ten years of the golden glow (enchanted sky machines)

so (here we go) it is ten years since the publication (to the usual limited acclaim) of horsemouth's mix of his folkish influences on mixcloud. (horsemouth is the guest DJ on this one).

thinking about it these are mostly recordings horsemouth doesn't physically own. nor did he hear them be broadcast over radio services (like in the good old days of mix cassettes).  they are mostly songs he heard via youtube (and thus its recommendation algorithm). 

horsemouth believes that if you pay close attention to the the materials of things then what they are will emerge from it. the mix was constructed by howard out of the tracks horsemouth recommended (with a few substitutions). 

the cover photo is from lost hearts one of the bbc's ghost stories for christmas. 

track listing

edges of illusion by john surman comes from ze (horsemouth's friend in porto). he will have played it (off CD or record horsemouth can't remember) round his house. 

hard time killing floor blues skip james. horsemouth is pretty sure this is from the social media era. he doesn't own a physical copy of this. his interest in skip james was reignited by discovering john fahey's connection with him. 

lift him up washington phillips. definitely from the social media era. gospel and zithers (a marriage made in heaven if you'll pardon the pun).

cold rain and snow obray ramsay. now horsemouth knew this from the pentangle version. many people know it from the grateful dead version. a youtube find. 

witchi-tai to jim pepper (but horsemouth can't remember which specific version this is. there are numerous versions of this one). definitely a youtube find. 

three kingfishers gabor szabo instrumental version. originally by donovan. in a way horsemouth is surprised there isn't a siouxsie and the banshees version. 

now this one horsemouth has forgotten the name of. but it's by johnny and sipho. horsemouth first heard it on a compilation called rhythms of resistance late 80ies/ early 90ies that he had on record (so the first track on this compilation horsemouth actually owns on physical media). as you may know horsemouth was mad keen on african guitarists for a long while. 

a track he has forgotten the title of by sonny sharrock from his ask the ages album which horsemouth owns on CD. pharoah sanders, elvin jones, charnett moffett, produced by bill laswell. here again howard picked a track which he felt fitted better. 

flaming telepaths by the blue oyster cult here played by espers. horsemouth doesn't own the espers version (ok maybe he does on CD he now remembers - but he's not played it much) but he does own the boc version on vinyl (as the youth say with admirable materialist analysis). 

ah it's sweet earth flying (by marion brown) but the guitar led version from november cotton flower. this was one of howard's substitutions (for the album version). horsemouth has the album version on CD (but not this version). karl rausch on guitar. 

la fille au cheveux de lin (debussy). horsemouth can't remember who the pianist is (he has the CD round here somewhere). 

folon by salif keita. horsemouth has this on CD (on the album of the same name) but there used to be a much better solo live version on youtube. horsemouth finds the strings a bit unnecessary. 

sign of the judgement (mcintosh county shouters) horsemouth thinks he picked this up from true detective. again he doesn't own a physical copy. 

vitamin c by can from the movie inherent vice horsemouth thinks. he doesn't own a physical copy. 

child of the moon by the rolling stones. definitely from youtube - it was the release of the film shot by the stones at the time that drew horsemouth in. 

on the banks of the owichita by john fahey. now horsemouth almost certainly owns a copy of this on CD (but if he does it's currently lost in the stacks). lifted from ravi shankar's improvisations on a theme from pather panchali which horsemouth does not own. (god it's good). 

bruce janaway from puritanical odes.  a substitution by howard from one of those great tompkins square compilations or something (so no horsemouth doesn't own a physical copy). quite rush like. 

wade in the water  another howard substitution (balances out the mcintosh county shouters). 

judee sill and a live version of enchanted sky machines probably first heard on spotify or youtube. horsemouth particularly liked it for the dedication and specifically requested that version. 

ruby tuesday by the rolling stones but played here by a brass band. this horsemouth owned on CD (god bless you record and tape bargain bins). 

red cross disciple of christ today by moses mason (fragment of sermon) followed by john fahey's version. horsemouth almost certainly has the fahey on CD-r or something. 

am I born to die? doc watson and gaither carlton. a horsemouth request.

take your problems to the lord (and leave it there). a howard substitution. 

tomorrow people theme (no horsemouth does not own a physical copy of this). watched on tv as a kid. found again via youtube. 

horsemouth has forgotten who this is. 

electrophonic tonic by sonic's rendezvous band  a definite youtube find. 

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so we have john fahey (acoustic and electric). we have african music. we have gospel. we have blues and hillbilly music. we have ECMish jazz. we have the rolling stones. 

horsemouth had a very pleasant afternoon listening to these. 

it's too long of course 

musicians of bremen have taken a crack at am I born to die? and la fille au cheveux de lin (as a slide guitar instrumental under the title he hair like some glittering gold).

later on horsemouth's golden glows  get shorter and more perfected. 

horsemouth's next 10 year anniversary with the golden glow will not be until 2030. 

there will be the usual winter solstice triumvirate of mixes (round the winter solstice) 12th, 18th, 24th december. after that he may distribute the other 3 mixcloud mixes similarly (30th, 5th, 11th) or he may forget. 

the end of horsemouth's (limited) engagement with streaming services

there's a discussion in the government (allegedly) about making people pay the BBC licence fee if they use streaming services (but don't use the BBC). 

he thinks this is just trolling. politically it would be a move of starmer-like stupidity (though he thinks no move is too stupid and authoritarian for labour party central office). 

this would (in the unlikely event of it happening) probably mark the end of horsemouth's (admittedly limited) engagement with streaming services. 

whatever is behind a paywall he can live without. 

at the moment horsemouth is heavily reliant upon youtube (and has been since the pandemic). before that he serviced his watching habit with DVDs from out of the libraries and charity shops. 

in the event of him being charged for using streaming services he would probably go back to reading more and listening to more music (off physical media - he can barely remember the last time he listened to a CD or a record). 

horsemouth likes the hunt to find those CDs, DVDs, and books  (but possibly he doesn't like listening, watching, and reading things off physical media as much).   

the main thing youtube replaces for him is magazine type stuff - podcasts, interviews, current affairs etc. 

for many years successively horsemouth lived without a TV (he barely even watches it now, pretty much only when his mum watches it). 

he guesses the more tech-savvy people will torrent the whole lot or keep up with the latest VPN or some such. maybe it would drive some digital peer-to-peer form of tape trading similar to napster (now there's a nightmare to conjure with). 

it is important to remember that the streaming services were a reassertion of control over digital copyrights after the pirate years of napster and torrenting. it would indeed be strange if the BBC as national broadcaster received special treatment this late in the game. 

horsemouth guesses such a decision would be deeply unpopular. the demographic who were loyal to broadcast media are fading out. the demographic who just expect access everything all the time on their smartphones are fading in. 

in fact he thinks it is a complete non-starter. 

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last night it rained. today more rain. 

the skies are illuminated (but not the lands)

'perhaps a book... will grow out of these scraps'

- lawrence durrell, prospero's cell.

it's interesting, horsemouth has found much more in the book this time of reading. 

horsemouth has taken to locking up the chickens early (when he feeds them). it makes it harder to forget to lock them up (which has happened he's sad to say (though infrequently)). 

today a walk to the crossroads to deliver some eggs and he walked the bin down the drive (remind him to bring it back up tomorrow).  

tomorrow a possible visit by his brother's eldest (or maybe friday) and maybe a visit by an old work colleague of his dad's friday or saturday (no one can tell right now). 

and so much for what horsemouth wrote yesterday. 

on to today which looks pretty good so far. (given that the sun has barely risen up above the hills).  the skies are illuminated (but not the lands). rosy-fingered dawn.

horsemouth's sides of the clouds are dark but those facing towards the dawn are a kind of golden orange. 

something happens with the clocks soon. horsemouth has a poor understanding of the mechanism of it. the clocks will go back. we will have an extra hour in bed but it will be darker soon in the afternoons/ evenings. people will require cheering up (diwali/ halloween/ bonfire night). 

circular dances (star dances)

'coming over the crest of a hill behind kastellani we see that a dance is in progress... through the hum of human voices one can hear the scratch and squeak of the violin and guitars, and the hollow beat of the drum, resonant and vulgar as a full stomach struck with the palm of the hand . 'ah look,' says N, 'just look at the dancers.' 

a multi-coloured  circle of flowing head-dresses and skirts moves slowly round the axis of the musicians, reversing and advancing with slow rhythmic measures. in the centre of the circle, moved by the current but free, the young men dance, each improvising his variations upon the theme...' 

- lawrence durrell, prospero's cell. 

N is durrell's first wife nancy myers (for once she gets a mention). 

the theory is proposed that the round dance moves are connected to the movement of the stars. 

'ah,' says theodore with pleasure, 'it is a star-dance, called the corcyrean dance. as you may know I have theories about the origin of these dances, some of which are very ancient...

all the circular ones I call star dances,' says theodore. 'I read somewhere that dancing originated in a desire to imitate the movement of celestial bodies - the early clock as it were.' 

the documentary makers have done very well to find this scene still being lived when they revisited corfu with durrell. 

meanwhile 

tracks keep coming from rob in far off riogordo. horsemouth tried several cracks at the first two verses for le bateau ivre (the drunken boat). rob has repurposed one take (a without clapping take) as a song sung in a late bar with a tentative backing. it really works quite well. this is probably because it is not on a click (as it were) like most of the stuff horsemouth sings.

horsemouth is up early. he has just been out to feed the chickens. a grey day with little to recommend it. 

silent days in sommières

more lawrence durrell. this time in the south of france. the sun is shining. 

horsemouth followed it up by researching lawrence durrell's four wives. 

- nancy myers

- yvette (eve) cohen

- claude marie vincedon

- ghislaine de boysson

horsemouth supposes he will finish up prospero's cell and then move on to reflections on a marine venus and bitter lemons. if he comes upon any of the others in his travels he will probably pick these up. the women are airbrushed out of durrell's writing (mothers, friends, wives, daughters). men stay up late drinking and discussing poetry (at least the way durrell tells it). 

he'll take a crack at this radio documentary too.  

it's a rainy grey morning out there. fortunately horsemouth does not have to do too much. it's rainy and grey for most of the next two weeks (which is preparation for the winter to follow). 

far future village band IV is sounding good (very good in fact) - rob has sent him a link to all the tracks (except that more continue to come). now there's just a matter of weaving in the stories. there is the matter of embracing the limitations of their recording set up. 

night walk (rain and snow)

horsemouth has made a list of the tracks for far future village band IV. these broadly break down into rob's instrumentals and rob's responses to horsemouth's singing and clapping or whistling or wordless singing. 

on one of the tracks horsemouth jangles some guitar while whistling (but he's whistling badly so he's not sure if that one will make it on). no harmonium this time (so far). 

so far he only has night walk from off the album to play you. to peek behind the curtain -  horsemouth whistles the theme, rob improvises the backing (across several tracks). it came out well. 

horsemouth's general theory is first take best take but he's by no means an improvisational purist. he is not particularly committed to honour your mistakes (as your hidden intention). he believes in nip and tuck. 

there are also horsemouth's recitations of his tales of the far future village band  and its times (the far future). 

there's a pronounced nautical theme this time - which is strange given the inland setting of the village (ok it's on a river we know that much). 

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yesterday horsemouth wandered the eggs up the hill (and it was pretty sunny). things are starting to look pretty autumnal. 

from tuesday the 20th the weather goes to shit with rain most days. the rainy weather keeps it a bit warmer at night which means the plants will last longer before the frosts get them. or, at least, so horsemouth supposes, looking on the bright side and that. 

horsemouth isn't worried about the flooding just yet. the land is still bone dry from the summer drought. it will soak up a lot of water before it starts running off (horsemouth hopes). this time last year the dulas brook at ewyas harold was flooding. 

by the time you are reading this it will have rained overnight. that's not to say that there won't be sun next week (just not very much of it). 

it's the morning. it has rained. last night horsemouth watched lawrence durrell revisit corfu. there was no footage of puppet shows but there was  film of a corfiot wedding complete with musicians (about 15 minutes in). the music wasn't like horsemouth thought it would be.  chunks of the text of the book were repurposed as commentary. 

'dancing is never a performance so much as a communal rite. the transmission of an enigmatic knowledge which the musician has summoned up from below the earth. it flows upwards through the dancing feet which are building the dusty circles stitch by stitch like a fabric being woven, step by step like city being built. and the darker circle outside, the lookers on, gradually absorbs the rhythm which triumphs over them by sheer repetition, being laid down in the consciousness like successive coats of a thrilling colour. one can watch the crowd being drawn into such a dance man by man impelled by something like a gravitational law which decrees that autumn windfalls should plunge towards the centre of the earth when they are ripe.' 

- lawrence durrell comments on a corfiot wedding dance and its music (1975).

ask and you shall receive

today an entirely written in the morning blogpost

yesterday zoom beer with howard (and a dream where horsemouth failed to keep up when they were running for a train). howard woke up remembering a hymn (ask and you shall receive). horsemouth said it reminded him of chapter 24 by pink floyd. 

yesterday (and doubtless today) more reading of prospero's cave (lawrence durrell). the old count lawrence and his wife have taken to visiting has a theory that shakespeare visited corfu and that corfu is indeed prospero's island. it's almost certainly bollocks. they will not meet until the 21st of september 1937. right now (in 1937) lawrence is wrestling with his friend's zarian's historical accounts of the island.

yesterday the anniversary of the release of levitation by hawkwind in 1980.

tim blake, ginger baker, huw lloyd-langton, harvey bainbridge 

(completely by accident dave brock has assembled a competent band). 

the album is excellently recorded. 

huw in particular is playing his heart out.

horsemouth saw them on this tour (only his second ever gig). 

today a wander up the hill to deliver some eggs.