File Under: Trails And Influences / Year 2 wanderings
Well, that got me thinking about The Stone Tape again and in particular the (relatively) recent radio broadcast and adaptation of it.
This was a production where the layering and backstory were at least as intriguing as the broadcast play itself.
As a play, it was almost as if somebody had sat down with a very particular hauntological-esque wish list and created it as a piece of culture that didn’t need to actually exist in broadcast form, it just needed this layering, to be thought about and anticipated.
Six layerings:
1) Place: I was particularly taken by the images of the location it was shot – the textures and contemporarily chic almost gothic horror of it all.
2) Person: Peter Strickland as it’s director. Well, what more do I need to say? Spinner of very particular cinematic worlds and re-imaginings courtesy of the stepping through and never were of giallo sound recordists and imagined Jess Franco-esque/once-upon-a-never-was very particularly European fairytales/mesmerisations.
3) Music: James Cargill of non-pop pop music-ers Broadcast, sometime Children Of Alice-r and previous Mr Strickland world creation collaborator and layer-er.
4) Soundscape: Andrew Liles, England’s hidden reverse co-creator and aural sculptor.
5) Script: Matthew Graham, one time creator of sort-of-mainstream-hauntology series Life On Mars.
6) Listening: The Dark provide a communal listening experience for above layerings and to add another layering.
A further six layerings courtesy of a venerable auntie: Nigel Kneale’s Stone Tape in six facts.
“Read all about it” (said in a 1920s New York paper sellers voice) here.
Mr Dorans and “old hand” Mr Augood consider contemporary and past layerings and transmissions here.
An interwoven study of future haunted media around these parts here.
