all that good stuff (the grain of the voice)

kilvert is still in langley. 

having walked his brother to the railway station he finds the langley cricket team playing the first game of the season. 

so horsemouth watched the first tale from waxworks a paul leni german silent movie from 1924 (and most excellent it was too). the first tale features emil jannings as haroun al-rashid.  it's not going to win any awards for political correctness but the set design is amazing (in that german expressionist way). he will finish off watching it - next up ivan the terrible and jack the ripper (renamed spring heel jack to avoid hurting british sensibilities). 

horsemouth sat outside in the shade and read, mainly timpson's england a collection of odd buildings or buildings with odd stories attached. 

he listened to a dj talk about the women of free jazz and then followed it up by listening to some of the recommended music. 

'I like a good obvious flaw... cats purring, chairs creaking, slightly out of tune instruments... all that good stuff.'

horsemouth supposes it all comes down to roland barthes' the grain of the voice - music that is immaculately performed lacks character, it doesn't create the image of the person singing or playing. music with flaws does create that image. the ear catches on that flaw, grit, or grain.

an obvious flaw is productive - it tips the song into a new direction. a purring cat or a barking dog is just that. 

but conversely music  also has  background and foreground, and sometimes you want the performance to move to the background and become something in the service of the song as a whole, of the song as intended.

not everything has to be free jazz all the time.  

horsemouth came of age musically in an era of trying to make everything smooth, to remove accidents. people would attempt to interest him in eno's way of working 'honor thy error as a hidden intention' but it exposed him to risk. 

horsemouth is listening through to far future village band trying to understand the aesthetic of it better. because of recording limitations he cannot multiply his efforts by layering recordings. 

last night bats flying about. that hyperreal evening light (maxfield parrish). 

today another beautiful morning. a bank holiday. horsemouth is nearly done with his coffee.

'everything under the sky...'

'in this little book of travel is included everything under the sky...' 

- soryu (1694) postscript to the copy he made of the narrow road to the deep north.

today no kilvert. 

instead some mail art from rob lawson in far off riogordo

courtesy of the correos, the royal mail, and the tabac in rob's village.

a) a fantastic CD from rob  in a card sleeve. completed with;

b) press release and b-side handwritten note.

c) chapbook with text in the riddley walker style including a photo of rob and one of his homemade instruments

d) an invitation to join a mail art network

post-apocalyptic folk of the riddley walker (russell hoban) variety. a review to follow soon.

and soon a follow up CD including collaborations between rob and horsemouth's french cousin mâchoire d'âne.

horsemouth was intrigued by rob's list of influences for this project.

books

riddley walker (russell hoban) horsemouth has read. probably back in the squats of hackney in about 1985. when it was curiously on message. 

horsemouth would probably put in michael jefferies after london/ wild england as well. 

the 17 (bill drummond) horsemouth has not read. 

the death of grass/ the disaffection (john christopher/ james kelman) horsemouth has not read. but he's read a book by kelman. there's a thing with demotic and the recording of spoken language in non-standard forms as written text here that bears thinking about. that standardisation of language by print is very much  part of the national(ist)  project generating a national language (or so benedict anderson's imagined communities would argue). 

there's that tension between written and spoken language that you  find in claude lévi-strauss also. 

films/ tv

threads/ survivors - survivors was very important to horsemouth. to this he would probably add the changes and the good life, that whole GB75/ back to the land thing. the times themselves were apocalyptic and people looked to a kind of post-apocalyptic utopia/ dystopia of a folk horror-ish back to the land. 

music

only michael o'shea on this list means anything to horsemouth really.  

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yesterday morning an egg delivery (including nearly being runover by martin on the way there).  after that horsemouth collected some ashes from the great burning to put on the garden (good as fertiliser and good against slugs). 

yesterday afternoon. an egg delivery. 

today even warmer (apparently). horsemouth is up (he has his coffee). he has been out to feed the chickens (who seem to be off their food). he had the windows of his room open over night and has now closed them the better to try and keep the coolness in. in a bit he will close the curtains to keep out the sunlight. 

about a week of hot dry weather to come. should horsemouth add ballard's the drought to that list? 

birds dance / cats dance (and other travel sketches)

'they were written by a number of poets sitting together and writing alternately, and that each poem in the series was linked to the immediately preceding one...

the result was often a kind of kaleidoscopic beauty with infinite variety revealed to the reader in a slowly evolving movement.'

- nobuyuki yuasu in his introduction to matsuo basho's the narrow road to the deep north and other travel sketches

horsemouth has just heard rob's version of his and horsemouth's je te veux (erik satie). which he pronounces himself most satisfied with. more tracks to come from rob's far future village band. bird dance from seems very incredible string band to horsemouth (like something this song has no ending crossed with okinawan music).

horsemouth (once again) was hampered by his failure to put the work into understanding musical technology (in this case his laptop). this, together with the fact he was quite out of practice and had no click to work with meant everything he sent off to rob had an obvious flaw in the recording. 

in some ways these limitations suited the project (in some ways not). horsemouth will give it all another listen in a bit. 

 for kilvert the decision is made

'this evening I had a letter from mr. venables... saying he had decided not to resign the living of clyro until the end of 1872, and offering me £160 a year to stay on. I decided to keep to my former plans and to leave clyro at beginning of august.' 

soon (in any event) he is away up to liverpool.

yesterday afternoon the great burn (which horsemouth was dreading) but it all passed off successfully.

today an egg delivery. a beautiful morning.  

the garden/ things that are not the garden

no kilvert today (kilvert tomorrow). 

and then a pretty good run our through the end of may and the start of june. soon he is up in liverpool (what for horsemouth cannot yet say). 

in the same period the weather gets brighter, hotter, sunnier (about time).

the garden

horsemouth has planted out the sprouts. checked the beetroot. first flowers on the runner beans in the greenhouse. tomatoes doing ok. onions doing ok. peas doing ok (but possibly not enough of them). won't know how well the potatoes are doing until horsemouth digs them up. broad beans still a bit short. 

a tray of basil to separate out. the spinach is still doing well. the gooseberries (and the other berries) are on their way. the rhubarb is gigantic. 

a plan to 'refresh' some of the pots with asters. 

everything quite a bit behind where it was this time last year but then it has been cold. 

things that are not the garden

the sheep (and lambs) have been moved up to julie's. horsemouth has put the chickens to bed for the night (they were most disgruntled at being locked up so early).  

a beautiful day. being an idiot horsemouth spent most of it being anxious. he did some watering and planting to take the edge off it. 

having been to see an orchestral version of tubular bells his lift to the bell-ringing was off to see tim berners-lee at the hay festival. horsemouth therefore walked in (and if needs be he could have walked back). 

the bell ringing went well (horsemouth didn't let go of the rope). after the bell-ringing the pub. 

it's a beautiful morning

the foresters walk in chippenham

'as john cozens was mowing the lawn this morning he told me that the foresters were going to 'walk' in chippenham to-day and as this was a high day with them, they were going to have a waggon bowered with green in which would be a shepherd and shepherdess and some sheep or lambs. 

... we came back to cocklebury lane... and we soon heard the band strike up, drum and trumpets. from the sound the procession was clearly marching on langley...

first came two men on horseback riding like flour sacks and rolling heavily from side to side. they wore green coats with gold ornaments, white breeches, hessian boots and ostrich feathers in their caps. each bore a huge bugle and smote his horse with the edge of the sword.

after them walked gentlemen in black coats crossed with green scarves and bearing tall wands of office. then marched the band resplendent in a uniform of white, green and gold, followed by a wagon bowered in green branches...' 

horsemouth does not know if this tradition survives (or indeed what the hell it is about). 

yesterday

horsemouth played his contracted version of the riff from lam tooro  and realised he could get the cu-cu bird over it (whether this works or not it is not for him to say). he has attempted it so he can now hear it. in general his attempts to record the harmonium have been derailed by the microphone on the laptop/ the laptops processing capacity overloading as soon as it is shown a decently loud sound.

he tried playing and recording je te veux (erik satie) perhaps that will tempt people out. he tried various other things. hopefully he has done enough that it will all appear miraculously transformed. 

to be fair he also delivered the eggs to the crossroads and took the bin down the drive. (remind him to bring it back up tomorrow). 

today

he will have a look and see if there is anything he has missed that it would be useful to send. he has woken up with a slight headache. the coffee is doing it some good. greyish morning supposed to be better later on. 

what would really help is a taxi service ( a mis-remembered theme from lam tooro)

kilvert is back. or rather he's off to langley burrell.

'today I came to langley. charles drove me to hay station to meet the 8 o' clock train, and I brought the dormice for the children...' 

tomorrow the foresters walk in chippenham (presumably some kind of precursor of the chippenham folk festival). 

the bus timetable

oh dear horsemouth just had another temper tantrum when confronted by the bus timetable. only the pdf bus timetable is worth a shit and that (despite horsemouth's many qualifications and science background) is a complete cunt to read. 

it's the random out-of-the-blue nature of the requests that foxes horsemouth. (like horsemouth remembers this kind of shit). 

horsemouth was trying to persuade his mum not just to agree to any old time for doctor's appointments (or at the very least not to attempt to get there and back again by bus if she does).

mondays, thursdays, fridays the bus timetable makes some sense. great his mum has opted for a tuesday (on tuesday the bus goes to abergavenny and back and fuck knows what it does or where it goes the rest of the time).

but (of course) his mum needs not just a bus there but a bus back too and while ewyas harold is a very pretty village it is in any event an hour and twenty minutes wait minimum for the bus back (assuming there is one - which in the afternoon is in doubt). 

what would really help round here is a taxi service - but there isn't one. 

yesterday horsemouth mostly played a mis-remembered theme from lam tooro. this (as the hip people will know) is lifted from a track on mansur seck and baaba maal's djam leelii. now horsemouth has successfully lifted and played part of the main riff and he has recorded a big E minor drone that should be reasonably in tune with it.

he has also worked out a contracted version of the riff which he will try in a bit. 

he has also recorded a vocal attempting to do part of the melody. (this he is dissatisfied with because the original lyrics are in woloof or something and so he only has one line of lyrics really and he's not sure they mean anything). 

he might lift def lo xam by positive black soul also. 

today he will redo the vocal with handclaps to better assist with other things being added. he's just noticed and remembered the thumb piano maybe that would work with it. 

the sheep are here (much to his mum's chagrin). it's a mild morning. horsemouth has been out to feed the chickens and open up the garage. 

imagined communities

no kilvert today (at least that plommer or kilvert's niece have vouchsafed us). 

kilvert tomorrow. 

having sung a version of mes bourons sont morts (and completely obliterated the beauty of it) in the morning (under the name mâchoire d'âne - aka. jawbone of an ass) horsemouth proceeded to fake up some putative band photos. 

horsemouth the qawwali singer is probably the most successful. other musicians on the project will appear in suitable garb. 

here horsemouth channeled nusrat fateh ali khan (or perhaps the sabri brothers). 

in between singing and faking up photos of himself (an a white background to facilitate the copying in of other images) horsemouth wandered over to the village (to post off a letter and buy some cooking oil). 

the laptop microphone records the harmonium very strangely. (horsemouth wonders where he has put the tuner). 

there were other photos

 horsemouth the knife wielding maniac  for example.

having done his singing and playing (and dressing up) horsemouth began to feel a bit anxious. he's thinking about what to get up to tomorrow. ah poor bird (maybe) or his misheard version of speed the plough. 

perhaps the best thing to do is what was asked - play harmonium. 

this morning wet and grey.  in the night horsemouth read a little of  imagined communities (the magyarisation of hungary) and italo svevo's a life. he watched a video by book-pilled (library sales - can't beat them) but could not make similar progress with the outlaw bookseller video.