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The Ashton Ascension
PART ONEThe early days of March signal the first tenative stirrings of Spring, a turning time of the year when the bite of winter lingers but begins to cede its supremacy. It was a propitious moment to...
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Chris Watson at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum
Sound recordist and musician Chris Watson was in conversation at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum with RSPB communications officer for the South West Tony Whitehead last night. Perhaps the...
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The Merry Month of May
This is the unedited version of an essay which appeared in abbreviated form in the excellent Folklore TapesCalendar Customs II Box Set. May Day is one of the turning points of the year, the moment when...
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The Ashton Ascension
PART TWOThe white-washed porch was edged with stone benches, so we were able to perch and munch. The entrance arch framed a pastoral view worthy once more of Samuel Palmer, rounded hills rising to an...
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Calendar Customs II: Merry May
The first Calendar Customs collection from the Folklore Tapes folks focussed on Halloween. It sought to unearth the layers of tradition and vernacular observance which have been largely displaced by...
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The Ashton Ascension
PART THREEWalking towards the Jacobean pulpit at the south end of the rood screen, we paused to look down at two memorial stones embedded in the aisle, its darkly grey, granite surface worn smooth by...
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The Damned
Here's the full version of an introduction I gave to a screening of The Damned as part of a 12 Hour science fiction film festival at the Bike Shed Theatre for Phonic fm. I had to cut it drastically to...
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Nick Talbot of Gravenhurst
It was tremendously sad to learn of the passing of Nick Talbot, who died on 4th December at the desperately premature age of 37. Talbot had been the creative force behind the group Gravenhurst for 12...
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Hunting The Demons of Ashcombe
It was on a sharp, blue-skied autumn day that I set out to hunt down the demons of Ashcombe. I’d seen pictures of the strange, distorted faces carved into the dark oak of 17th century bench ends in...
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Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination at The British Library
PART ONEThe British Library exhibition Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination began, appropriately enough, with a descent. After a brief introductory film in which four explorers of diverse Gothic...
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Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination at the British Library
PART TWOCharles Dickens is the perfect figure to usher us into the Victorian world, and into the dark, narrow and crowded streets of the rapidly expanding, noisily industrial capital. A clip of the...
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The Holcombe Rogus Time Traveller
It was a freezing January morning when I lifted my bike off the train at Tiverton Parkway station and wheeled it down the ramp into the carpark. The station is nowhere near Tiverton (it’s actually just...
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Midwinter Rites and Rituals
This is a slightly longer version of the essay included in the splendid Folklore Tapes release Calendar Customs III.Midwinter is the low ebb of the year, the heart of the lifeless season when the sun...
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Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Notes for a filmclub screening.Valerie and her Week of Wonders is a Czech film made in 1969, the year after the Prague Spring and its brutal suppression by the Soviet Union. It’s a colourful fantasy,...
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Folklore Tapes: Occultural Creatures Vol.1 - Black Dog Traditions of England
The latest offering from the Folklore Tapes folk (Ian Humberstone and David Chatton Barker in this instance) is a treasure box filled with exquisite objects, a reliquary as the promotional copy casts...
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Midsummer Traditions and Folklore
A longer version of an essay included with the Folklore Tapes box Calendar Customs IV: Crown of LightMidsummer is the most natural time of the year for a celebration marked by simple pleasure and...
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The Little Gift by Stephen Volk
I’ve attempted to avoid mentioning one of the central incidents in the story, but surrounding allusions will inevitably give a good deal of the game away. So to avoid disappointment and irritation I...
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Children Of Alice
Originally published as a Warp Records press release for the debut LP by Children of Alice. Children of Alice have been quietly producing amorphous and intoxicating soundscapes as part of the Folklore...
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Paradoxical Undressing by Kristin Hersh
Asked to come up with a book from the library shelves I would recommend, I decided upon Kristin Hersh's wonderful novelistic memoir of the early days of Throwing Muses, her struggles with strange...
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A Canterbury Tale
Notes for an introduction to a film club screening.Powell and Pressburger – an alliterative pairing whose enunciation immediately summons up an aura of magic and enchantment for me. I first came across...
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Folklore Tapes: The First Five Years
An overview originally uploaded for a Bleep.com 'advent calendar' release of a special 5 year mix in 2016. FTV. Five years of Folklore Tapes. It feels odd writing it down, both because it feels like...
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Freeform Fall Out: Absurd Conclusions
What to make of Fall Out. Its radical abandonment of traditional narrative structure and refusal to offer neat conclusions or some overarching explicatory rationale to round things off annoyed the hell...
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Bloody Homage: The Hammer of Dr Valentine, Terrors of the Théâtre Diabolique...
The golden age of British horror movies continues to exert a fascination over successive generations of fans. The films of the late 50s through to the mid-70s belong to a distinct period of post-war...
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Walk On: From Richard Long to Janet Cardiff - 40 Years of Art Walking
Walk On is a major exhibition loosely themed around the act of wandering and the art it has inspired over the past 5 or so decades. It is distributed around various venues in Plymouth, allowing the...
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The Dark Masters Trilogy by Stephen Volk
Three of Stephen Volk’s recent novellas, portrait stories of significant figures in the fields of horror and the macabre, have been lovingly and lavishly repackaged and conjoined as the ‘Dark Masters...
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