Coming soon to Chaffinch Records is a new 7" and download EP by Ghostwriter. This was the ambitious project of Mark Brend and an ensemble of invited musicians who co-wrote and preformed in various sessions kicked off back in 2010. Here's what Chaffinch say about it...
The title track finds Brend joined by Belbury Poly/Ghost Box’s Jim Jupp for an imagined walk through 1930s London alongside Christian mystic writer Charles Williams. This 11 minute rumination is bookended with two short pieces, Autobiographical Sketch no. 1, and With Stringed Instruments, A Song, featuring Brend’s former Fariña bandmates Matt Gale and Tim Conway. A fourth download-only track, Bidding Bell, finds Brend drawing regular Ghostwriter collaborator Suzy Mangion and new recruit Adrian Ramsey into a pastoral/choral conversation with God.
Official release date is 4th March but defying all laws of time and space as they so often do, Norman Records have some of these lovely 7"s in stock right now
The Parish Council is indebted to Mark for introducing us to the world of Christian mystic and forgotten member of the Inklings, Charles Williams. If the notion of Christian mysticism is off putting to you we recommend you start with The War in Heaven in which a dotty, academic, village curate recovers the grail and defeats the machinations of an evil diabolist thereby saving the world. Or Many Dimensions in which an antiquarian acquires the Stone of Solomon which can enable the owner to transcend space and time.
The Parish Council is indebted to Mark for introducing us to the world of Christian mystic and forgotten member of the Inklings, Charles Williams. If the notion of Christian mysticism is off putting to you we recommend you start with The War in Heaven in which a dotty, academic, village curate recovers the grail and defeats the machinations of an evil diabolist thereby saving the world. Or Many Dimensions in which an antiquarian acquires the Stone of Solomon which can enable the owner to transcend space and time.
At one level these are occult mystery novels but there's far more here to think about than that might imply. Dennis Wheatley this is not.
(NB you might want to avoid Shadows of Ecstasy, its far from his best and it contains some rather unpalatable and outmoded notions about race.)
(NB you might want to avoid Shadows of Ecstasy, its far from his best and it contains some rather unpalatable and outmoded notions about race.)
We are also very grateful to Mark for sending a copy of his new book The Sound of Tomorrow which tells the story of electronic music from the point of view of its mass media proponents rather than from that of the "serious" or academic composers.
Bloomsbury say this....
London, 1966: Paul McCartney met a group of three electronic musicians called Unit Delta Plus. McCartney was there because he had become fascinated by electronic music, and wanted to know how it was made. He was one of the first rock musicians to grasp its potential, but even he was notably late to the party. For years, composers and technicians had been making electronic music for film and TV. Hitchcock had commissioned a theremin soundtrack for Spellbound (1945); The Forbidden Planet (1956) featured an entirely electronic score; Delia Derbyshire had created the Dr Who theme in 1963; and by the early 1960s, all you had to do was watch commercial TV for a few hours to hear the weird and wonderful sounds of the new world. The Sound of Tomorrow tells the compelling story of the sonic adventurers who first introduced electronic music to the masses. A network of composers, producers, technicians and inventors, they took emerging technology and with it made sound and music that was bracingly new.
