Posted on Leave a comment

Bruton Music Flexi – Steens Dilemma (via James Cargill): Audio Visual Transmission Guide #8/52a

Bruton Music Flexi-Steens Dilemma-via James Cargill

On James Cargill’s (of Broadcast and Children Of Alice) Soundcloud page there are a few Broacast related rarities, mix tapes, demo versions of songs etc.

One of my favourite items is the Bruton Music Flexi – Steens Dilemma.

This is (I assume) a promotional item made for/by the Bruton Music library music company.

It is a classic slice of period culture, depicting a rep from Bruton using his company’s catalogue and index book to find and supply music his client needs in a rush, politely geezer-ishly castigating him by saying he wouldn’t be caught in this last-minute dilemma if he just had Bruton’s library catalogue always to hand:

“Back in the office I grabbed the music selection code book. With it’s help I would have Steed’s material in no time. The code catalogue had been well thought out. Not only did it run in an alphabetical order, depicting each class of music but each letter had a colour which matched the corresponding record sleeves of that particular section. By this simple book I could find any style and mood of music in the library within seconds. I looked down the colour coded index on the side of the book… the job would be done in no time… Good pacey, that’s what he’ll want…”

It’s a time capsule of a previous era. Or maybe that should be an imaginative time machine, such is the way that it captures and conjures up a a particular time and way of doing things.

(File Under: Cathode Ray & Cinematic Explorations, Radiowave Resonations & Audiological Investigations)

AVT Guide listing: Bruton Music Flexi – Steens Dilemma (via James Cargill)

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Dropping Science: From Endtroducing to The Electronique Void Via Haunted Tea Rooms And Pans People: Wanderings #8/52a

kid-koala-ghost-box-records-the-focus-group-we-are-all-pans-people-a-year-in-the-country

Well, it seems only right that as part of this (still relatively) new spin-around-the-sun, that I would pay a visit to the work of Ghost Box Records and fellow travellers…

…although maybe at a slightly oblique angle.

When I have listened to the sampled cut-ups of The Focus Group, it often makes me think of the turntablism montages of say DJ Shadow around the time of Endtroducing or possibly the more overtly dissonant work of Kid Koala…

While say Moon Wiring Club puts me in mind of mid-to-later nineties, hmmm, not necessarily trip hop or the abstract beats of Mo Wax releases but say the blunted, sample laden beats of Depth Charge or something similar that would probably have been in the record shop racks just next to trip hop and maybe Mo’Wax.

moon-wiring-club-depth-charge-blank-workshop

Although in terms of intention and philosophical underpinning Kid Koala/The Focus Group and Moon Wiring Club/Depth Charge may be quite separate or disparate, musically maybe not so much.

I suppose that turntablism and blunted beats took a culture that had many of roots in rap and hip hop and stepped off to the side to form what could be loosely labelled b-boy/breaks and beats culture.

If you took such b-boy things and had them analysed and performed by an Open University professor in a parallel universe or filtered via a woozily hallucinogenic haunted tea room you might well end up with the likes of The Focus Group and Moon Wiring Club.

(And all this stepping from Mo’Wax to Ghost Box Records isn’t really all that much of a step or jump; if you look at The Memory Band vs Ghost Box Navigations release you will find work/remixes by Grantby aka Dan Grigson, who put out releases on Mo’Wax in the mid-90s, while Memory Band chap Stephen Cracknell worked alongside him on releases around that time).

And there is a certain almost scientific, analytical take on music that can be found in both say Mo’Wax releases and Ghost Box Records; with the former I should maybe say “dropping science” and with the latter that should maybe be “study workshopping science”, as it may be in part a reflection of some of related reference points/inspirations – the research like nature of The Radiophonic Workshop and the utilitarian aspects of educational and library music for example.

adrian-younge-the-electronique-void-the-radiophonic-workshop

In an intertwined manner, I’m rather fond of the work of Adrian Younge, who could be seen to be creating a form of hauntology but one that draws from American soul and hip hop music, beats and culture rather than with Ghost Box which in part takes inspiration from the just mentioned largely British education and library music, Public Information films, TV idents etc.

And just as with Ghost Box, he takes original source material/reference points and reimagines them rather than purely retreading previous paths, conjuring up a parallel universe all of his own; although talking of folk orientated culture rather than soul and hip hop I think Rob Young’s phrases imaginative time travel and experiments in consensual hallucation, from his book Electric Eden, might be appropriate here.

And to join these various paths, if The Radiophonic Workshop had happened in 1970s inner city USA rather than over here and if Ghost Box Records had tumbled forth from over there rather than from over here, well the results may well have sounded not a million miles away from his recent(ish) The Electronique Void album.

adrian-younge-shot-me-in-the-heart-video-rob-young-electric-eden

(File under: Trails and Influences / Year 3 Wanderings)

Intertwined wanderings around these parts:
In part this has been a revisiting and further exploring of earlier themes around these parts; interlinked considerations can be found via:
Day #199/365: The ether ephemera of Mr Ian Hodgson and wandering from village green preservation to confusing English electronic music…

Almost back to the start wanderings:
Day #4/365: Electric Eden; a researching, unearthing and drawing of lines between the stories of Britain’s visionary music

Elsewhere in the ether:
The conjured worlds of Mr Adrian Younge: Listen to The Electronique Void here. Classy revisitings from an indefinable past via Something About April here (in particular First Step On The Moon and Midnight Blue). Imaginative time travel here.

I expect if you’re reading this you may already know about such things and places in the ether but just in case: The recently(ish) brushed and scrubbed up ether home of Ghost Box Records here. Moon Wiring Club here.

The Memory Band vs Ghost Box / Mo’Wax intertwinings here. Depth Charge encasement archive here. Kid Koala here. Endtroducing facts and figures here.

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Build Your Own Brutalist Eastern Bloc: Ether Signposts #8/52a

Brutal East-Build Your Own Brutalist Eastern Bloc-Zupagrafika-1Brutal East-Build Your Own Brutalist Eastern Bloc-Zupagrafika-2

In something of an ongoing mini-theme around these parts of cut out and build your own models of London brutalist architecture, ready off the shelf Delian Derbyshire dioramas and Midwich bunting…

…Zupagrafika’s Brutal East – Build Your Own Brutalist Eastern Bloc book…

Brutal East-Build Your Own Brutalist Eastern Bloc-Zupagrafika-3

The accompanying text says:

“Brutal East by Zupagrafika is a kit of illustrated paper cut-out models celebrating post-war architecture of Central and Eastern Europe that allows you to playfully explore and reconstruct some of the most controversial edifices erected behind the Iron Curtain. Contains 7 brutalist buildings to assemble, from omnipresent pre-cast housing estates to mighty post-soviet landmarks awaiting renovation or threatened by demolition.”

Well, that’s my interest piqued and online shopping intentions poised and ready.

Brutal East-Build Your Own Brutalist Eastern Bloc-Zupagrafika-5Brutal East-Build Your Own Brutalist Eastern Bloc-Zupagrafika-6

At A Year In The Country I have visited Soviet era folk artifacts and discarded or derelict infrastructure a number of time and have commented on how the sense of lost futures that they can contain could be considered a variation on the normally British/European orientated interests of hauntology.

Brutal East may well fit alongside and amongst such things, as well as being a companion piece to Zupagrafika’s Brutal London cut out and build book.

Brutal East-Build Your Own Brutalist Eastern Bloc-Zupagrafika-4

(File under: Other Pathway Pointers And Markers)

Destinations and directions: Brutal East

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Feuilleton Wanderings: Artifact Report #8/52a

Feuilleton-John Coulthart-Fractures-A Year In The Country-1px stroke

John Coulthart has written and posted about A Year In The Country releases and wanderings a number of times at his Feuilleton site, often gathered amongst other interlinked work and/or wider cultural explorations.

The Quietened Village-Fractures-The Quietened Bunker-The Forest The Wald-A Year In The Country

We’ve mentioned some of them before but thought it would be good to bring them together, along with a few new-to-these-parts links and signpostings:

The Quietened Village in the company of Ghost Box Record’s Belbury Poly, David Toop’s cassette archiving, Hawkwind via James Last…

Fractures: wherein various interwoven strands of the Play For Today such as Penda’s Fen and The Land Of Green Ginger wander alongside very personal recollections.

The Quietened Bunker: Something of a favourite for its cultural gathering and considering of the likes of Edge Of Darkness & Wargames and in particular the end note of “The Cold War bunker is more than another empty space, it joins the bio-weapons lab as a source of contemporary horror that doesn’t require any supernatural component to chill the blood.”

The Forest/The Wald: Another fine end note; “…a response to British folk traditions that acknowledges the history without seeming beholden to it.”

Day 162-Hauntology-A Year In The Country

One particular feature of Feuilleton are the Weekend Links, which generally are brief signposts to Mr Coulthart’s “interests, obsessions and passing enthusiams”.

Below are a few of the A Year In The Country related Weekend Links (you may well be there or wandering down resulting pathways a fair old while if you head that way):

212 – Hauntology and the deletion of spectres / 220 – signposting / 225 – Broadcast, constellators and artifacts234 – Further considerations of Penda’s Fen240 – The end of a first spin-around-the-sun / 290 – The commencing of a second spin-around-the-sun / 328 – No More Unto The Dance334 – Bubble life out in the country via The Touchables / 335 – Professor Quatermass340 – Monumental Follies

Tip of the hat to him indeed.

0009017913_41John Coulthart has a longstanding and rather substantial history of working amongst the undercurrents of culture, particularly via his art and design work. A brief overview of such things can be found here.

 

(File Under: Encasments / Artifacts)

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Curse Of The Crimson Altar – Super 8 Version: Audio Visual Transmission Guide #7/52a

Curse Of The Crimson Altar-Super 8 version

Back in the first year of A Year In The Country I wrote about 1968’s The Curse Of The Crimson Altar that there were two versions of the film in my mind:

“…one is the actual film, which is a pleasant enough, fairly mainstream potboiler… and the other version which lives in the basement of the main film, drenched in green light, with a soundtrack by Trish Keenan and James Cargill and where Ms Barbara Steele reigns supreme… in this other version, the sections lorded over by their queen have grown and taken on a life of their own, to become a fully fledged feature that has quietly subsumed that which originally spawned it.”

Barbara Steele-Curse Of The Crimson Altar-A Year In The Country 19

(That is expressed in the accompanying commentary on the DVD/Bluray release with David Del Valle and Barbara Steele who plays the Black Witch Lavinia, when one of them says that the subterranean sections of the film featuring her are what people really want to see.)

I rewatched it not so long ago on the 2014 high definition brush and scrub up restored Bluray version and though I still think it is something of a quite conventional, potboiler-esque with various “groovy” sixties and/or occult exploitation film sections, it sort of grew on me. I have a certain fondness for it and the way it seems to mix elements of mainstream cinema almost from a previous, more stilted period of British cinema and the more permissive/transgressive elements.

It feels like a transitional or bridging point in British cinema and culture, one that draws from a more censored past, contains elements of 1960s hipness from the time of its making and seem to point towards the more louche or even seedy elements of 1970s culture.

The film also contains a fair few of the themes and tropes of folk horror and while not considered part of the “classic” cannon of such things, could also be seen as a forebear to British cinemas explorations of such things in the early 1970s.

Barbara Steele-Curse Of The Crimson Altar-A Year In The Country 16

Anyways, talking of different versions, I recently came across the Super 8 version of the film online.

If you should not know these were edited versions of films that were sold for home viewing using projects, prior to the days of video recorders.

Curse of The Crimson Altar-for one night only

And when I say edited I mean very edited: the original 87 minute running time is cut down to 8 minutes and 42 seconds.

Watching it now, because of the colour and characteristics of the medium it seems to belong to an era far further back than 1968 and although it features sound (which I don’t think all the Super 8 versions did) it seems to belong nearer to the melodrama and obvious plot signposting of the silent film era.

(Apart from the top title credit image, the images in this post are from the full length film – not surprisingly the Super 8 version cuts the subterranean sections somewhat.)

(File Under: Cathode Ray & Cinematic Explorations, Radiowave Resonations & Audiological Investigations)

AVT Guide listing: Curse Of The Crimson Altar – Super 8 Version

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Brutalist Breakfasts: Wanderings #7/52a

roadside-britain-sam-mellish-cafes-photography-book-a-year-in-the-country-1

I recently(ish) came across Sam Mellish’s Roadside Britain photography book on a visit to a nearby library (gawd bless ’em).

Its subtitle is “Observations of traditional roadside services across Great Britain”.

roadside-britain-sam-mellish-cafes-photography-book-a-year-in-the-country-4

The traditional part is the give away there; this isn’t a study of corporate megalith, franchised stop-offs but rather of generally small, independent roadside caffs; sometimes bricks and mortar but also just as likely to be essentially a shack or repurposed coach/shipping container.

Essentially your good old greasy spoon; the book is a documentation of such places, the food they serve, their locations, customers and Sam’s journey itself.

roadside-britain-sam-mellish-cafes-photography-book-a-year-in-the-country-stroke-3

Within the general realms of hauntology and the related sense of nostalgia or loss of an imagined, progressive, modernist future, there is something of a softspot for the often contentious architecture that has come to be known as brutalist or brutalism.

Looking up definitions for brutalist, one I found was: “(In modern architechture) the aesthetic use of basic building processes with no apparent concern for visual amenity.”

roadside-britain-sam-mellish-cafes-photography-book-a-year-in-the-country-2

Which I feel could well be appropriate to describe the photographs in Roadside Britain; essentially brutalist breakfasts.

Which isn’t said in a critical manner, I have a great deal of appreciation for a good, friendly, well run, caff and cooked breakfast and I think they can be good examples of a certain kind of artisan like folk art and craftsmanship.

Rather, I think of a brutalist breakfast more in a sense of referring to the efficient, no messing about, “fill ’em up” ethos of bacon butties and the full English.

roadside-britain-sam-mellish-cafes-photography-book-a-year-in-the-country-5

When I was re-looking through the images, what struck me was how much a lot of the places depicted seemed not just belong to transitional edgelands but to have a real frontier-like feel to them; as though they belonged more to some not yet fully developed part of say the outer reaches of the USA, rather than being just up the road or alongside our motorways (Birney Imes’ Juke Joint work and its depiction of outlying, hand hewn drinking establishments in America comes to mind).

roadside-britain-sam-mellish-cafes-photography-book-a-year-in-the-country-7

roadside-britain-sam-mellish-cafes-photography-book-a-year-in-the-country-6

And there’s a romance to some of the images, a sense of the open road and freedom, that again you would possibly more associate with the wide open planes and spaces over the sea than on this relatively small island.

 

(File under: Trails and Influences / Year 3 Wanderings)

Elsewhere in the ether:
Visit Roadside Britain’s home in the ether here,  its fellow companions here and peruse it here.

Images from Birney Imes Juke Joint can be found here. The book can be perused here.

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Lionheart-ess Archiving #1: Ether Signposts #7/52a

Kate Bush Clippings website-2b

I came across the website Kate Bush Clippings a while ago and it is a quite frankly astonishing labour of love.

The site is an archiving of Kate Bush related material from all over the world taken from magazines and newspapers from the start of her appearing in the public eye to the present days and it runs to many hundreds, possibly thousands of pages.

As these articles etc I assume that each individual page would have needed scanning, which further adds to the sense of dedication of its creator.

Kate Bush Clippings website-1b

It is one of those “Where do I start?” websites and I expect you could well dedicate months or even years of cultural perusing time to it and not be quite through the whole archive.

There don’t seem to be all that many references and links to the site online, so despite the breadth of its collection it feels like a slightly hidden away corner and treasure trove.

(File under: Other Pathway Pointers And Markers)

Destinations and directions: Kate Bush Clippings

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Was Ist Das? Handwritten Considerations: Artifact Report #7/52a

Was Ist Das-logo-A Year In The Country

Well, in amongst the almost endlessness of online sites, writing etc, Was Ist Das? stands out somewhat.

Largely handwritten rather than typed, it’s a lovely place to visit and wander around.

In amongst the site, you may well also find a few A Year In The Country related pieces, some of which we’ve mentioned before…

Was Ist Das handwritten review-The Quietened Village-A Year In The Country
The Quietened Village

Was Ist Das handwritten review-The Quietened Bunker-A Year In The Country
The Quietened Bunker

Was Ist Das handwritten review-The Forest The Wald-A Year In The Country
The Forest/The Wald

Step back with a good old cup of tea and visit Was Ist Das? here.

 

(File Under: Encasments / Artifacts)

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Stan Brakhage’s Mothlight: Audio Visual Transmission Guide #6/52a

Stan Brakhage-Mothlight-1963-2

I recently posted about an article at the BFI’s website called “Six films that fed into The Duke of Burgundy”.

One of those films is Stan Brakhage’s Mothlight from 1963, which is a short experimental silent film created without a camera but rather he “collected moth wings, flower petals, and blades of grass, and pressed them between two strips of 16mm splicing tape. The resulting assemblage was then contact printed at a lab to allow projection in a cinema. The objects chosen were required to be thin and translucent, to permit the passage of light.”

Stan Brakhage-Mothlight-1963-3b

It creates a constantly changing collage of those collected items and there is an unsettling, dreamlike (or should that be nightmare-like) night and forest walk scene in the later part of The Duke Of Burgundy that very explicitly references and takes inspiration from it.

Stan Brakhage-Mothlight-1963

Here is Peter Strickland on such things:

“The inclusion of an obscure reference done in an obvious fashion can be precarious in terms of what that reveals about a director’s motivations. At worst, the act of homage is merely posing and diverting attention onto the director rather than the film, but when done organically and effectively, as with both Greenaway at his best and Tarantino, it enriches the film and places it within a wider (albeit self-imposed) lineage that can be rewarding for the curious viewer.”

mothlight-1963-001-still-brakhage

For myself such referencing in The Duke Of Burgundy has been rewarding partly in the way that it has sent me off down various pathways of discovery and/or revisiting, Stan Brakhage’s work being one of those.

So, aside from the creation of a golden, shimmering dream world to step into, tip of the hat to Peter Strickland for that.

(File Under: Cathode Ray & Cinematic Explorations, Radiowave Resonations & Audiological Investigations)

AVT Guide listing: Stan Brakhage’s Mothlight

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Transuranic Encasements / The Non-Capturing Of Elusive Phantasms: Wanderings #6/52a

sapphire-steel-dvd-carlton-edition-a-year-in-the-country-2

Now, I’m rather fond of Sapphire & Steel: I think it stands up well in being both thoroughly entertaining and also having various otherly, spectral, hauntological resonances and points of interest.

Often when I’m quite taken by a film or television I’ll find myself browsing related memorabilia, posters, lobby cards etc…

Which I have done with Sapphire & Steel, although there isn’t all that much available, possibly in part because it was made in a time before the thorough saturation of such things for the likes of cult, science fiction and fantasy television.

I actually think with Sapphire & Steel it exists perfectly well on its own without endless merchandise but longstanding habits can reappear as if by magic and a reasonable number of related things seemed to have “accidentally” arrived through my letterbox…

Here are a few of those and also a few I’ve resisted so far…

sapphire-steel-annual-1981-peter-j-hammond-novel-a-year-in-the-country

The Sapphire & Steel annual and novel tie-in…

The artwork in the annual is not dissimilar to that in the Look-Ins of the time, which was a television orientated weekly comic/magazine for younger folk which featured stories based on broadcast series and characters (Sapphire & Steel being one of those featured).

sapphire-steel-look-in-comic-strips-first-four-episodes-a-year-in-the-country

It is quite odd; there’s a sort of deliberate almost brutish / primitive / slightly off-kilter feel to it that puts me in mind of illustrations in the Doctor Who annuals from a similar time.

sapphire-steel-time-screen-1989-action-tv-11-2005-magazines-fanzines-a-year-in-the-countrysapphire-steel-action-tv-magazine-fanzine-11-autumn-2005-a-year-in-the-countrysapphire-steel-time-screen-1989-number-4-a-year-in-the-country

…and then on to later cult fan publications from 1989 and 2005…

sapphire-steel-final-episode-still-a-year-in-the-country

I’m rather fond of this publicity still from the final (and very final) episode. It puts me in mind of an earlier era in the way it reflects 1960s kitchen sink post-war austerity and lack of showiness, filtered gently through a later period’s lens.

sapphire-steel-various-carlton-network-etc-dvd-releases-2

There have been a fair few British and elsewhere DVD releases of Sapphire & Steel… and (note to self), no it is not necessary to own them all just to peruse the packaging and the sometimes minute differences in how the episodes are presented.

And now… well, the grail of all things Sapphire & Steel:

sapphire-steel-tv-times-1979-july-7-13-cover-a-year-in-the-countryThe 1979 TV Times magazine which featured our heroes (is that the right word?) on the cover.

This was a weekly television listings magazine and I guess because of it only being needed for one week, very few have survived.

Over time, the very mainstream content of such magazines seems to have gained extra layers of resonance; possibly partly because of their nowadays scarcity and maybe also because they can capture or present a brief window into what seems like a very other time and place.

I have found a copy of the TV Times in question but I’m not quite sure yet if I can bring myself to tip a… well, not king’s ransom but maybe a small local lord’s ransom in its direction so that it can also “accidentally” arrive through my letterbox.

sapphire-steel-10th-july-1979-tv-times-a-year-in-the-country

sapphire-steel-magazine-clipping-page-a-year-in-the-countryThis magazine clipping/spread is heading in that general direction but well, it’s not that actual brief one-week-window-to-elsewhere of the TV Times.

Sapphire & Steel was intended / marketed / broadcast as mainstream entertainment but viewed now it is very much all of its own and maybe  what I’m looking for when I peruse related memorabilia is something which captures and represents the otherlyness of the series away from it’s mainstream presentation…

…but that otherly spirit is an elusive thing and possibly it being so phantasm like in nature, while being mixed in inseparably with that mainstream presentation is part of what makes the series so intriguing.

And so maybe (note so self) even that fairly elusive TV Times issue won’t put any kind of butterfly net around that particular spirit.

Hmmm.

sapphire-steel-dvd-carlton-edition-a-year-in-the-country-1

(File under: Trails and Influences / Year 3 Wanderings)

Intertwined wanderings around these parts:
Day #284/365: Sapphire and Steel; a haunting by the haunting and a denial of tales of stopping the waves of history…

Week #27/52: Sapphire & Steel, various ghosts in the machine and a revisiting of broken circuits…

Week #45/52: Quatermass finds and ephemera from back when

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Peter Strickland – six films that fed into The Duke of Burgundy: Ether Signposts #6/52a

duke-of-burgundy-the-2014-004-sidse-babett-knudsen-chiara-danna-bicycyle-silhouette

The Duke Of Burgundy is often referred to in terms of homage to previous films, with Sight & Sound magazine saying it is a “phantasmagoric 70s Euro sex-horror pastiche” and the likes of Jess Franco is often mentioned.

morgiana-1972-001-woman-on-rocks-above-sea

However, rather than being a homage I tend to think of his work as more being an evolution of Scala-esque fringe arthouse and exploitation cinema. Such earlier work I often can find culturally interesting but it can be bit harder to sit through in terms of actual entertainment.

mothlight-1963-001-still-brakhage

Peter Strickland’s films take such previous work as some of their initial starting points but then recalibrate their themes, tropes and aesthetics so that they are both culturally interesting and also work as entertainment for a modern audience.

belle-de-jour-1967-004-catherine-deneuve-wallpaper-peephole

Along which lines I have found this article at the BFI’s website endlessly fascinating, in terms of showing some of those starting points and meaning that as a viewer you can explore and see how his work was influenced by them and the ways in which his film reinterprets and wanders off on its own path from and with its source material.

(File under: Other Pathway Pointers And Markers)

Destinations and directions: Peter Strickland – six films that fed into The Duke of Burgundy

 

Posted on Leave a comment

The Marks Upon The Land Book / The Dark Chamber EP – Available To Pre-order: Artifact Report #6/52a

The CD is now sold out but is available to download at our Bandcamp page.

The book is available at Amazon UKAmazon US,  Amazon Australia and their other worldwide sites.

The Marks Upon The Land is a 60 page book which collects all 104 images which were created during the first spin-around-the-sun of A Year In The Country.

Available to pre-order at our Artifacts Shop and our Bandcamp Ether Victrola.
£24.95. Free UK shipping. Released 6th March 2017.

The book is accompanied by a 4-track audiological exploration on CD:
The Dark Chamber EP by A Year In The Country.

Also included is a free cassette and download copy of the Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels 12 track album by A Year In The Country.

There is also a standalone version of the book available without the CDs, cassette & download at various Amazon UK and international sites, including: UK, USAFrance, Germany, Spain etc.

Plus the standalone book is also available from Createspace (where it ships from the US).

Encasement details:
60 page bound softback book: 8.25 x 6 inches / 21 x 15 cm, matt velvet cover.
1 x all black CDr
2 x inserts
1 x cassette album in jewel case with 2 x inserts and download code.

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.

Those wanderings take in the beauty and escape of rural pastures, intertwined with a search for expressions of an underlying unsettledness to the bucolic countryside dream.

The Marks Upon The Land takes inspiration from and channels the outer reaches of folk culture and its meeting places with the layered spectralities of what has come to be known as hauntology, alongside memories of childhood countryside idylls spent under the shadow of Cold War end of days paranoia and amongst the dreamscapes of dystopic science fiction tales.

The Dark Chamber EP takes its name from the roots of the word camera and is an audio exploration of the creation of the imagery in the book, intermingling field recordings of photographic work with the sounds of the landscape.

Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels is a study of the hidden tales sent out into the world by the silent but ever chattering broadcast towers that stand watch atop the land, weaving and recasting their transmissions and seeming to summon unbidden the ghosts and fractures of a landscape that still contains the echoes and fragments of conflicts past and planned for.

“…interference, plain piano song, shimmering electronics, remote listening & shadowy melodies make for an elegant & sinister experience.” Include Me Out on Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels.

The Dark Chamber EP-The Marks Upon The Land-A Year In The Country

The Dark Chamber EP by A Year In The Country: 5″ all black CDr;
1)The Dark Chamber
2) Towards The Heartland
3) Layers And Marks
4) The Dark Chamber (Waiting For A Moment Of Stillness Mix)

Preview clips from the EP here.

Airwaves-Songs From The Sentinels-cassette-The Marks Upon The Land-A Year In The Country

Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels by A Year In The Country: cassette/download;
1) The Chatter Amongst The Land
2) A Cracked Sky
3) Night Mesh
4) Flutter Once More
5) Fading From A Distance
6) Imparting Received
7) Songs From The Sentinels
8) Tales And Constructs
9) They Have Departed Once More
10) To Be Sheltered
11) A Measuring
12) For My Gentle Scattering

Preview the album  here.

 

Artwork and packaging/book design by AYITC Ocular Signals Department.

All 104 images from the book can be viewed at Gallery: Year 1.

Available to pre-order at our Artifacts Shop and our Bandcamp Ether Victrola.
£24.95. Free UK shipping. Released 6th March 2017.

There is also a standalone version of the book available without the CDs, cassette & download at various Amazon UK and international sites, including: UKUSAFranceGermanySpain etc.

Plus the standalone book is also available from Createspace (where it ships from the US).

 

(File Under: Encasments / Artifacts – Artifact #1a)

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Archie Fisher’s Orfeo – Audio Visual Transmission Guide #5/52a

Archie Fisher-Orfeo-2

I have mentioned this song before when talking about the Acid Tracks compilation which was compiled by The Owl Service (the band) and was subtitled “An Introduction To The Roots Of Psych-Folk”.

Back then I wrote:

Acid Tracks-An Introduction to the roots of psych-folk (compiled by The Owl Service)-Rif Mountain-A Year In The Country“The particular standout song on the Acid Tracks compilation for me is Archie Fisher’s Orfeo… possibly one of the recording artists on the compilation who at first glance would appear the least acid/psych like but Orfeo is a magnificent, epic song, cinematic in scope… and there are these monstrous horns/pipes/foghorns (?) which appear repeatedly throughout the song and arrive like depth charges.”

Along with cinematic and epic, elegant is another word that comes to mind.

It is still a standout track for myself, not just on this compilation but also in my A Year In The Country wanderings in general and so it feels good and right to revisit it.

I also said back when:

“The album, also called Orfeo, on which it originally appeared was first released in 1970 and though it had been re-released on both LP and CD since it’s still something of a rarity.”

Other than that I know very little about Archie Fisher or these particular recording and it is one of those times when I prefer to just lose myself in the music.

(File Under: Cathode Ray & Cinematic Explorations, Radiowave Resonations & Audiological Investigations)

AVT Guide listing: Archie Fisher’s Orfeo

 

Posted on Leave a comment

A Return Visit To And From Rif Mountain: Wanderings #5/52a

jason-steel-straw-bear-band-robert-sunday-rif-mountain-a-year-in-the-country-2

I have something of a soft spot for Rif Mountain, which is a label / endeavour that has been a home for the likes of The Owl Service, Jason Steel, Robert Sunday, The A-Lords and sometimes A Year In The Country fellow travellers The Straw Bear Band.

For a while now it had been relatively quiet around those parts but recently there was something of a flurry of activity and these three fine beauties wandered through my letter box.

One of the things I appreciate with Rif Mountain releases is that they seem to contain a mixture of subtley left-of-centre-ness while also being particularly accessible.

0030-The-Owl-Service-The-View-From-A-Hill-A-Year-In-The-Country0030-The-Owl-Service-View-From-A-Hill-A-Year-In-The-Country

Along which lines, back during the first spin-around-the-sun of A Year In The Country I said of The Owl Service’s Rif Mountain released The View From A Hill:

“The music? Well, I guess it could be categorised as folk but it has it’s own take or edge to it… many of these songs are folk music mainstays and both musically and visually it uses what could be considered standard tropes of folk music, folklore and culture…

…but this is anything but a mainstream folk album. Why? Well, I can’t quite put my finger on it but there are other layers and intelligence to it all, a pattern beneath the plough as it were. As an album it feels subtley experimental but still maintains it’s listenability.”

jason-steel-straw-bear-band-robert-sunday-rif-mountain-a-year-in-the-country-1

(In the case of these more recent releases, alongside the more overtly folk work of The Straw Bear Band, can be found the intimate, lone singers and tellers of tales Jason Steel and Robert Sunday.)

Part of what draws me to Rif Mountain is the packaging and design, which is often (generally?) done by Straw Bear Band-er and sometimes Owl Service-r Dom Cooper.

His work blends traditional folk tropes with a particularly classy and nicely done modern take on such things or to again quote myself, he may well use…

the-owl-service-logos-dom-cooper-a-year-in-the-country-stroke“…quite simple, modern and minimal design work in conjunction with matt card/printing to conjure up and reinterpret the imagery and spirit of folklore’s past.”

jason-steel-straw-bear-band-robert-sunday-rif-mountain-a-year-in-the-country-4straw-bear-band-rif-mountain-a-year-in-the-country-3

With his work the imagery is complimented by the physicality of the releases themselves, which combine to give them a very precious, tactile feeling that always makes me want to handle them carefully and gently.

 

(File under: Trails and Influences / Year 3 Wanderings)

Intertwined wanderings around these parts:
Day #30/365: The Owl Service – A View From A Hill

Day #170/365: Who’s afear’d: Dom Cooper & reinterpreting signs, signals and traditions…

Elswhere in the ether:
On this brace of releases you will find the earlier mentioned Jason Steel, The Straw Bear Band and Robert Sunday. They can be perused and purchased at Rif Mountain’s main home in the ether

…and as is the modern way, they have a number of “outhouses” and the like: modern-day social gathering placetheir visual librarygramophone roomother gramophone room, music filing / archivingrecordings from spinning the zeros and ones wheels of steel and picture box.

And something of a personal favourite at one of those gramophone rooms: the Vexed Soul EP, wherein traditional folk songs are revisited and reinterpreted, alongside more, shall we say “factory folk” music.

(If you should appreciate such revisitings and reinterpretings, I would also recommend a visit to 16 Horsepower’s channelling of related work here.)

Dom Cooper’s home in the ether can be found here.

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Homer Sykes Once A Year And A Lineage Of Folk Custom Wanderings: Ether Signposts #5/52a

Layout 1

I have something of a soft spot for Homer Sykes Once A Year photography book.

It was one of the early pieces of culture that I bought which I think may well have fed into what became A Year In The Country.

The book is subtitled Some Traditional British Customs and Homer Sykes spent 7 years travelling the country documenting customs and events, with around 80 different events appearing in the finished book.

ONCE A YEAR, some Traditional British Customs. Isbn 0900406704
(Burry Man by Homer Sykes)

Homer Sykes work is part of a lineage of documenting such things through photography which takes in the work of 19th century photographer Benjamin Stone, travels through this book and then onto Sarah Hannant’s Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids: A Journey Through the English Ritual Year from 2011, most recently Henry Bourne’s Arcadia Britannica: A Modern British Folklore Portrait from 2015 and partly overseas to Charles Frégers Wilder Mann and its documenting of the wearing of transformative animal costumes in folk customs, which was originally published in 2012 and has been on and off in print since then.

©HenryBourne

Once A Year was originally published in 1977 and was out of print for a fair old while but in 2016 it was reissued by Dewi Lewis Publishing (who also published Wilder Mann and a book of Benjamin Stone’s work).

(File under: Other Pathway Pointers And Markers)

Destinations and directions:
Once A Year

Wilder Mann

Benjamin Stone

Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids

Arcadia Britannia

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Artifact Report #5/52a: The Dark Chamber EP / The Marks Upon The Land Clips

The Dark Chamber-insert-The Marks Upon The Land-A Year In The Country

Clips from The Dark Chamber EP are online for listening to. Visit them here.

It will be released on CD to accompany The Marks Upon The Land book.

The Dark Chamber EP takes its name from the roots of the word camera and is an audio exploration of the creation of the imagery in the book, intermingling field recordings of photographic explorations with the sounds of the landscape.

The book will also a free cassette/download version of the A Year In The Country album Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels (listen to that here).

The book will be available to pre-order on 6th Februrary 2017. Released 6th March 2017.

More details about its release here.

There is also a standalone version of the book available without the CDs, cassette & download at various Amazon UK and international sites, including: UKUSAFranceGermanySpain etc.

Plus the standalone book is also available from Createspace (where it ships from the US).

 

(File Under: Encasments / Artifacts – Artifact #1a)