Search Results for: the wicker man

File under: Trails and Influences: Touchstones. Case #35/52.

Well, around these parts I seem to often refer to and be drawn to cultural artifacts from one year in particular, 1973…

If I see that something was made in 1973 I tend to be more interested in it and there’s not a lot of leighway. It’s not an overtly conscious thing but when perusing anything past that year I tend to feel that it represents a move and tumble towards a sea change in society…

…earlier, particularly around 1970 and there still tends to be a 1960s psych/mod sharpness to it, cultural work from that time hasn’t yet become a reflection of the end of a dream and a society that wasn’t yet fully struggling with the changes and aftermath from that awakening…

And so, I was curious to cast my eye and mind back to that particular year and over the days, weeks and months of A Year In The Country and a few interconnected pathways to see what I turned up from that particular year…

So…

1) Day #273/365: Dark and Lonely Water… a recent visiting, which in part prompted this particular wandering, surveying and gathering; probably the hauntological Public Information Film. All scattered debris and that voice…

2) Day #90/365: The Wickerman… well, need I say more. Quite possibly the touchstone for all things interconnected to A Year In The Country and particular cultural explorations of an otherly Albion… a reflection of 60s counter cultural urges and explorations gone wayward/bad?…

3) Day #37/365: Psychomania; Nicky Henson and zombie motorcyclers bothering shoppers in 1970s Britain? Well, count me in for that I think…

4) Day #266/365: Judy Dyble stepped back from making music; well, the removal of such a voice from the landscape in itself could well be seen to harken a wandering into darker times.

5) Day #195/365: World On A Wire; a rather prescient virtual reality… also curiously against the grain of 1970s grit…

6) Day #1973/365: Preliminary filming began on the final Quatermass series; ah, I only recently discovered this. It makes the series make more sense in a way as it seems like such a reflection of a society that was in dire strife/potentially collapsing, as was the way in 1973… such things were still going on by the time of its broadcast but by then the stamping heels of a certain iron lady were already marking the soul of the land.

7) Day #213/365: Soylent Green… part of the mini-genre of ecology/resources having gone to heck in a handbasket. Spoiler alert: “Soylent Green Is People”… make room, make room.

8) Day #87/365; The Asphyx… of all the Hammer films, this one seems to have stuck with my imagination from all the years back, more concept than shock’n’horror driven perhaps? ‘Tis many years since I have seen it but I was reminded and returned to it via the work of Cathy and Eric Ward…

9) The Final Programme; talking of earlier 1970s films often seeming like they belonged more to a particular kind of sharp psychedelia… something of a cuckoo in the nest. It escaped into the world in 1973 and while it showed a side of decadence gone dark it also seems to stroll equally from a dandified 1960s counter-culture.

10) Blue Blood; I once heard myself describe this as being like The Wicker Man without a plot. On a rewatching it’s not necessarily but a line could be drawn from that film to this… Mr Oliver Read and companies questionable allegiances in a country estate; probably nearer to the bubble occurring decadences of Performance (and maybe a touch of The Servant) but with a background of truth, a lord of the land with multiple wifelets, a Page 3 girl and redecorating of the stately home with DIY rather physically amative murals… not sure if this particular celluloid story would be made today. Unsettling/troubling are words that come to mind.

11) Day #10/365: England Made Me; the film but when I think of it tends to send me back to Black Box Recorder’s album of the same name… a very particular non-hauntological slice of hauntology and to semi-quote Rob Young, appears to have sprung from a mythological England of the past that has its own particular brutalities but ones which are all English stiff upper lip and quietly furious repression.

12) Day #46/365: The Changes (filmed in 1973, released in 1975); ah, the bad wires – a tale of a world that has rejected and destroyed all modern technology to return to an almost medieval/feudal way of life and in which the sound of the combustion engine has become the mark of the devil… I suspect it was considered a little too close to home to be broadcast in the year of its making to a nation huddled around candles and suffering from the effects of an oil crisis.

13) Carry On Girls; ah, Carry on films. These feel like they have become part of our modern-day folklore, the soul of England in a way. This particular part of the series seems to fairly directly reflect a Britain in crisis and a tipping point where the aforementioned 60s utopian dream curdled, as did British cinema, to descend into smutty farce and tattered screens.

As I’ve mentioned around these parts before, 1973 in Britain was a particular unsettled time politically and socially; there was an almighty battle between organised labour and the elected (but essentially oligarchically self-appointed) managers of the land, an oil shortage and power crisis, a 3 day working week and so forth…

…and one thing that has stuck in my head along the way towards and through this A Year In The Country is Rob Young’s comment that possibly people were drawn to folk/folkloric/pastoral culture and its projection of undisturbed imagined idylls as an escape from that… hence Steeleye Span in the charts and one of folk/folk rock’s high water marks in popularity and amongst the wider society.

Hmmm.

File under:
Trails and Influences: Touchstones.
Case #18/52.

Now, I know little about Sproatly Smith. It’s another case where I don’t really want or need to, the music they create exists in a land unto itself for me and reading all kinds of interviews and the like may well just disturb such things… sometimes you need to tread gently.

I think looking back when I came across some of their songs I started to realise that I was on the right track towards… well, towards something that would become A Year In The Country.

If I had to describe the music they create I would probably say, well, something along the lines of “spiralling pastoral acid folklore tinged music” (is this a new genre name?) and they have been described by fRoots magazine as “The mystery flagship band of the new wave of weirdlore”…

For a while there didn’t seem to be any photos of them at all wandering around the ether. Now there are a few. I still don’t know all that much about them but I don’t really mind…

(It’s curious how things have gone from a time in my youth where I could wait and hope for months or longer to see one photograph of a band/artist etc or a tiny article in the print media, maybe never seeing any at all to a time when I sometimes enjoy and hanker scarcity, obscurity and knowing little about such things in amongst the easy deluge of information which abounds in modern times… be careful what you wish for and all that…).

In terms of how their music has wandering out into the world… Some of their albums have been put out in hand finished/sewn limited editions by Reverb Worship. Some by the now sadly departed Folk Police Recordings. The most recent has been put out by themselves via good old ferrous tape and its digital accompaniment…

…and there was a split 7″ with The Woodbine & Ivy band on Static Caravan where they both covered Gently Johnny in a particularly fine manner (something I’ve briefly mentioned before and may do again).

On the Minstrels Grave album, I seem to have often revisited two songs in particular: Blackthorn Winter which seems to manage to be shimmeringly stark, dark and beautiful all at once. I’m a-listening to it as I type and my hair is stood on end… and The Blue Flame, which is gentler but still… well, I don’t know if I have come across the music of any other group of musicians while on my journey towards and through A Year In The Country which quietly builds into a vision of pastoral otherlyness to such a degree.

Or to quote myself quoting The Gaping Silence their songs can be “like something from the Wicker Man, if the Wicker Man had been a 1960s children’s TV series about time travel” (see Day #85/365: Weirdlore: Notes From The Folk Underground and legendary lost focal points…).

Some of Sproatly Smith’s homes in the ether: here, here and here. At Folk Police Recordings here. On vinyl platters at Static Caravan here. Reverb Worship here.  

PS As a final point, I’ve just noticed that one of the songs on the album is a version of O Willow Waly, as heard in the film The Innocents. It’s strange how you can listen to/look at something so many times before your mind makes connections. Now, that is a song which I no doubt shall be considering at some point in the future around about these parts…

File under:
Trails and Influences:
Touchstones. Case #16/52.

Once upon a time there was an event called Weirdlore, which could well in future years have come to be known and constantly referred to as a focal point for a new wave of what could be called acid, psych or underground folk… or possibly weirdlore.

Unfortunately said event was cancelled. Apparently there was an awful lot of enthusiasm for it but this hadn’t translated into the necessary parting with of lucre…

However, there was still to be a document of this now never happened event, which was the Weirdlore compilation released by Folk Police Recordings (who were responsible for one of my favourite corners of the electronic ether, which also sadly is nolonger with us).

The album has rather fine artwork by Owl Service compatriot/Straw Bear Band gent/Rif Mountain-er Dom Cooper, which reinterprets traditional folkloric imagery and iconography in a contemporary manner…

The album is a snapshot of things musically, well, Weirdloric and includes tracks by Telling The Bees, Emily Portman, Rapunzel & Sedayne, another sometime Owl Service-r Nancy Wallace, Pamela Wyn Shannon, Katie Rose, The False Beards, Foxpockets, Boxcar Aldous Huxley, the aforementioned Straw Bear Band, Starless And Black Bible, Alasdair Roberts, Corncrow, Ros Brady, The Witches With Kate Denny, Harp And A Monkey, Wyrdstone…

…and I think the standout track for me is Sproatly Smith’s version of Rosebud In June, which I think if I had to save my A Year In The Country Desert Island Discs from the waves, may well be scooped up for nights under the stars.

It is a song which has been described by The Gaping Silence as being “like something from the Wicker Man, if the Wicker Man had been a 1960s children’s TV series about time travel”… which as a quote has always stuck in my mind and I think sums it up really rather well and so I shall say no more.

The album is also well worth a peruse (and purchase?) for the accompanying text by Ian Anderson, of fRoots magazine, written with Weirdlore still a month away and still to be a future point in history. In it he rather presciently describes the album as “celebrating a day which has yet to happen and a genre that quite conceivably doesn’t exist.”

Within the album’s packaging there is also an extended piece by Jeanette Leech (author of Seasons They Change: The Story Of Acid and Psychedelic Folk) where she discusses the use of genre names, how such music as that which is featured in Weirdlore came to be and the brief shining of media spotlights on its and associated practitioners:

“When light is not on a garden, many plants will wither. But others won’t. They will grow in crazy, warped, hardy new strains. It’s time to feed from the soil instead of the sunlight.”

I think that last sentence is one of the ones which has haunted and lodged in my psyche the most when I’ve been working towards, on and thinking about A Year In The Country.

The electronic ether wisps of Weirdlore here. The electronic ether wisps of Folk Police Recordings here and an introduction to the album from them here. Dom Cooper here. Rif Mountain here. Seasons They Change by Jeanette Leech here.

The Wickerman soundtrack as a 1960s children’s TV series about time travel via Sproatly Smith here, here and listen to or even purchase the soundtrack itself here.

File under:
Trails and influences; Touchstones. Case #7/52.

Well, The Wicker Man was likely to appear in A Year In The Country somewhere along the line.

This is an album released by unearthers of rare sonic delights Finders Keepers Records and is one which aims to showcase the British Folk songs that inspired the soundtrack to The Wickerman.

It’s Highland Lament which is the standout, hair stood on end track for me. Another case where one song is worth the price of entry on it’s own.

I know little or nothing about the song or who performs it (it’s not credited to anybody) and in a way I like that: in these times of instant knowledge about most everything via a click or swoosh or two it’s quite nice to keep the slight mystery of some things.

As is often the way with the good folk at Finders Keepers, the album is nicely packaged, with some rather hauntingly ethereal photographs of folk dancers. I expect once upon a time they were just ordinary snapshots but as can be the way sometimes the passing of time adds layers and patinas of something else. Which leads me to…

A curious thing The Wickerman soundtrack (and indeed the film itself): an interesting case of where something authentic has been created from an inauthentic premise. The soundtrack has come to feel as though it features songs which have belonged to these isles for centuries when in fact they were created especially for the film. The story, folk setting and history of the making of the film have become and/or inspire a form of modern day of folklore.

This could be looked upon askance as not being historically authentic but such communal cultural tales all must have a beginning (and maybe in the past were conjured from the air and mind in a similar manner, differering only in their technological recording and dissemination).

However, in culturally mediated times, the stories contained within celluloid, vinyl, digital data etc could be seen to have become our communal culture, one which is passed from person to person in a similar way that oral culture once would have done the same.

Considering it’s cult appeal, this is an album which is curiously not so easy to find, particularly on vinyl. The CD is available here.

While wandering down the A Year In The Country path, there have been an awful lot of cultural reference points which have inspired, influenced and intrigued me (the three i’s as it were).

Part of A Year In The Country will be dropping a trail of breadcrumbs that start off with those three i’s and may well lead you good folk elsewhere.

This is the first of these here Trails and Influences…

File Under:
Trails and Influences: Touchstones. Case #1/52.

Where to start. Well, near the beginning is a good place…

A few years ago for a while I had quite a few of one of my friends records and CDs stored at my house.

In amongst his platters and shiny digital discs he had quite a few folk albums. Now, to be honest I think I had tended to write folk off as all being a bit fiddle-di-di, knit your own jumper, earnest kinds of things.

I was drawn to this album, gather in the mushrooms and I’m glad I was. I knew next to nothing about the music, hadn’t read the sleevenotes but for some reason it had ended up on my iPod.

The first time I can really remember it grabbing me was on a late night walk through the mostly deserted backstreets of a slightly industrial city. A curious place to discover an interest in oddball folk music maybe…

I think it was Forest’s Graveyard or maybe Trader Horne’s Morning Way that first grabbed my attention and made me realise that something other than my preconceptions about folk music was going on here. The first lines on Morning Way are “Dreaming strands of nightmare are sticking to my feet…”, followed close after by a somewhat angelic female voice in counterpart and well, I thought “This is odd, I like this…”

And so, in those darkened semi-industrial backstreets, some kind of journey started.

It’s a fine compilation by the way. It’s sub-titled The British Acid Folk Underground 1968-1974 and well, it does what it says on the can.

It was compiled and rather well curated by Bob Stanley of St Etienne, with sleeve notes by him (which once I eventually bought it and read them, I think I found slightly, hmmm, not quite as satisfying or comprehensive as they might have been… top compilation otherwise though Mr Stanley).

Highlights? Well, for me it’s one of those albums where there aren’t all the many low-lights. It’s all worth a listen but in particular I would recommend:

Magnet: Corn Riggs; an instrumental version from The Wicker Man soundtrack.

Sallyangie: Love In Ice Crystals; a rather young Mike Oldfield and his sister in a pre-Tubular Bells incarnation.

Pentangle: Lyke Wake Dirge; their haunting take on a traditional song.

Forest: Graveyard; ethereal gothic folk as a genre anybody? For a long time I thought the singer was female.

Trader Horne: Morning Way; the start is just superb, features Judy Dyble, originally a singer with Fairport Convention.

Comus: The Herald; well, this probably actually is gothic folk or maybe macabre folk. Epic and unsettling.

Well, it goes on and on really. There’s even a Sandy Denny track, Milk and Honey, that’s quite lovely (sorry, I know she’s greatly loved but I normally find her singing leaves me a little cold).

It was released in 2004, which I think looking back probably around the time that there was something of a revived interest in the odder reaches of folk, in part due to the popularity of folk such as Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom were popular and Vashti Bunyan was being rediscovered by a wider audience.

Anyway, unfortunately it’s out of print but can still generally be found for around £10-20 of your well earned pounds. If you wish to have a look-see, you could start here at the old Amazon: Gather In The Mushrooms or Discogs etc.

There was a follow up album released a year or few after: Early Morning Hush; Notes From The UK Folk Undeground 1968-1976. In parts it has a look-see at privately pressed folk albums from that time. For my ears it’s not quite as superlative as Gather In The Mushrooms but still well worth a listen. Maybe more about this album in a future Trails and Influences.

If you should wish to purchase it, you could start a-looking on Amazon… Early Morning Hush or Discogs etc.

File Under:
Trails and Influences: Touchstones. Case #1.