Category: Artifacts

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!

 

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.

 

Further reviews, transmissions etc of the All The Merry Year Round album…

First up is something of a gathering from the album by Golden Apples of the Sun radio show, including Circle/Temple, Field Lines Cartographer, United Bible Studies and The Séance:

“Claude Mono presents Golden Apples Mix Number 46 where the Doctor’s assistant from 1973 to 1976 Sarah Jane Smith enjoys listening to music from Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Pram, United Bible Studies and others…”

Originally broadcast on RTR FM, the show’s archive can be visited here.

Was Ist Das? included Magpahi’s track on their radio show… from out in Arizona by way of the Pyrenees…

Originally broadcast at CAMP, the show is archived here.

Sunrise Ocean Bender included Pulselovers track on the Bedsheet, Moss / Altered Circuitry episode of their radio show (which is something of a fine episode title)…

Originally broadcast on WRIR, the show is archived here.

Mind De-Coder included The Séance’s Chetwynd Haze in amongst the lysergic (of the rock and folk variety), Radiophonic and hauntological wanderings of their show.

Originally broadcast on Waiheke Radio, the full length post on the show can be viewed here and the audio is archived here.

John Coulthart writes about the album at his feuilleton site:

“…extended drones and atmospherics by regular contributors Polypores and Time Attendant alternate with contemporary takes on the folk idiom by Magpahi, Sproatly Smith, and The Hare And The Moon… this is another potent collection which doesn’t ignore the sinister potential of winter time…”

Visit that here.

Raffaello Russo has written about the album from over the seas at his Music Won’t Save You site:

““All The Merry Year Round” appare senz’altro la raccolta più varia e, in fondo, leggera nel catalogo recente dell’etichetta inglese, che sotto le insegne del mistero e della magia unisce declinazioni antiche e moderne della cultura popolare del periodo più buio dell’anno.”

Visit that here (and via robotic translation here.)

 

Previous All The Merry Year Round reviews and broadcast:
Artifact Report #47/52a: All The Merry Year Round Reviews and Broadcasts

All The Merry Year Round is a wandering through an otherly calendar, which travels alongside straw bear and cathode ray summonings alike…

The album features 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.

More details can be found here.

As always, a tip of the hat to all involved.

 

Over the weeks, months and years Mark Barton has written a fair few times about the various A Year In The Country releases at his The Sunday Experience site and I thought it would be good to gather together links to a selection of his related writing…

On All The Merry Year Round:

“Cosmic Neighbourhood whose sleepy headed ‘Winter Light’ we must admit, has had us creeping near the sound system somewhat fixated by its, as were, delightfully dinked dance of yawning diodes, binary alarm clocks calls and wheezing electrical nick nacs… (The Séance) usher these A Year in the Country reports to a year ending hibernation with the arrival of ‘Chetwynd Haze’ and in so doing, summoning forth secret portals into the kind of alternative parallel worlds more accustomed in the company of Melmoth the Wanderer. ”

Visit the three related posts here, here and here.

On 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.”

Visit that post here.

On Undercurrents:

“…here these monolithic drone recitals act as something akin to aural cartography capturing eloquently the very pulse, the bleak beauty and the secret majesty of these wide open spaces all the time bowing forth to their legacy.”

Visit that post here.

On From The Furthest Signals:

“Pulselovers whose ‘Endless repeats/Eternal Return’ is adored in a twinkle toned orbital phrasing all shepherded and harvested upon a delicately whirling crystal cut sepia fantasia. Listening Center draws this latest report to a close with the aptly titled ‘only the credits remain’, a beautifully serene and widescreen cosmic sea spray dimpled in sleepy headed dream drifts, utterly touching and tender, need I say more.”

Visit that post here.

On The Restless Field:

“…is your bountiful feast of spring dew harvesting, an as ever exquisitely hand crafted package of dawn and night variations that features a fourteen strong gathering of familiar friends around the mystical and magical ley lines that crisscross these fair green lands each blooded and ghosted in historical flashpoints and historical turning points.”

Visit that post here.

On The Forest / The Wald:

“The Hare And The Moon offering… a ghostly love note murmured in spectral tidings upon which droning mists descend which once cleared and lifted reveal siren-esque apparitions softly wooing with their beckoning bewitchment…”

Visit that post here and here.

On No More Unto The Dance:

“A taking by the hand journey down dimly lit back alleys into signless word of mouth back rooms and basements where inside sounds come wired to the hive mind pulse of the underground, a place where Add N to X ghost lights prickle with ominous intent amid a palette populated by LFO trancetones, motoric murmurs, psychotronic disturbias, radiophonic echoes, kosmick pulsars, serene ambient flurries and soundscapes siren calling futureworld dystopias.”

Visit that post here.

On The Quietened Bunker:

“…a most alluring waltzing orbital sorrowfully sighing in the starry outlands mournfully transmitting crystalline cosmic distress calls from forgotten far off outposts to its long since fallen creator as it observes the heavenly nightlights in states of gracefall dulling, diminishing and disappearing…”

Visit that post here.

On Fractures:

(Listening Centre’s) ‘Triangular Shift’… ought to find keen interested ears among those who tune into the occasional transmissions of the Ghost Box endorced ‘Belbury Parish’ podcasts… a futuristic orbital that takes its core reference point, or so it would seem, from the paranormal time travelling sleuths ‘Sapphire & Steel’…”

Visit that post here.

A tip of the hat to Mark and all concerned.

 

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 28th November 2017.

Artifact #6a

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

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

Featuring United Bible Studies, Circle/Temple (Dom Cooper of The Owl Service/Bare Bones/Rif Mountain), Magpahi, Cosmic Neighbourhood, Field Lines Cartographer, Polypores, A Year In The Country, Sproatly Smith, Pulselovers, The Hare And The Moon & Jo Lepine (The Owl Service), Time Attendant and The Séance (Pete Wiggs of Saint Etienne and James Papademetrie).

All The Merry Year Round is 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; stories we discover, treasure, are informed and inspired by but which are found, transmitted and passed down via television, film and technology rather than through local history and the ritual celebrations of the more longstanding folkloric calendar.

However, just as with their forebears there is a ritualistic nature to these modern-day reveries whereby communal or solitary seances are undertaken when stepping into such tales via flickering darkened rooms lit by screens, although their enclosed nature is in contrast to more public traditional folklore rituals.

Accompanying which with the passing of time some televisual and cinematic stories continue or begin to resonate as they gain new layers of meaning and myth; cultural folklore that has come to express and explore an otherly Albion, becoming a flipside to traditional folklore tales and sharing with them a rootwork that is deeply embedded in the land.

In amongst All The Merry Year Round can be found wanderings down such interwoven pathways, travelling alongside straw bear and cathode ray summonings alike.

Tracks also previewable 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) 2 x square and 2 x round vinyl style stickers.

Tracklisting:

1) Towards The Black Sun – United Bible Studies
2) Rigel Over Flag Fen – Circle/Temple
3) She Became Ashes and Left With the Wind – Magphai
4) Winter Light – Cosmic Neighbourhood
5) Azimuth Alignment Ritual – Field Lines Cartographer
6) Meridian – Polypores
7) Tradition and Modernity – A Year In The Country
8) Moons (Part 1) – Sproatly Smith
9) Tales Of Jack – Pulselovers
10) I’ll Bid My Heart Be Still – The Hare And The Moon & Jo Lepine
11) In a Strange Stillness – Time Attendant
12) Chetwynd Haze – The Séance

Artwork/encasment design and fabrication by AYITC Ocular Signals Department

Artifact #6a / Library Reference Numbers: A011ATMYRD / A011ATMYRN

 

A gathering of some of the reviews, broadcasts etc of the All The Merry Year Round album:

Ben Graham has reviewed the album for issue 74 of Shindig! magazine:

“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.”

Issue 74 will be available here soon.

Richard Allen has reviewed the album at A Closer Listen:

“All the Merry Year Round creates an atmosphere for wandering and wondering. The set succeeds through counter intuition, its alternative calendar creating such a ruckus that it causes all calendars to blow away in the wind, leaving us only with the eternal, visceral now.”

Visit that here.

Andrew Young has reviewed the album at Terrascope:

“Polypores arrive with “Meridian”… huge slabs of synth create a musique concrete, pulses and washes ominously building and decaying throughout creating an otherworldly vibe.”

Visit that here.

Mark Barton has written about All The Merry Year Round twice at his The Sunday Experience site:

“”I’ll Bid My Heart Be Still”… blessed with a church like serene, both reverent and majestic, a stilled grandeur forms from the spectral touching, a magical occurrence intimately brushed and in tune with the coming dark season, a ghostly ceremonial séance reaching deep through the ages instilling all in enchantment and beautified bewitchment.”

Visit those two pieces here and here.

More Than Human played Polypores and Time Attendant’s tracks on the intriguing selecting and wanderings of their radio show.

Originally broadcast on CiTR FM, it can be visited here and the show is archived at their Soundcloud page here and is available as a podcast here.

And amongst further intriguing wanderings and selectings, Cosmic Neighbourhood’s track was played on The deXter Bentley Hello GoodBye Show.

Originally broadcast on Resonance FM, the playlist can be viewed here and the show is archived here.

The Unquiet Meadow played The Hare And The Moon with Jo Lepine’s “I’ll Bid My Heart Be Still” amongst their wanderings through “psych-tinged landscapes of mutated folk & haunted electronica” on their radio show.

Originally broadcast on Asheville FM, the playlist can be visited here.

Tip of the hat to everybody involved in the above…

All The Merry Year Round is 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; stories we discover, treasure, are informed and inspired by but which are found, transmitted and passed down via television, film and technology rather than through local history and the ritual celebrations of the more longstanding folkloric calendar… travelling alongside straw bear and cathode ray summonings alike.

The album features 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.

More details can be found here and the album can be previewed here.

 

The Golden Apples of the Sun radio show and site is one of my favourite places online to visit… on the shows you will find a vast range of music nestled next to one another and may well hear Brian Eno, Shirley and Dolly Collins, Broadcast, Tangerine Dream, The Focus Group, Keith Seatman, CAN, Leyland Kirby, Link Wray, Air, Devandra Banhart, Andrew Weatherall, Emerald Web, Kraftwerk, DJ Shadow, The Assisant, The KLF, Jon Brooks, The Hardy Tree and Jane Weaver to name but a few.

The shows are organised and curated by Claude Mono, often with guest hosts and throughout its eclectic music wanderings there are themes or strands that loosely often connect the shows, which are in part explorations of when the flipside or undercurrents of pastoralism meets the spectres and imagined parallel worlds of hauntology.

Or to quote the show itself:

“The Golden Apples collective is a small informed and passionate group of music-lovers who each Sunday afternoon (and via re-stream) curate a musical odyssey through psych-tinged realms such as pastoral folk, glitch, lo-fi electronica, hauntology and hypnagogic pop. Through blissful reverie and sun-dappled hallucinogenic soundscapes, find yourself transported to a world beyond time, where both past and future intermingle, and where sound rules supreme.”

The blog/site is also well worth a wander around and I will often find a number of semi-hidden cultural curios that have me planning to squirrel away some time to explore them (recently that has included links to the rare 2006 documentary The Eternal Children directed by David Kleijwegt that focused on what was known as weird or freak folk in the earlier 2000s and fellow companions – work by the likes of Antony & The Johnsons, Coco Rosie and the aforementioned Devandra Banhart).

Over the years the show has included a fair few tracks from the A Year In The Country releases and on the 10th September 2017 there was a show where “Claude visits A Year In The Country”, which featured something of a gathering of selections from the A Year In The Country releases, including David Colohan, The Rowan Amber Mill, Sproatly Smith, A Year In The Country, She Rocola, Circle/Temple and Sproatly Smith.

The show then wandered off into music by sometimes A Year In The Country contributor Vic Mars, alongside the also aforementioned Broadcast, Emerald Web, Jon Brooks, Jane Weaver and Kraftwerk.

I particularly liked the above semi-scientific graph representation of the elements of the show.

Anyways, I thought about now would be a good time to post a number of links to some of the previous episodes of The Golden Apples of the Sun that featured A Year In The Country releases.

Originally broadcast on RTR FM, the playlists and streams are archived at the links below:

Episode 337: Claude visits A Year In The Country: featuring Fractures, Burn The Witch/Molly Leigh Of The Mother Town, The Quietened Village, In Every Mind, The Forest / The Wald, Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels & From The Furthest Signals

Episode 200: featuring Burn The Witch/Molly Leigh Of The Mother Town & Torridon Gate (She Rocola & Howlround)

Episode 266: featuring In Every Mind (A Year In The Country):
“This sound journey is a true audio bell curve commencing with the vinyl crackle of dust from the nettles style original British acid folk, some US Espers-esque psych folk and prairie modern from Meg Baird and Speck Mountain…the show then meanders through the hazy electronica of Noveller, Lutine and Haelos heading towards a single epic extended high through 20 minutes of a most (in)famous Nurse With Wound and Stereolab collaboration. Over the bell curve and new West Coast meets East Coast from Heron Oblivion and finally some crystalline lo-fi timeless moments from the Golden Apples archives of 2010, 2011 and 2012.”

Episode 295 & Episode 314: both featuring The Forest / The Wald (The Rowan Amber Mill, Magpahi & The Hare And The Moon):
“Claude musically meanders through private press folk, funk and psych, some spiritual jazz and lo-fi electronic gospel, Balearic beats, baroque pop and electronica.”

Episode 315: featuring Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels (A Year In The Country):
“…Claude returns and weeks of field study, archaeological digging, explorations of secret rural Holloways, learning the Rites of Mu and Hypnagogia all come together…its a strange beautiful musical trip….”

Episode 336: featuring The Quietened Village (Listening Center)

Episode 273, Episode 274 & Episode 335: all featuring Fractures (Circle/Temple, The Hare And The Moon & Polypores)

Episode 219: featuring In Every Mind (A Year In The Country)

Episode 307: featuring Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels & The Dark Chamber EP
“This edition of the Golden Apples is hosted by Claude Mono. It commences with a soundscape from Under The Skin the unsettling sci-fi film that creates a strange brooding dystopian landscape within contemporary Glasgow and its surrounds. More soundscapes from A Year In The Country, Broadcast, Pram, The Dandelion Set, Stereolab and space-psych from Our Solar System…immersive listening…”

Episode 335: featuring The Quietened Cosmologists (Unit One and Field Lines Cartographer)

You can also visit The Golden Apples of the Sun at RTR FM’s website here.

Tip of the hat to all involved. Much appreciated.

 

All The Merry Year Round album preview clips are online.

Visit them at Soundcloud.

Album pre-order available 7th November 2017 at our Artifacts Shop and at Bandcamp.
Released 28th November 2017.

All The Merry Year Round is 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; stories we discover, treasure, are informed and inspired by but which are found, transmitted and passed down via television, film and technology rather than through local history and the ritual celebrations of the more longstanding folkloric calendar.

The album features United Bible Studies, Circle/Temple (Dom Cooper of The Owl Service/The Straw Bear Band/Rif Mountain), Magpahi, Cosmic Neighbourhood, Field Lines Cartographer, Polypores, A Year In The Country, Sproatly Smith, Pulselovers, The Hare And The Moon & Jo Lepine (The Owl Service), Time Attendant and The Séance (Pete Wiggs of Saint Etienne and James Papademetrie).

Further details on the album can be found here.

 

(File Post Under: Encasements / Artifacts – Artifact #6a)

 

 

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 #6a

Pre-order 7th November 2017. Release date 28th November 2017.

All The Merry Year Round is 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; stories we discover, treasure, are informed and inspired by but which are found, transmitted and passed down via television, film and technology rather than through local history and the ritual celebrations of the more longstanding folkloric calendar.

However, just as with their forebears there is a ritualistic nature to these modern-day reveries whereby communal or solitary seances are undertaken when stepping into such tales via flickering darkened rooms lit by screens, although their enclosed nature is in contrast to more public traditional folklore rituals.

Accompanying which with the passing of time some televisual and cinematic stories continue or begin to resonate as they gain new layers of meaning and myth; cultural folklore that has come to express and explore an otherly Albion, becoming a flipside to traditional folklore tales and sharing with them a rootwork that is deeply embedded in the land.

In amongst All The Merry Year Round can be found wanderings down such interwoven pathways, travelling alongside straw bear and cathode ray summonings alike.

Featuring:
United Bible Studies
Circle/Temple (Dom Cooper of Bare Bones and Rif Mountain)
Magpahi
Cosmic Neighbourhood
Field Lines Cartographer
Polypores
A Year In The Country
Sproatly Smith
Pulselovers
The Hare And The Moon & Jo Lepine (The Owl Service)
Time Attendant
The Séance (Pete Wiggs of Saint Etienne and James Papademetrie).

 

Will be available via our Artifacts Shop and Bandcamp.

 

(File Post Under: Encasements / Artifacts – Artifact #6a)

 

Over the months and years Raffaello Russo has written about the A Year In The Country releases at his Music Won’t Save You site and in Rockerilla magazine a fair few times, most recently about The Quietened Cosmologists.

There have been links to the reviews at A Year In The Country before but I thought it would be good to gather together links to some of those reviews…

Michael Tanner – Nine Of Swords / A Year In The Country – Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels / The Quietened Village

“Pratica ambientale e spirito folk si fondono nell’operazione, declinati nelle visionarie stille acustiche di The Straw Bear Band e di Sproatly Smith…” (From the review of The Quietened Village.)

Fractures / The Quietened Bunker / A Year In The Country – No More Unto The Dance / The Forest/The Wald

“Il percorso attraverso i misteri di ambienti rurali abbandonati seguito attraverso sei uscite a tiratura limitata nel corso dell’anno dal cenacolo artistico dell’etichetta A Year In The Country ne ha condotto i protagonisti a esplorare luoghi reconditi, memorie cristallizzate in un altrove spazio-temporale e persino a inseguirne visioni spettrali proiettate verso uno spazio in(de)finito.” (From the review of The Forest/The Wald).

The Restless Field / From The Furthest Signals / A Year In The Country – Undercurrents / The Quietened Cosmologists

“Sempre più orientati alle componenti antropiche e post-industriali del paesaggio, gli itinerari tra suono e immaginazione del cenacolo artistico A Year In The Country segnano in “The Quietened Cosmologists” una nuova tappa dedicata alle visioni futuribili allegate a costruzioni funzionali all’esplorazione spaziale.” (From the review of The Quietened Cosmologists).

The Music Won’t Save You website is an archive of Raffaello Russo’s writing and features literally hundreds of articles and reviews that take in a wide, eclectic selection of music (looking at the indexes on the site is one of those “When does the gent sleep?” moments) and although largely in Italian, if you’re not fluent in that language they can be read in (fractured) English via online translation services.

Tip of the hat and thanks to him for the support.

 

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

 

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)

 

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:

“(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…”

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.

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 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)

 

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

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

 

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.

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.

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)

 

The Quietened Cosmologists album preview clips are online for listening to.

Visit them at Soundcloud.

Pre-order available 12th September 2017 at our Artifacts Shop and at Bandcamp.
Released 3rd October 2017.

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.

The album 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 on the album can be found here.

 

(File Post Under: Encasements / Artifacts – Artifact #5a)

 

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 available 12th September 2017. Released 3rd October 2017.

Will be available via our Artifacts Shop and our Bandcamp Ether Victrola.

Artifact #5a

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.

 

Featuring audiological explorations by:
Field Lines Cartographer
Pulselovers
Magpahi
Howlround
Vic Mars
Unit One (Dom Cooper of Circle/Temple and The Straw Bear Band in collaboration with Al Hill)
A Year In The Country
Keith Seatman
Grey Frequency
Time Attendant
Listening Center
Polypores
David Colohan

 

(File Post Under: Encasements / Artifacts – Artifact #5a)

 

Below are some of the reviews and radio broadcasts of the A Year In The Country album Undercurrents:

First up is Ben Willmott’s review in issue 32 of Electronic Sound magazine:

“The countryside is often over romanticised, ususally 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’ll excuse the pun, in a field of his own.”

That issue can be found at their site here and as I’ve mentioned around these parts before, there’s a particularly generous subscription offer to the magazine which is available here.

Then there’s Dave Thompson’s review at Spin Cycle/Goldmine:

“…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.”

That can be found here.

As an aside, for a number of decades Dave Thompson has been a prolific journalist and author and has written over a hundred (blimey) books including A Seance at Syd’s – An Anthology of Modern Acid-Folk-Haunt-Psych-Prog-Space-Radiophonic-Rock Etc Quotes, in which you may well find an intertwining or two with the wanderings at A Year In The Country. You can start to delve amongst the considerable catalogue of his writing at his site here.

Caught In The Flow from the album was broadcast on an episode of the Sunrise Ocean Bender radio show, where it can be found next to a track on the From The Furthest Signals album, underground rock and other intriguing musical explorations.

The show was originally broacast on WRIR FM and it is archived here.

Mark Barton reviews the album at The Sunday Experience:

“…here these monolithic drone recitals act as something akin to aural cartography capturing eloquently the very pulse, the bleak beauty and the secret majesty of these wide open spaces all the time bowing forth to their legacy.”

Visit that here.

John Coulthart explores layers of connection to the album at his feuilleton site:

“The electronic nature of these recordings contradicts the usual expectation that anything to do with the country—especially the English countryside—has to be presented in a folk idiom and with acoustic instruments. This adds further resonances to the theme, making me think of electric currents, dowsing maps…”

Visit that here.

Simon Reynolds includes the album in the Summer 2017 edition of his Hauntology Parish Newsletter, where it can be found next to Ian Hodgson of Moon Wiring Club’s alter-ego Genteel Decay, The Focus Group and Ekoplekz:

“Excellent moody n’ twinkly stuff it is too, with the usual exquisitely intricate packaging.”

Visit that here.

Martin Raybould reviews the album at Whisperin’ & Hollerin’:

“Listening to Undercurrents is like being drawn away from well-marked pathways with no clues as to where they might lead. AYITC’s music therefore provides a kind of psychogeography of the countryside.”

Visit that here.

Raffaello Russo reviews the album from over the seas at his Music Won’t Save You site:

“Stanno a testimoniarlo, fin dai titoli, brani quali “A Pastoral Playground” e “Dreamscapes Of Old”, pienamente imbevuti di un immaginario bucolico, tuttavia reso non nella sua quiete arcadica bensì attraverso particelle sonore incorporee e correnti di elettricità statica, che generano interferenze spettrali, in una rappresentazione che del paesaggio cattura soprattutto le immanenze aliene, ben oltre la sua superficie materialmente visibile.”

Visit that here.

And Mat Handley included Currents from the album in episode 212 of his You, the Night & the Music radio show, where it can also be found next to a track on From The Furthest Signals, alongside his ongoing musical unearthing, spinning and selecting.

The show was originally broadcast on Sine FM and can be found archived for your listening pleasure here.

Thanks to everybody involved, in particular Ben Willmott, Push and Neil Mason of Electronic Sound, Dave Thompson, Kevin McFadin of Sunrise Ocean Bender, Simon Reynolds, John Coulthart, Martin Raybould, Tim Peacock, Mark Barton, Raffaello Russo and Mat Handley.

Tip of the hat to all.

More information on Undercurrents can be found here. It is available via our Artifacts Shop, our Bandcamp Ether Victrola and Norman Records.

Clips from the album can be previewed at Soundcloud.

 

(File Post Under: Encasements / Artifacts – Artifact #4a)