doomwatch and Ken Russell’s Altered States.

Image from The Raiders of the Lost Ark film and the animated series Scooby Doo.

Text extracts from Chapter 20 can be viewed here.

Chapter 21 Book Images: Uncommonly British Days Out and the Following of Ghosts – File under Psychogeographic / Hauntological Stocking Fillers

One of the covers to ason Hazeley, Robin Halstead, Joel Morris and Alex Morris’ Bollocks to Alton Towers: Uncommonly British Days Out guide book published in 2005.

Images connected to the places visited in the Uncommonly British Days Out books.

Map from the Uncomonly British Days Out books.

Cover of Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life book and inner sleeve jacket from one of the Uncommonly British Days Out books.

Text extracts from Chapter 21 can be viewed here.

Chapter 22 Book Images: Gone to Earth – Earlier Traces of an Otherly Albion

Poster and costume design artwork from Powel and Pressburger’s film Gone to Earth.

Front and back cover of an edition of Mary Webb’s Gone to Earth novel.

Stills/publicity image from Gone to Earth and Spanish film poster for the version re-edited at the instigation of producer David O. Selznick, which was known as The Wild at Heart (here translated as Wild Heart).

Still of Hazel Woodus, played by Jennifer Jones in Gone to Earth.

Still of the local squire and Hazel from Gone to Earth.

Still from the “Harp in Heaven” song sequence from Gone to Earth.

Sleeve and vinyl of the Finders Keepers Records release of the George Auric and Isla Cameron song “O Willow Waly” from The Innocents.

Collage of stills and still from the film Malá Morská Víla/The Little Mermaid.

Cover art from the Finders Keepers Records vinyl and download release of extra tracks from the soundtrack to Valerie and her Week of Wonders from 1970.

Cover art for Kate Bush’s Red Shoes album, a still from Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 film of the same name and cover art for Kate Bush’s film The Line, the Cross & the Curve.

Cover art to David Sylvian’s albums Gone to Earth and Secrets of the Beehive (the second of which has artwork by Vaughan Oliver and Nigel Grierson working as 23 Envelope) and his single A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil.

UK first and later edition and American edition over designs for Rob Young’s book Electric Eden.

Cover art for Kate Bush’s album Never for Ever, Julian Cope’s Fried, David Sylvian’s Secrets of the Beehive and Talk Talk’s The Colour of Spring.

Text extracts from Chapter 22 can be viewed here.

Chapter 23 Book Images: Queens of Evil, Tam Lin and The Touchables – High Fashion Transitional Psych Folk Horror, Pastoral Fantasy and Dreamlike Isolation

Poster/promotional artwork for Queens of Evil aka Le Regine or Il Delitto del Diavolo (1970), Tam Lin aka The Devil’s Widow (1970) and The Touchables (1968).

Stills from Queens of Evil.

Screengrab from Psychedelic Folkloristic website.

1960s/early 1970s (?) fashion by Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell.

Images from Czech New Wave film Daisies (1966).

Screenshot from Queens of Evil.

Image of the procession in The Wicker Man (1973).

Cover art for the Liege & Lief by Fairport Convention and First Utterance by Comus.

Still of the giant inflatable bubble home from The Touchables (1968) film.

Robert Freemantle’s adaptation of The Touchable film and promotional still, also from the film.

Still from The Touchables.

Collage of stills from The Touchables.

Cover art for the Nirvana album All of Us, featuring the track All of Us (The Touchables Theme).

Posters for the film Performance (1970).

Stills from The Touchables.

Stills from Tam Lin aka The Devil’s Widow (1970)

Ava Gardner, Ian McShane, Stephanie Beacham and others in stills from Tam Lin.

Still from the final sequence of Planet of the Apes (1968).

Director Roddy McDowell on the set of Tam Lin and as Caesar in Planet of the Apes.

Stills from Tam Lin.

Still from the opening sequence of the film Psychomania (1973).

Promotional still of Pentangle, who created some of the soundtrack for Tam Lin.

Text extracts from Chapter 23 can be viewed here.

Chapter 24 Book Images: Luke Haines – Our Most Non-Hauntological Hauntologist

Collage of images from Luke Haines and The Auteurs book, album, singles and videos.

Cover to the 1999 The Auteurs album How I Learned to Love the Bootboys.

Cover to Luke Haines’ 2006 solo album Off My Rocker at the Art School Bop.

Cover to Luke Haines’ 2011 solo album Nine and a Half Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s and early ’80s.

Covers for the three Black Box Recorder albums released between 1998 and 2003; England Made Me, The Facts of Life and Passionoia.

Cover to Moon Wiring Club’s Shoes Off and Chairs Away and a review in Uncut of the same album by Rob Young, author of Electric Eden.

Cover and promotional image for Luke Haines’ British Nuclear Bunkers solo album.

Tracklisting for Luke Haines’ British Nuclear Bunkers.

Covers for Luke Haines’ 2009 and 2011 autobiographical books Bad Vibes and Post Everything.

Still from a promotional video made to accompany British Nuclear Bunkers.

Cover to Luke Haines’ 2015 album Smash the System.

Stills from promotional video made to accompany Smash the System.

Cover art to Earl Brutus’ single The S.A.S. and the Glam that Goes With It and the album Tonight You Are The Special One. Central image – promotional photograph of Earl Brutus.

Still from A Clockwork Orange from 1971.

The front and back cover artwork to The Auteurs’ single “The Rubettes” from 1999.

Text extracts from Chapter 24 can be viewed here.

Chapter 25 Book Images: Tim Hart, Maddy Prior and “The Dalesman’s Litany” – A Yearning for Imaginative Idylls and a Counterpart to Tales of Hellish Mills

Cover art for Tim Hart and Maddy Prior’s Folk Songs of Olde England Volume 1, featuring The Dalesman’s Litany.

Image from one of the vinyl editions of Folk Songs of Olde England, featuring Maddy Prior and Tim Hart in silhouette.

Packaging for the Night and Dawn editions of the A Year In The Country releases album Fractures, featuring Circle/Temple, Sproatly Smith, Keith Seatman, Listening Center, The British Space Group, The Hare And The Moon ft Alaska / Michael Begg, Time Attendant, The Rowan Amber Mill, Polypores, A Year In The Country and David Colohan.

Text extracts from Chapter 25 can be viewed here.

Katalin Varga, Berberian Sound Studio and The Duke of Burgundy – Arthouse Evolution and Crossing the Thresholds of the Hinterland Worlds of Peter Strickland: Chapter 26 Book Images

Still from the intro sequence to The Duke of Burgundy, created by Julian House of Intro.

Stills from Katalin Varga and Berberian Sound Studio.

Still from Berberian Sound Studio.

Still from David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, which shares a number of themes with The Duke of Burgundy; the stepping into an altered reality via recorded media and the degradation of its listeners, watchers and participants.

Poster for Berberian Sound Studio, by Julian House of Intro.

Stills from The Equestrian Vortex, a film within a film, created by Julian House of Intro;

Cover art to the soundtrack album for The Duke of Burgundy and a still from the film.

Stills from The Duke of Burgundy.

Still from the 1979-87 British television sitcom Terry and June – quoted by Peter Strickland as an influence on The Duke of Burgundy.

Still from Katalin Varga.

Stills from Josephine Decker’s Butter on the Latch film from 2013.

Still from Katalin Varga.

The Scala Cinema in London and one of it’s poster format cinema programmes.

A still from The Duke of Burgundy – from a sequence influenced by Stan Brakhage’s Mothlight.

Stills from experimental film maker Stan Brakhage’s Mothlight film from 1963, which layered natural elements and insects to create a rapidly moving montage.

Text extracts from Chapter 26 can be viewed here.

General Orders No. 9 and By Our Selves – Cinematic Pastoral Experimentalism: Chapter 27 Book Images

Poster and stills from General Orders No. 9 – the 2009 film by Robert Persons.

Artwork from God Speed You Black Emperors song “Dead Flag Blues” from their 1997 album F# A# ∞, which in some ways could almost be a companion piece to General Orders No. 9, with its sense of lyrically beautiful apocalyptic dread.

Publicity still for Andrew Kötting’s film By Our Selves (2015).

Still from By Our Selves.

John Clare as played by Toby Jones, who is accompanied by a straw bear and a vintage photograph of somebody wearing a folkloric straw bear costume.

Author Alan Moore with the straw bear from the film.

A still from the film, featuring the straw bear and Toby Jones.

Text extracts from Chapter 27 can be viewed here.

No Blade of Grass and Z.P.G. – A Curious Dystopian Mini-Genre: Chapter 28 Book Images

Film posters for Z.P.G. (1972), Silent Running (1972) and Soylent Green (1973).

Film posters for The Omega Man (1971) and Logan’s Run (1976) and DVD cover for the television series Noah’s Castle (1979).

Film poster for No Blade of Grass and two different covers for John Christopher’s The Death of Grass novel from 1956, which the film was based on.

Image from the title sequence for No Blade of Grass.

Stills of biker gang from No Blade of Grass.

Stills from No Blade of Grass.

Stills from No Blade of Grass’ non-conventional narrative sequences.

Overseas poster for Z.P.G.

The screenplay was by Frank De Felitta and Max Ehrlich – the second of whom also published a novel based on the screenplay called The Edict in 1971 prior to the film’s release, the cover of which is shown above.

Overseas poster for Z.P.G. featuring actress Diane Cilento.

Lobby card for Z.P.G.

Campaign sheet/press book for Z.P.G.

Still from the end sequence of Z.P.G.

Still from the end sequence of Planet of the Apes (1968).

Text extracts from Chapter 28 can be viewed here.

The Midwich Cuckoos and The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham, Dystopian Tales, Celluloid Cuckoos and the Village as Anything but Idyll: Chapter 29 Book Images

French fim poster for The Village of the Damned, the 1960 film adaptation of John Wyndham’s 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos.

Stills from The Village of The Damned, including the iconic-ally eyed children.

Poster for the film version of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass and the Pit (1967).

Hardback cover for John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids book.

Promotional artwork for the final series of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass (1979) and the BFI DVD release of his The Stone Tape (1972).

Image from Village of the Damned, including Martin Stephens (second from right in the above still). Still from The Innocents (1961).

Still from the title sequence to the 1981 television adaptation of John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids and the television tie-in novel’s cover.

Text extracts from Chapter 29 can be viewed here.

Folk Archive and Unsophisticated Arts – Documenting the Overlooked and Unregulated: Chapter 30 Book Images

Images from Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art (2005), the book featuring work collected by Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane.

Photograph from the Jeremy Deller instigated Procession through Manchester and the cover to the English Civil War Part II book.

Cover and images from Barbara Jones’ Unsophisticated Arts book, originally released in 1951 and republished in 2013 by Little Toller Books.

Black Eyes & Lemonade exhibition-Barbara Jones

Cover and images from Barbara Jones’ Unsophisticated Arts book, originally released in 1951 and republished in 2013 by Little Toller Books and the poster of the accompanying Black Eyes & Lemonade exhibition (1951).

Text extracts from Chapter 29 can be viewed here.

Folkloric Photography – A Lineage of Wanderings, Documentings and Imaginings: Chapter 31 Book Images

Folkloric photography by Benjamin Stone from the late 19th and early 20th century, when he photographed British traditional customs.

Left: photograph by Benjamin Stone. Right: villagers from the 1970 Play for Today television drama Robin Redbreast.

Covers to the British folkloric photography books: Homer Sykes Once a Year: Some Traditional British Customs (1977), Sarah Hannant’s Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids: A Journey Through the English Ritual Year (2011), Merry Brownfield’s Merry England – the Eccentricity of English Attire (2012) and Henry Bourne’s Arcadia Britannica: A Modern British Folklore Portrait (2015).

Image from Homer Sykes Once a Year, a collection of photographs from seven years of journeying around Britain, reissued in 2016 by Dewi Lewis Publishing.

Procession and folkloric ritual photographs from Sarah Hannant’s Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids book.

Images from Merry Brownfield’s Merry England book of folkloric and traditional rituals, costumes, work outfits etc.

Images from Henry Bourne’s Arcadia Britannica, a collection of generally posed portraits of those in folkloric costume.

Cover and images from Charles Fréger’s Wilder Mann: The Image of the Savage originally published in 2012 by Dewi Lewis Publishing.

Actor in yeti/abominable snowman costume from 1970s British BBC television series Doctor Who.

Images from Axel Hoedt’s book Once a Year from 2013 which focuses on folkloric rituals and costumes from the Swabian Alemannic carnival known as Fasnacht, Fastnacht or Fasnet, a custom in southwest Germany.

Folkloric costumes and rituals from Estelle Hanania’s Glacial Jubilé book (2013).

Images from Laura Thompson’s Senseless photography series from 2016 in which she produced staged photographs of figures in the landscape dressed in costumes made from disposable manmade objects, which recall European folkloric or mythical costume but refracted through a science fiction-esque lens.

Text extracts from Chapter 31 can be viewed here.

Poles and Pylons and The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society – A Continuum of Accidental Art: Chapter 32 Book Images

Images from Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society website.

Image from the Telegraph Poles and Electricity Pylons website.

Cover to Rob Young’s Electric Eden book from 2010 and the accompanying compilation album, both of which depict a farmer ploughing the land in a traditional horse-drawn manner under the gaze of electricity pylons.

Photograph of an abandoned railway station from the website Disused Stations.

Logo for Subterranea Britannica and the covers Cold War Bunkers book by Nick Catford (published by Subterranea Britannica) and The Royal Observer Corps Underground Monitoring Posts by Mark Dalton.

Covers to the two editions of The Music Library book, which collects the covers of music library albums. Compiled by Jonny Trunk and published by FUEL.

Images from Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane’s Folk Archive book (2005).

The cover of Barbara Jones Unsophisticated Arts book (1951) and the associated Black Eyes and Lemonade exhibition.

Cover of Christopher Herwig’s Soviet Bus Stops book published in 2015 by FUEL.

Text extracts from Chapter 32 can be viewed here.

Symptoms and Images – Hauntological Begetters, the Uneasy Landscape and Gothic Bucolia: Chapter 33 Book Images

The British Film Institute’s Flipside strand of DVD/Blu-ray releases logo and a selection of the discs.

Stills from the BFI Flipside releases films Requiem for a Village and Beat Girl.

Cover for the BFI Flipside release of José Ramón Larraz film Symptoms (1974) and a still from the film featuring actress Angela Pleasance.

Still from Symptoms.

Still from Symptoms and the poster for Peter Strickland’s film The Duke of Burgundy (designed by Julian House of Intro design agency/Ghost Box Records).

Still from Symptoms featuring Angela Pleasance.

Poster for The Duke of Burgundy featuring actress Chiara D’Anna who plays one of the main characters in The Duke Of Burgundy.

Pages from fashion photographer Deborah Turbeville’s book Past Imperfect, published by Steidl.

Still from Symptoms.

Cover of Film Quarterly magazine featuring Susannah York in Robert Altman’s film Images (1972).

Arrow Blu-ray release of Images, featuring artwork by Twins of Evil and a still from the film.

Exterior/landscape stills from Images.

Interior still from Images.

Text extracts from Chapter 33 can be viewed here.

The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water – Public Information Films and Lost Municipal Paternalisms: Chapter 34 Book Images

Still from Public Information Film The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water (1973).

DVD cover for the Charley Says release of 280 Public Information Films from the Central Office of Information Archives.

Cover and contents for the book Scarred For Life – Growing Up in the Dark Side of the Decade – Volume One: The 1970s, by Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence, published in 2017.

Still from the final scene of The Wicker Man, featuring the characters Sergeant Howie, Miss Rose, Lord Summerisle and Willow (played by Edward Woodward, Diane Cilento, Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland).

Still from The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water.

Text extracts from Chapter 34 can be viewed here.

Magpahi, Paper Dollhouse and The Eccentronic Research Council – Finders Keepers/Bird Records Nestings and Considerations of Modern Day Magic: Chapter 35 Book Images

Cover to Magpahi’s (Alison Cooper) Magpahi EP compilation, released by Jane Weaver’s Bird Records in collaboration with Finders Keepers Records in 2008 and the Watchbird Alluminate album by Jane Weaver Septiéme Souer (2011), featuring Demdike Stare, The Focus Group, Emma Tricca, Wendy Flower, Susan Christie, Amworth Kirk, Magpahi and Samandtheplants.

Cover and packaging design for the cassette album Devon Folklore Tapes Vol. IV – Rituals and Practices, featuring Magpahi and Paper Dollhouse.

Soundtrack album covers for Peter Stickland’s films Berberian Sound Studio and The Duke of Burgundy, created by Broadcast and Cat’s Eyes respectively. Cover design/artwork by Julian of Intro design agency / Ghost Box Records.

Cover for Natural Lancashire / Supernatural Lancashire album released in 2009 by Finders Keepers records; a collaborative work by Alison or A. Cooper (Magpahi) and Folklore Tapes collaborator and co-founder of the Hood Faire record label Sam McLoughlin (samantheplants).

Publicity photograph of Crystal Mirrors – Alison Cooper and Gwendolen Osmond, whose work was jointly released by Folklore Tapes and Hood Faire.

Covers to various albums featuring work by Magpahi; Mistletoe & Cold Winter Skies released by Was Ist Das? in 2014 and several A Year In The Country released themed compilations; The Forest/The Wald (2016) and All The Merry Year Round and The Quietened Cosmologists (both 2017).

Finders Keepers Records logo.

Publicity still of Jane Weaver for the album The Fallen by Watchbird (costume/aesthetic also featured in The Fallen by Watchbird video by kluncklick).

Cover and vinyl of the “O Willow Waly” / “Et Mourir de Plaisir / Blood & Roses” single released by Finders Keepers in 2013. Music by George Auric and Isla Cameron and Jean Prodromidés respectively, also respectively taken from the films The Innocents (1961) and Et Mourir de Plaisir / Blood & Roses (1960).

Cover and CD for Paper Dollhouse’s A Box Painted Black (2012), released by Bird Records in collaboration with Finders Keepers Records. Recorded by Astrud Steehouder working as solo artist.

Left – still from 1988 film Paperhouse. Right – image from 1972 television series Escape into the Night. Centre image – cover to Catherine Storr’s 1958 novel Marianne Dream, which both film and the series are based on

Cover to the The Eccentronic Research Council’s 1612 Underture album, released in 2012 by Bird Records.

Adrian Flanagan, Maxine Peake and Dean Honer of The Eccentronic Research Council.

Cover to Kings Have Long Arms and Phil Oakey’s Rock and Roll is Dead single, Add N To (X)’s Avant Hard and I Monster’s Daydream in Blue.

CD and inner sleeve of 1612 Underture.

Stills from the extended video/film by kluncklick which accompanied the 1612 Underture album.

Text extracts from Chapter 35 can be viewed here.

Vashti Bunyan – From Here to Before – Whispering Fairy Stories until They are Real: Chapter 36 Book Images

Poster/flyer design for cinema showings of the Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before (2008) documentary made by Kieran Evans.

Poster artwork for the film Finisterre by Kieran Evans and Paul Kelly in collaboration with Saint Etienne.

Cover artwork for the Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind compilation of Vashti Bunyans singles and demos, plus early vinyl singles.

Promotional photographs, charts and text of Vashti Bunyan.

Vashti Bunyan and her boyfriend Robert Lewis travelling in the horse and cart which they used to travel to the Hebridean Islands.

Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom – musicians influenced by Vashti Bunyan, who have been loosely connected under the label “freak folk”.

Covers for the Vashti Bunyan albums Lookaftering (2005) and Heartleap (2014) – both released by Fatcat.

Cover art for Vashti Bunyan’s Just Another Diamond Day album and recording studio sheets.

Vashti Bunyan on her stage post 2000.

Vashti Bunyan’s 1960s producer Joe Boyd and artist John James who was one of her companions for parts of her journey to the Hebridean islands.

Image from From Here to Before of Vashti Bunyan and her partner in their folkloric, late 1960s-esque, gypsy like garb.

Image of Vashti Bunyan from From Here to Before.

Text extracts from Chapter 36 can be viewed here.

The Owl Service, Anne Briggs, The Watersons, Lutine and Audrey Copard – Folk Revisiters, Revivalists and Re-interpreters: Chapter 37 Book Images

Cover art for the albums Jane Weaver Septième Soeur’s Fallen by Watch Bird (2010), the acid folk compilation Gather in the Mushrooms (2004) and The Owl Service’s The View from a Hill (2010).

Cover art and booklet for The Owl Service album The View from a Hill.

Promotional photograph of Mellow Candle, cover art for Nancy Wallace’s Old Stories album and The Straw Bear Band’s Vexed Soul EP.

Image from The Owl Service television series and cover to the television tie-in release of the book. Cover of Jeanette Leech’s Seasons They Change – The Story of Acid and Psychedelic Folk book.

Photograph of singer Anne Briggs.

Covers for Anne Briggs’ eponymous album and The Time Has Come albums.

Title image from Travelling for a Living, a 1966 documentary by Derrick Knight that focuses on folk band The Watersons.

Image from Travelling for a Living of a folk club audience.

Photographs of The Watersons, circa the making of Travelling for a Living.

Eugene Doyen’s photographs of the 1980s Medway garage punk scene, featuring amongst others The Milkshakes, Bruce Brand, Billy Childish, Micky Hampshire, Tracy Emin and Sexton Ming.

Photographs of Cecil Sharp House – The English Folk Dance and Song Society.

Cover art for Lutine’s White Flowers album, released by Front & Follow.

Cover art for the 4AD released albums His Name Is Alive’s Livonia and The Moon and the Melodies by Harold Budd, Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymond (The Cocteaua Twins), featuring artwork Vaughan Oliver and Nigel Grierson working as 23 Envelope.

Cover and sleeve of Audrey Copard’s 1956 folk revival album titled English Folk Songs.

The Seasons, Jonny Trunk, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Howlround – A Yearning for Library Music, Experiments in Educational Music and Tape Loop Tributes: Chapter 38 Book Images

Members of The Radiophonic Workshop.

Covers of the albums The Radiophonic Workshop by BBC Radiophonic Workshop and The Seasons by Ronald Duncan and David Cain. Cover of the first edition of the book The Music Library, compiled and curated by Jonny Trunk.

Members of BBC Radiophonic Workshop, including Daphne Oram.

Doctor Who television series intro, featuring music created by Delia Derbyshire in 1963 utilising Ron Grainer’s score.

Images from Simon Reynold’s article “Haunted Audio” that focused on hauntological music and culture – printed in the November 2006 issue of Wire magazine.

Sleeve art for the Glo-Spot Electrosonic album.

Sleeve art for Tummy Touch Records’ albums featuring music from the KPM music library.

Jonny Trunk of Trunk Records.

Sleeve art from the Trunk Records library music-related releases; The Super Sounds of Bosworth (1996) which brings together work from The Bosworth Music Archive, G-Spots (2009) which is subtitled “The spacey folk electro-horror sounds of the Studio G Library”, Dawn of the Dead (2004) – the soundtrack of which used library music in part from the Music De Wolfe label and Stand by for Adverts (2011), subtitled “Rare Jingles, Jazz and Advertising Electronics” and which features work by Barry Gray.

Covers to the 2005 and 2016 editions of The Music Library book; published by FUEL, compiled and curated by Jonny Trunk.

Cover of The Trunk Records’ release of Ronald Duncan and David Cain’s The Seasons album and a photograph of David Cain.

Covers of the Trunk Records releases Carl Orff & Gunild Keetman’s Music for Children/Schulwerk and Classroom Projects, both released in 2013.

Sleeve art from the album The Langley Schools Music Project Innocence & Despair.

Logos for Jonny Trunk’s long-running The OST Show on radio station Resonance FM and Trunk Records.

Cover art for the single Do it the Safety Way by Max Bygraves with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, From the Bunker – an album compiled by Andrew Weatherall and artwork by Pete Fowler.

Cover art to the Ghost Box Records released Mind How You Go by The Advisory Circle, Ghost Box Record’s logo, an image from the television series The Changes, artwork from a Moon Wiring Club release and a photograph of Broadcast from Wire magazine.

Covers of the Howlround album Ghosts of Bush, the label from the album and related promotional material.

Text extracts from Chapter 38 can be viewed here.

An Old Soul Returns – The Worlds and Interweavings of Kate Bush: Chapter 39 Book Images

Image from the introduction to television series Bagpuss (1974) made by Smallfilms and the cover art for Kate Bush’s Never for Ever album.

Image from one of the promotional videos which accompanied the single release of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights.

Cover art for Kate Bush’s single breathing, promotional image for The Ninth Wave section of her The Hounds of Love album and image of her from the Experiment IV single’s promotional video.

Cover art for Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting single and an image from its promotional video.

Different covers for Peter Reich’s A Book of Dreams memoir and images and from Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting single’s promotional video.

Text extracts from Chapter 39 can be viewed here.

The Stone Tape, Quatermass, The Road and The Twilight Language of Nigel Kneale – Unearthing Tales from Buried Ancient Pasts: Chapter 40 Book Images

Sleeve of the BFI DVD release of Nigel Kneale’s Stone Tape.

Website masthead image from The Folk Horror Revival website.

Logo of record label Stone Tape Recordings, cover art for The Owl Service’s The View from a Hill album and sleeve art and vinyl of Iain Sinclair’s Stone Tape Shuffle album released by Test Centre in 2012.

Image which accompanied the 2015 BBC Radio production of Nigel Kneale’s Stone Tape.

Cover art for the soundtrack album of Berberian Sound Studio, featuring music by Broadcast, cover art for The Equestrian Vortex music release by Andrew Liles and the England’s Hidden Reverse book by David Keenan.

Promotional image from television series Life on Mars (2006-2007) and title sequence of The Last Train (1999)

Poster for the film Quatermass and the Pit (1967).

Cover art for the Ghost Box Record’s release of The Séance at Hobs Lane by Mount Vernon Arts Lab.

Title and credit sequence images for Nigel Kneale’s final series of Quatermass.

Image from the title sequence of the television series Noah’s Castle (1979).

Image from Nigel Kneale’s lost television play The Road (1963).

Cover of the We are the Martians: The Legacy of Nigel Kneale book, edited by Neil Snowdon.

Covers for the books We are the Martians: The Legacy of Nigel Kneale, the two editions of Into the Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale by Andy Murray and published by Headpress, Kim Newman’s Quatermass and the Pit published by the BFI in 2014 and the collection of essays The Twilight Language of Nigel Kneale, which was edited by Sukhdev Sandhu, published by Strange Attractor and Texte und Töne and designed by Seen Studios.

Cover of The Twilight Language of Nigel Kneale book and the accompanying cassette tape Restligests, featuring specially-composed work by The Asterism, Emma Hammond, Hong Kong In The 60s, Listening Center, The Real Tuesday Weld, Robin The Fog of Howlround and Mordant Music.

Text extracts from Chapter 40 can be viewed here.

Folklore Tapes and the Wyrd Britannia Festival – Journeying to Hidden Corners of the Land/the Ferrous Reels and Explorations of an Arcane Research Project: Chapter 41 Book Image

Folklore Tapes logo and masthead.

Cover art for various Folklore Tapes releases including “Mid-Winter Rites & Revelries”, “Inland Water”, “Ornithology”, “Memories of Hurstwood” and “Stanton Drew Stone Circle”.

Packaging for Folklore Tapes Vo. IV – Rituals & Practices, featuring work by Magpahi and Paper Dollhouse.

Flyer for the Wyrd Britannia festival of 2012 that took place in Halifax and Hebden Bridge. Organised by James Glossop, the festival was to mark the relaunch of the Calderdale libraries Wyrd Britannia collection of films, books and music.

DVD covers and a still from films/programmes shown as part of Wyrd Britannia; The Wicker Man (1973), Robin Redbreast (1970) and Penda’s Fen (1974).

Cover art to the eponymously titled single by Magpahi, the Tales from the Black Meadow book of stories by Chris Lambert published in 2013 and Andy Roberts’ book Albion Dreaming.

Artwork and images from the Tales from the Black Meadow album and project.

Poster and images from the Echo of Light performance from the Wyrd Britannia festival; presented by Folklore Tapes and featuring Alison Cooper (Magpahi), Sam McLouglin (who also performs as Samandtheplants and co-oversees the record label Hood Faire) and David Chatton Barker.

Items from the Calderdale libraries Wyrd Britannia collection, which were on display at the Wyrd Britannia festival; including a number of Quatermass films, The Miners Hymn (2010), albums by 1960s/1970s acid folk band Forest, The Owl Service’s fine folk revisiting album The View from a Hill (2010), a 3 disc DVD reissue of The Wicker Man, The Stone Tape (1972), Trembling Bells Abandoned Love (2010), Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age (2009) and the Gather in the Mushrooms compilation of underground 1960s/early 1970s acid folk released in 2004.

Books from the Wyrd Britannia collection which were also on display, including Bob Pegg’s (of the early 1970s the-darker-shade-of-folk band Mr Fox) Rites and Riots (1981), George Stewart Evan’s The Pattern Under the Plough (1966), Alfred Watkins’ The Old Straight Track and The Cylinder Musical-Box Handbook (1968) by Graham Webb.

Text extracts from Chapter 41 can be viewed here.

Skeletons – Pastoral Preternatural Fiction and a World, Time and Place of its Own Imagining: Chapter 42 Book Images

Poster and DVD cover for Nick Whitfield’s Skeletons film.

The plot involves two suited, slightly shabby (or even seedy in one case), privately-contracted investigators who walk through the British countryside to visit couples and others who want to exhume and clear out the secrets and skeletons in one another’s closets before for example getting married.

This is done via visiting a form of portals to the couples’ histories, that are accessed through the cupboards in their houses and which allow the investigators to view and experience the hidden parts of their customers lives.

Poster for the 2012 film The Wall / Die Wand.

Poster for the 1984 film Ghostbusters – Skeletons has been described as a very British Ghostbusters; if you were to put the comedic paranormal investigators story of Ghostbusters through a British pastoral and independent film filter, it might just come out a little like this.”

Still of two of the main investigator characters at work, about to visit one of the portals.

Still from the film of the boss of the investigators.

Stil from the film of the boat which one of the investigators lives in.

Promotional images from the 1979-1982 British television series Sapphire & Steel; both Sapphire & Steel and Skeletons deal with a pairing of investigators who in some ways could be said to be working with problems based around a modern updating of supernatural concerns and stories.

Text extracts from Chapter 42 can be viewed here.

Field Trip-England – Jean Ritchie, George Pickow and Recordings from the End of an Era: Chapter 43 Book Images

Cover and vinyl disc of the 1960 album Field Trip-England; released by Folkways it contains recordings made by Jean Ritchie and George Pickow as they travelled around England recording literally the music of the folk of the land.

Left: image taken from the booklet that accompanies Field Trip-Engand. Right: “The Fool” character from the Haxey Hood traditional folklore celebration.

Back cover and vinyl disc label of Field Trip-England.

Jean Ritchie recording music contained on the album and the cover to the booklet that accompanies it.

Text extracts from Chapter 43 can be viewed here.

Noah’s Castle – A Slightly Overlooked Artifact and Teatime Dystopias: Chapter 44 Book Images

Still from the opening sequence to the 1979 British television series Noah’s Castle, based on John Rowe’s 1975 novel.

Left-right: television series related images; cover to the DVD of The Owl Service, stills from the opening sequences of Children of the Stones and The Changes, publicity booklet for Sky, cover to the BFI DVD release of The Stone Tape.

Image of the family home from Noah’s Castle.

Posters for a 1970s mini-genre of largely cinematic science fiction that dealt with societal, ecological and resource collapse, overpopulation and the resulting attempts at control: Z.P.G. (1972), Silent Running (1972), Soylent Green (1973), Logan’s Run (1976) and No Blade of Grass (1970).

Stills from the end credit sequence of Noah’s Castle.

Poster for the 2012 film The Hunger Games.

Still from Noah’s Castle.

Title credit for the television series Quatermass (1979).

Text extracts from Chapter 44 can be viewed here.

Jane Weaver Septième Soeur and The Fallen by Watch Bird – Non-Populist Pop and Cosmic Aquatic Folklore: Chapter 45 Book Images

The cover of the vinyl release of The Fallen by Watchbird album by Jane Weaver Septième Soeur, released by Finders Keeper/Bird Records.

Left: a selection of elements from The Fallen by Watchbird boxset release.

Right the cover of the CD version of The Fallen by Watchbird, Watchbird Alluminate albums and the Europium Alluminate mix album.

Covers of albums by some of the contributors to The Fallen by Watchbird including releases by Susan Christie, Wendy & Bonnie, 9Bach and Jane Weaver’s former band Misty Dixon.

Cover art for The Watchbird Alluminate album.

Covers of releases by some of the collaborators on The Watchbird Alluminate album including Demdike Stare, The Focus Group, Emma Tricca, Wendy Flower, Anworth Kirk, Magpahi, Samandtheplants and Susan Christie.

Cover art for The Europium Alluminate mix CD was compiled by Jane Weaver alongside Finders Keepers Records co-founder Andy Votel and it is described as:

‘A 70 minute transmission of cosmic aquatic folklore, flickering luminescent lullabies & hand-plucked pop.’

Images connected to the Czech New Wave films Daisies (1966), Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970) and Malá Morská Víla (1976).

Collage created using images from Malá Morská Víla (also known as The Little Mermaid but something of a world away from the more well-known mainstream 1989 Disney film).

Video and promotional images from The Fallen by Watchbird.

Text extracts from Chapter 45 can be viewed here.

Detectorists, Bagpuss, The Wombles and The Good Life – Views from a Gentler Landscape: Chapter 46 Book Images

Image from The Good Life, the BBC sitcom broadcast from 1975-1978.

Cover for Steeleye Span’s single All Around My Hat, released in 1975 and an image from The Wombles television series broadcast in 1973-1975.

Images from the introduction sequence of British television series Bagpuss, first broadcast in 1974.

Images from The Clangers (1969-74) and Ivor the Engine (1975-77) television series.

Cover art for the Trunk Records album releases of Clangers and Ivor the Engine.

Left-right; cover art for The Female Frolic album by The Critics Group / Frankie Armstrong, Sandra Kerr and Peggy Seeger, the Electric Eden book by Rob Young and an image from Bagpuss.

Image from Bagpuss.

Image from the Detectorists television series, which first began to be broadcast in 2014.

Images from the film By Our Selves (2015).

Title sequence from the television series Fawlty Towers, first broadcast by the BBC in 1975-1979.

Cover art for the single release of the Detectorists theme song, sung by Johnny Flynn.

Text extracts from Chapter 46 can be viewed here.

Weirdlore, Folk Police Recordings, Sproatly Smith and Seasons They Change – Notes from the Folk Underground, Legendary Lost Focal Points and Privately Pressed Folk: Chapter 47 Book Images

Cover art and CD from the album Weirdlore, released in 2012 by Folk Police Recordings.

Covers of fRoots magazine, edited by Ian Anderson who coined the phrase weirdlore.

Logo image for the Police Recordings record label.

Covers of album releases by Sproatly Smith, The Woodbine & Ivy Band and Harp and a Monkey.

Logos and associated images from record labels/projects Was Ist Das?, Hood Faire, Front & Follow, Stone Tape Records, Clay Pipe Music, Folklore Tapes and Rif Mountain.

Artwork from The Weirdlore album.

Artwork from Sproatly Smith’s The Minstrel’s Grave.

Left: cover art and vinyl for the Static Caravan release of The Woodbine & Ivy Band and Sproatly Smith’s versions of Gently Johnny, released in 2012.

Right: poster art for The Wicker Man film from 1973.

Front and back cover of the book Seasons They Change: The Story of Acid and Psychedelic Folk (2010) by Jeanette Leech.

Covers for the books Rob Young’s Electric Eden (2011), Shindig magazine’s Witches Hats and Painted Chariots (2013), The Electric Muse: The Story of Folk into Rock (1975) and a spread from Dave Thompson’s Seance at Syd’s (2015).

Photographs of Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom.

Artwork from Early Morning Hush: Notes From the Folk Underground 1969-76, released in 2006 and compiled by musician and writer Bob Stanley, which included privately pressed folk amongst its tracks.

Cover art for albums by Stone Angel, Shide & Acorn and Midwinter.

Cover art to Cademon’s eponymous album and Oberon’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

Photographs of the Night and Dawn editions of The Forest / The Wald album released by A Year In The Country in 2016.

Text extracts from Chapter 47 can be viewed here.

The Moon and the Sledgehammer and Sleep Furiously – Visions Of Parallel and Fading Lives: Chapter 48 Book Images

Images from the 1971 documentary The Moon and the Sledgehammer, directed by Philip Trevelayn.

Image from the 1974 film Akenfield.

Image from Ben Rivers’ Two Years at Sea film from 2011.

Cover art from DVD releases of Two Years at Sea, Sleep Furiously, The Moon & the Sledgehammer and Sleep Furiously.

Images from Gideon Koppel’s 2008 film Sleep Furiously.

Poster artwork and an image from 2009 film General Orders No. 9.

Cover design and image from Paul Hill’s Dark Peak, White Peak photography book from 1990.

Image from Sleep Furiously.

Text extracts from Chapter 48 can be viewed here.

From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, Wintersongs, Pilgrim Chants & Pastoral Trails – Lullabies for the Land and Gently Darkened Undercurrents: Chapter 49 Book Images

CD artwork for Virginia Astley’s 1983 album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure.

Cover art for different editions of Rob Young’s book Electric Eden.

CD and artwork for Virginia Astley’s album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure.

Cover art for the vinyl edition of Virginia Astley’s From Garden Where We Feel Secure.

Cover art for different editions of the 1999 album Wintersongs by Plinth, which was made by Michael Tanner with Steven Dacosta, accompanied by Nicholas Palmer and Julian Poidevin.

Cover art and packaging for Sharron Kraus’ 2013 album Pilgrim Chants & Pastoral Trails.

Cover art for the Night Mare album which accompanied Sharron Kraus’ Pilgrim Chants & Pastoral Trails and further artwork/packaging from Pilgrim Chants.

Cover art for His Name Is Alive’s album Livonia, designed by 23 Envelope work (Vaughan Oliver and Nigel Grierson).

Text extracts from Chapter 49 can be viewed here.

Strawberry Fields and Wreckers – The Countryside and Coastal Hinterland as Emotional Edgeland: Chapter 50 Book Images

Still from Frances Lea’s 2012 film Strawberry Fields.

Further stills from Frances Lea’s 2012 film Strawberry Fields.

Stills from the film Wreckers (2011), directed by D. R. Hood.

Text extracts from Chapter 50 can be viewed here.

Zardoz, Phase IV and Beyond the Black Rainbow – Seeking the Future in Secret Rooms from the Past and Psychedelic Cinematic Corners: Chapter 51 Book Images

Laser disc release of Zardoz, cover of the Phase IV soundtrack release and still from Beyond the Black Rainbow.

Behind the scenes image from Zardoz. Left-right; director John Boorman, actress Charlotte Rampling and actor Sean Connory.

Still from Zardoz.

Still of the Eternals from Zardoz.

Stills from Zardoz.

Still from Zardoz and magazine cover art.

Stills from Phase IV, directed by Saul Bass.

Stills from the end sequence of Phase IV.

Still from Phase IV.

Stills from Beyond the Black Rainbow, directed by Panos Cosmatos.

Limited edition VHS video cassette and poster of Beyond the Black Rainbow, released by Mondo.

Inside of the gatefold sleeve vinyl release of the Beyond the Black Rainbow soundtrack (created by Jeremy Schmidt working as Sinoia Caves).

Cover art for the archival compilation album I Am the Center: Private Issue New Age in America – 1950-1990 (released in 2013 by Light in the Attic).

Still from Beyond the Black Rainbow.

Text extracts from Chapter 51 can be viewed here.

Winstanley, A Field in England and The English Civil War Part II – Reflections on Turning Points and Moments When Anything Could Happen: Chapter 52 Book Images

Credits still from Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s 1975 film Winstanley.

Still of the lead actor from Winstanley.

Poster for Ben Wheatley’s film A Field in England (2013). Design and illustration by Twins of Evil (Luke Insect and Kenn Goodall).

Behind the scenes still from Winstanley.

Stills from Winstanley.

Alternative poster design for A Field In England.

Jeremy-Deller-The-English-Civil-War-Boyes-Georgina-A Year In The Country Cover of the book The English Civil War Part II by Jeremy Deller, which contains personal accounts of the 1984-1985 Miner’s Strike.

Posted on 30 th December 201728 th November 2018 by — Leave a comment

From The Marks Upon The Land to All The Merry Year Round… An (Almost) End of Year Gathering: Artifact Report #52/52

So, with the year and this year of A Year In The Country almost at an end, (almost) all that remains is to gather together the audio work and releases from the year…

Artifact #1a: The Marks Upon The Land and The Dark Chamber EP

A 60 page book that collected the artwork from the first year of A Year In The Country, accompanied The Dark Chamber EP by A Year In The Country…

Oh and a free cassette copy of Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels by A Year In The Country.

The images in the book are part of A Year In The Country’s explorations of an otherly pastoralism, a wandering amongst subculture that draws from the undergrowth of the land – the patterns beneath the plough, pylons and amongst the edgelands…

“The Marks Upon The Land… converts the bucolically familiar into something more eerie or even sinister, a series of widescreen mutations that create pareidolia spectres through symmetry and layering. Seen in isolation, these images are arresting enough but they gain power by being collected together, fashioning a statement of intent.”
John Coulthart at his Feuilleton site

Artifact #2a: The Restless Field

The Restless Field is a study of the land as a place of conflict and protest as well as beauty and escape; an exploration and acknowledgment of the history and possibility of protest, resistance and struggle in the landscape/rural areas, in contrast with sometimes more often referred to urban events.

It takes inspiration from flashpoints in history while also interweaving personal and societal myth, memory, the lost and hidden tales of the land.

Featuring Field Lines Cartographer, Vic Mars, Bare Bones, Assembled Minds, Grey Frequency, Endurance, Listening Center, Pulselovers, Sproatly Smith, Polypores, Depatterning, Time Attendant, A Year In The Country and David Colohan.

“…murky and ominous as befits the guiding thematic: places that are spectrally imprinted with past conflicts and struggles…”
Simon Reynolds Hauntology Parish Newsletter at Blissblog

Artifact #3a: From The Furthest Signals

From The Furthest Signals takes as its initial reference points films, television and radio programs that have been in part or completely lost or wiped during a period in history before archiving and replication of such work had gained today’s technological and practical ease… soundtracks imagined and filtered through the white noise of space and time…

Featuring Circle/Temple, David Colohan, Sharron Kraus, A Year In The Country, Time Attendant, Depatterning, Field Lines Cartographer, Grey Frequency, Keith Seatman, Polypores, The Hare And The Moon, Pulselovers and Listening Center.

“This music creates a world of its own which could be viewed either as defiantly anachronistic or as an example of cutting edge experimentalism… Either way, any attempt to quantify it in terms of modernity or tradition seems redundant or to miss the point. Better to think of as chronologically challenged and revel in its strangeness.”
Whisperinandhollerin

Artifact #4a: Undercurrents

By A Year In The Country… a wandering amongst nature, electronic soundscapes, field recordings, the flow of water through and across the land and the flipside of bucolic dreams.

“…the chimes of a music box, the creak of a gate, the rush of the wind, the crackle of static, the turning of pages. Cathode hiss and transistor hum from the bottom of the lake.”
Dave Thompson at Spin Cycle / Goldmine magazine

Artifact #5a: The Quietened Cosmologists

…a reflection on space exploration projects that have been abandoned and/or that were never realised, of connected lost or imagined futures and dreams, the intrigue and sometimes melancholia of related derelict sites and technological remnants that lie scattered and forgotten.

Featuring Field Lines Cartographer, Pulselovers, Magpahi, Howlround, Vic Mars, Unit One, A Year In The Country, Keith Seatman, Grey Frequency, Time Attendant, Listening Center, Polypores and David Colohan.

“(Pulselovers’ Lonely Puck)… a wonderfully serene and affectionate love note mailed out from across the outer edges of the cosmos, a transmission from a long lost and forgotten outpost if you like, twinkle toned and radiantly awash in what sounds like shimmering cosmic church bell celebrations…”
Mark Barton at The Sunday Experience (here and here)

Artifact #6a: All The Merry Year Round

…an exploration of an alternative or otherly calendar that considers how traditional folklore and its tales now sit alongside and sometimes intertwine with cultural or media based folklore… travelling alongside straw bear and cathode ray summonings alike.

Featuring United Bible Studies, Circle/Temple, Magpahi, Cosmic Neighbourhood, Field Lines Cartographer, Polypores, A Year In The Country, Sproatly Smith, Pulselovers, The Hare And The Moon & Jo Lepine, Time Attendant and The Séance.

“A Year In The Country… operating like some sinister rustic arts and crafts movement manifesting online via a Wi-Fi connected scrying mirror… an almanac of unearthly sonics to tide you through the winter nights.”
Ben Graham at Shindig! magazine

Which leaves me to make just one (almost) final tip of the hat to all concerned… those who created the music, those who listened to and bought the work, those who wrote about and broadcasted it and all at Norman Records.

Thanks and cheers!

Posted on 19 th December 201728 th November 2018 by — Leave a comment

A Year In The Country at Electronic Sound – Wanderings Amongst Escapee Phantoms and the Layers Under the Land: Artifact Report #51/52a:

Over this year and last, the A Year In The Country album releases have received a fair old bit of support from Electronic Sound magazine.

So, with the year coming to an end and this year’s final A Year In The Country release – All The Merry Year Round – having recently been written about in issue 36, the last of the year, I thought that about now would be a good time to gather together the reviews in the magazine…

On Fractures: “A skillfully weighted blend of dark folklore and synthesised experimentation…”

On The Restless Field: “…a wonderfully curated concept album that rips up the green grass of the idyllic countryside and forces you to consider the darker undergrowth. Beautifully unnerving stuff.”

On From The Furthest Signals: “The ghosts are out of the machines.”

On Undercurrents: “The countryside is often over romanticised, usually by those who don’t live there. A Year In The Country has dug a little deeper and hit on something much more profound to end up, if you’lll excuse the pun, in a field of his own.”

On The Quietened Cosmologists: “Another issue, another release from the ever excellent A Year In The Country…”

(Why thankyou, good sirs !)

On All The Merry Year Round: “And my, what a way to end 2017… Albion’s hauntology has never sounded so bewitching.”

Which seems like something of a good note to end this post on.

Thanks and a tip of the hat to all at and who have written the pieces for Electronic Sound, in particular Push, Neil Mason, Finlay Milligan and Ben Willmott.

Also to everybody who created the music: Circle/Temple, Sproatly Smith, Keith Seatman, Listening Center, The British Space Group, The Hare And The Moon, Alaska, Michael Begg, Time Attendant, The Rowan Amber Mill, Polypores, David Colohan, Howlround, Field Lines Cartographer, Vic Mars, Bare Bones, Assembled Minds, Grey Frequency, Endurance, Pulselovers, Depatterning, Sharron Kraus, Magpahi, Unit One, Cosmic Neighbourhood, Jo Lepine and United Bible Studies and The Séance.

Visit Electronic Sound here.

The albums can be perused at our Artifacts Shop, Bandcamp and Norman Records.

Posted on 13 th November 201711 th April 2018 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Cosmologists – Further Reviews and Broadcasts: Artifact Report #46/52a

Some further reviews and broadcasts of The Quietened Cosmologists album, which is:

“…a reflection on space exploration projects that have been abandoned and/or that were never realised, of connected lost or imagined futures and dreams, the intrigue and sometimes melancholia of related derelict sites and technological remnants that lie scattered and forgotten.”

First up is a review in Electronic Sound issue 35 by the magazine’s Commissioning Editor Neil Mason…

…that issue has a classic 1950s/1980s style 3D cover complete with red/blue anaglyph glasses, which is a nice touch and something of a nod to the lineage of 3D now that one of the latest incarnations of 3D in the home is largely coming to an end as manufacturers have mostly stopped making 3D televisions.

The issue is available here and as part of a vinyl bundle here.

Next up is Dave Thompson’s review at his Spin Cycle column on Goldmine magazine’s site:

“…a rumination on what might have been – the space missions that were promised, that were planned and then abandoned, or that never got off even the figurative ground in the first place… Disconnected voices from impossible distances, radio signals, muted melodies, ambitious hope and scientific daydreams…”

Find the column here.

Andrew Young reviews the album at Terrascope:

“Keith Seatman has beats a plenty like a wonky Kraftwerk after they have discovered Steve Birchall’s epic Reality Gates album, proper space rock… Listening Center take us to a strange ticking otherworldy place, a place that feels at once vast and infinite, a haunting slice of space music… The record ends with Landfall at William Creek, David Colohan’s spectral hammered dulcimer peels away into the inky vastness of space, a beautiful end to a fine record.”

Visit the review here.

We Are Cult included the album in a review round up

“…it’s a cracking collection of electronica… about the abandoned, uncelebrated, and unrealised attempts to reach the stars… David Colohan’s desolate Landfall At William Creek perfectly evokes lonely space junk rusting in the wilderness… Keith Seatman’s 093A-Prospero is best described as a sort of interstellar Lieutenant Pigeon.”

An interstellar Lieutenant Pigeon? Well, count me in (!).

Visit the reviews round up here.

The Unquiet Meadow included Pulselovers Lonely Puck amongst some fine company on their show which wanders through and explores the further reaches of folk and where they meet the spectral concerns of hauntology…

Originally broadcast on Asheville FM, browse the playlist here and the show’s site at the radio station here.

In a rounding the circle manner, some time A Year In The Country fellow travellers Pete Wiggs and James Papademetrie of the “phantom seaside radio” show The Séance have included David Colohan and Field Lines Cartographers tracks on two of their show.

First heard via the airwaves at Radio Reverb and Sine FM, the episodes and their playlist’s are archived here and here.

In a further rounding of the circle manner, Mat Handley of Pulselovers played David Colohan, Time Attendant and Vic Mars’ tracks on his You, the Night & the Music show.

That show was also originally broadcast on Sine FM. Visit the online archive for the episodes here and here.

The Gated Canal Community Radio Show, hosted by record labels Front & Follow and The Geography Trip, played Howlround’s track on their show.

Originally on Reform Radio, the show is archived here and here and the show’s blog can be found here.

In an interconnected manner, Wyrd Daze included three tracks from the album on their Samhain Seance 6 : Triffid Witch mix, alongside tracks from Front & Follow’s 10th anniversary compilation Lessons and their Blow series, plus the likes of Leyland Kirby and The Haxan Cloak.

The online archive can be found here and details of the mix can be found here. Wyrd Daze’s main site can be found here.

Previous reviews and broadcasts of The Quietened Cosmologists:
Artifact Reports #37/52a: The Quietened Cosmologists Writing, Posts and Broadcasts
Artifact Report #38/52a: The Quietened Cosmologists Writing, Posts and Broadcasts
Artifact Report #39/52a: The Quietened Cosmologists at You, the Night & the Music and feuilleton
Artifact Report #44/52a: A Year In The Country at The Golden Apples of the Sun

A tip of the hat to everybody involved. The support is much appreciated.

The Quietened Cosmologists features Field Lines Cartographer, Pulselovers, Magpahi, Howlround, Vic Mars, Unit One, A Year In The Country, Keith Seatman, Grey Frequency, Time Attendant, Listening Center, Polypores and David Colohan.

Further details can be found around these parts here, at Bandcamp here and can be previewed at Soundcloud here.

Posted on 2 nd October 201722 nd July 2022 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Cosmologists – Released: Artifact Report #40/52a

The CDs are now sold out but the album is available to download at our Bandcamp page, Amazon, The Tidal Store, 7digital etc and can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube etc.

Artifact #5a

Featuring audiological explorations by Field Lines Cartographer, Pulselovers, Magpahi, Howlround, Vic Mars, Unit One, A Year In The Country, Keith Seatman, Grey Frequency, Time Attendant, Listening Center, Polypores and David Colohan.

The Quietened Cosmologists is a reflection on space exploration projects that have been abandoned and/or that were never realised, of connected lost or imagined futures and dreams, the intrigue and sometimes melancholia of related derelict sites and technological remnants that lie scattered and forgotten.

It takes as its initial starting points the shape of the future’s past via the discarded British space program of the 1950s to 1970s; the sometimes statuesque and startling derelict artifacts and infrastructure from the Soviet Union’s once far reaching space projects; the way in which manned spaceflight beyond Earth’s orbit/to the moon and the associated sense of a coming space age came to be largely put to one side after the 1969 to 1972 US Apollo flights.

Available via our Artifacts Shop, our Bandcamp Ether Victrola and at Norman Records.
Dawn Edition £11.95. Night Edition £24.95.

Both editions hand-finished and custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink by
A Year In The Country.

Preview the tracks at Soundcloud.

Dawn Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £11.95.
Hand-finished white/black CDr album in textured recycled fold out sleeve with inserts and badge.

Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Further encasement details:
1) Custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink.
2) Includes 25mm/1″ badge, secured with removable glue on string bound tag.
3) Back of one insert hand numbered.

Night Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £24.95.
Hand-finished box-set contains: album on all black CDr, 12 page string bound booklet, 4 x badge pack, 4 x stickers, 1 x large badge.

Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Further encasement details:
1) Booklet/cover art custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink.
2) Contained in a matchbox style sliding two-part rigid matt card box with cover print.
3) Fully black CDr (black on top, black on playable side).
4) Black string bound booklet: 12 pages (6 sides printed);
Printed on textured fine art cotton rag paper, heavy card and semi-transparent vellum.
Hand numbered on the reverse.
5) 4 x badge set, contained in a see-through polythene bag with a folded card header.
6) 1 x large badge.
7) 4 x vinyl style stickers.

Further audiological exploration details:

1) OPS-4 – Field Lines Cartographer
2) Lonely Puck – Pulselovers
3) Chayka – Magpahi
4) Night Call, Collect – Howlround
5) X-3 – Vic Mars
6) Voyages Of The Moon – Unit One
7) The March Of Progress/Frontier Dreams – A Year In The Country
8) 093A-Prospero – Keith Seatman
9) Phantom Cosmonauts – Grey Frequency
10) Adrift – Time Attendant
11) Mléčný Perihelion Weekend – Listening Center
12) The Amateur Astronomer – Polypores
13) Landfall At William Creek – David Colohan

Artwork/encasment design and fabrication by AYITC Ocular Signals Department

Artifact #5a / Library Reference Numbers: A010TQCN / A010TQCD

“‘Mléčný Perihelion Weekend’ by Listening Center takes us to a strange ticking otherworldy place, a place that feels at once vast and infinite, a haunting slice of space music… The record ends with ‘Landfall at William Creek’, David Colohan’s spectral hammered dulcimer peels away into the inky vastness of space, a beautiful end to a fine record.”
Andrew Young, Terrascope

“The Quietened Cosmologists’ features a dozen spectral suites, each exploring the various aspects, forgotten histories and what ifs of these golden age adventures… Pulselovers serve up ‘Lonely Puck’ – a wonderfully serene and affectionate love note mailed out from across the outer edges of the cosmos, a transmission from a long lost and forgotten outpost if you like, twinkle toned and radiantly awash in what sounds like shimmering cosmic church bell celebrations… While last one for this brief ride, Field Lines Cartographer’s ‘OPS-4’ with its binary shimmer tones and vapour rubbed ethereal detailing, cuts a finite line between the enchanting and the eerie, a ghost flotilla perhaps a sonic spectre of sorts or rather more, an orbital occurrence with past visions looped on endless replay.”
Mark Barton, The Sunday Experience

Posted on 27 th September 201711 th April 2018 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Cosmologists at You, the Night & the Music and feuilleton: Artifact Report #39/52a

John Coulthart has posted about The Quietened Cosmologists and related pathways at his feuilleton site…

“The ruins of Britain’s own contribution to the Space Race—especially those like the abandoned launch-pad at High Down on the Isle of Wight—are all the more poignant for the gulf between their past ambition and present state of decay.”

Visit that post here.

It joins previous A Year In The Country related posts at feuilleton, including:

Undercurrents, From The Furthest Signals, The Restless Field, The Marks Upon The Land, The Forest / The Wald, The Quietened Bunker and Fractures.

And in a rounding the circle manner, Mat Handley of Pulselovers whose work is featured on the album, played David Colohan’s Landfall At William Creek from the album on his You, the Night & the Music radio show.

Originally broadcast on Sine FM, it is archived at Mixcloud, where it can be found amongst fellow The Quietened Cosmologists travellers Keith Seatman and Grey Frequency.

Thanks to all concerned.

More details on The Quietened Cosmologists can be found.

(File Post Under: Encasements / Artifacts – Artifact #5a)

Posted on 19 th September 201711 th April 2018 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Cosmologists Writing, Posts and Broadcasts: Artifact Report #38/52a

Some of the recent The Quietened Cosmologists album related writing, posts and broadcasts:

Vic Mars, Keith Seatman, Field Lines Cartographer and Poylpore’s tracks from the album were played on two episodes of Sunrise Ocean Bender’s radio show on WRIR FM. The show’s playlists can be found here and here and they can be listened to at Mixcloud here and here.

Mark Barton included the album in amongst his cultural wanderings at The Sunday Experience:

Visit that here and here.

The Quietened Cosmologists was also included in amongst some rather fine company at A Closer Listen’s Fall Music Preview. Visit that here.

Field Line’s Cartographer and A Year In The Country’s tracks from the album were played amongst the furrows, pastures and fields of The Unquiet Meadow radio show on Asheville FM. Visit the playlists for those shows here and here and their home page at Asheville FM here.

While Front & Follow and The Geography Trip included Time Attendant and Polypore’s tracks from the album at another of their visits down the waterways and airwaves on their Gated Canal Community Radio show.

Visit the playlist for that here and listen to the show at Mixcloud here.

In a rounding-the-circle manner (or should that be rounding-the-orbit?), the ever busy Howlround and Robin The Fog include the album at their Howlround site, in amongst their activities at Supernormal, The Delaware Road, Sonic Waterloo etc. Visit that here…

…and at Robin’s own site here (where it can be found amongst the likes of the ten year compilation Lessons from Front & Follow and a centennial edition compilation from Tape Worm).

…and finally, in a further rounding the circle manner, Keith Seatman included the album at his Test Transmission Archive site, where you can find it nestled amongst the likes of his posts on The Cramps, The Focus Group, visits to decommissioned Cold War sites, his own releases etc. Visit that here.

A tip of the hat to all involved, much appreciated.

It features audiological explorations by Field Lines Cartographer, Pulselovers, Magpahi, Howlround, Vic Mars, Unit One, A Year In The Country, Keith Seatman, Grey Frequency, Time Attendant, Listening Center, Polypores and David Colohan.

More information on the album can be found here.

(File Post Under: Encasements / Artifacts – Artifact #5a)

Posted on 12 th September 201722 nd July 2022 by — Leave a comment

The Quietened Cosmologists – Pre-order: Artifact Report #37/52a

The CDs are now sold out but the album is available to download at our Bandcamp page, Amazon, The Tidal Store, 7digital etc and can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube etc.

Pre-order today 12th September 2017. Release date 3rd October 2017.

Artifact #5a

Available via our Artifacts Shop, our Bandcamp Ether Victrola and at Norman Records.
Dawn Edition £11.95. Night Edition £24.95.

Both editions hand-finished and custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink by
A Year In The Country.

Preview the tracks at Soundcloud.

Dawn Edition. Limited to 104 copies. £11.95.
Hand-finished white/black CDr album in textured recycled fold out sleeve with inserts and badge.
Top of CD. Bottom of CD.

Further encasement details:
1) Custom printed using archival giclée pigment ink.
2) Includes 25mm/1″ badge, secured with removable glue on string bound tag.
3) Back of one insert hand numbered.

Further audiological exploration details:

Artwork/encasment design and fabrication by AYITC Ocular Signals Department

Artifact #5a / Library Reference Numbers: A010TQCN / A010TQCD

Posted on 8 th September 201711 th April 2018 by — Leave a comment

The Restless Field: A Return Visit – Further Reviews and Transmissions: Artifact Reports #36/52a

Something of a return visit to The Restless Field…

The album has had an indepth and layered review at Diabolique Magazine by Less Lee Moore:

“…an exploration of those secrets that are kept within the earth, the trees, and the air…”

Visit that here.

Finlay Milligan reviewed the album in issue 30 of Electronic Sound magazine:

“…rips up the green grass of the idyllic countryside and forces you to consider the darker undergrowth. Beautifully unnerving stuff.”

The print issue is sold out but the PDF is still available. Visit that here.

A consideration of the album can also be found amongst the explorations and wanderings of The England Project.

“…utilising the drone, a modern musical phenomena with an ancient pedigree. They emerge from a world of the Radiophonic Workshop and the soundtracks of the hauntological and psychogeographic.”

Visit that here.

Tracks from the album by Field Lines Cartographer and A Year In The Country can be found amongst the rather fine audio selections of Odile Strik’s Evening Of Light Cloudscape #70.

Visit that here.

Graveney Marsh by Polypores and Black Slab by Time Attendant were played by fellow Restless Field explorer Mat Handley at his You, the Night and the Music radio show at Sine FM.

Visit the online archive of the show here.

In a rounding the circle manner, Pulselovers’ Badby 80 was also played on a You, the Night and the Music’s Delaware Road special.

Visit that here.

And finally Field Line Cartographer’s Ghosts of Blood & Iron was played at The Unquiet Meadow by St. Cyprian and Ms. Pryscilla Atropine on Asheville FM as part of their journeys “…through psych-tinged landscapes of mutated folk & haunted electronica”.

Visit the playlist for the show here, their home page at Ashville FM here, at Facebook here and their gatherings and findings at Soundcloud here.

Previous transmissions, reviews etc of The Restless Field:

Artifact Report #14/52a: The Restless Field at Simon Reynold’s blissblog and the sunday experience

Artifact Report #16/52a: The Restless Field at Flatland Frequencies, Syndae and whisperandhollerin

Artifact Report #17/52a: The Restless Field at Sunrise Ocean Bender and John Coulthart’s Feuilleton

Artifact Report #19/52a: The Restless Field Transmissions and Reviews

Artifact Report #25/52a: The Restless Field at Goldmine/Spin Cycle, Bliss Aquamarine, Sunrise Ocean Bender and The Séance

A tip of the hat to everybody involved. Much appreciated.

It takes inspiration from flashpoints in history while also interweaving personal and societal myth, memory, the lost and hidden tales of the land.

The album contains audiological explorations by Field Lines Cartographer, Vic Mars, Bare Bones, Assembled Minds, Grey Frequency, Endurance, Listening Center, Pulselovers, Sproatly Smith, Polypores, Depatterning, Time Attendant, A Year In The Country and David Colohan.

Listen to clips/tracks from the album at our Soundcloud page and at the album’s Bandcamp page.

Further details on the album can be found here.

(File Post Under: Encasements / Artifacts – Artifact #3a)