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. 

bog beans, whitsun, and parthenope (florence nightingale's sister)

 it is the 18th of may and kilvert is returned to us

'hay fair is still going on. to get out of the sight and sound of it I went up the unfrequented path from penllan to the wern below gwernfydden to look for bog beans to give to mrs. venables on whitsun day. the marshy ground was thick with the trefoil bean leaves, but not a blossom had yet opened...' 

the leaves of the bog bean plant are noted for their medicinal effects. horsemouth is unclear as to why kilvert should want the flowers and for whitsun day. it may be that (as the flowers are white) it is connected with women coming to church wearing white on that day. 

kilvert is reading lettice lisle by florence nightingale's sister frances parthenope  (named after the greek name for naples apparently).

in the afternoon of the yesterday a chat on the phone to enza. no howard later on (he was off to chat's palace - local history stuff). in the afternoon rain (and similar things). 

later still aaron bastani and james butler in conversation - the state of the british state, the possible fall of starmer. this leading to a debate about sylvia pankhurst and workers' dreadnaught.

today a coolish morning. horsemouth has a plan to record more harmonium. 

this is a box (chim chim cheree)

why isn't chim chim cheree by john coltrane as great as my favourite things?

giving it a listen -  it is pretty great.

why is horsemouth discussing this now? it's the anniversary of when it (chim chim cheree) was recorded - 17th may 1965 (as was brazilia and songs of praise). 

horsemouth has got his harmonium down from the top of the cupboard and even played it

he's brought the cassette recorder over from the garage just in case that might be needed. he was having a think about which cassette to record on. 

he recorded a small segment of it (using his laptop sound recorder and built in microphones) and  messaged it over to robert lawson in far off rio gordo. 

rob emailed back the clip with his spike violin added. 

it all sounded most good. 

but before that horsemouth made a parody of the introduction to camberwick green (a children's programme loved by people of horsemouth's generation). 

'here is a box... a musical box...'  

which curiously resembles john berger ways of seeing also in that it tells you what you are looking at. 

today. a decent morning. later a phonecall from enza. 

into the d(r)one (making-art-for-the-sake-of-making-art)

'if you are looking for a music project I could use some harmonium drones for the next far future village band album...' suggested a friend. 

horsemouth pointed out that the harmonium (as loaned by john clarkson) is tuned about +40/50% from where standard pitch is (but it does make a nice racket once it is going).

his friend proposes to tweak the pitch or tune to it. previously he had  recorded some tracks with a spike fiddle and had had to tune everything else to it afterwards.

horsemouth noted that's what musicians of bremen had done the first with the harmonium on volume three -they tuned the guitars to the harmonium and then played (most notably on the banks of the susquehanna). 

for volume four (or round about that time) they played two notes for each note one a semitone down so that it averaged out to the correct pitch (beating at the difference of the two pitches) and added a note of the 'correct' or correcting pitch on top - which was moderately successful.

strangely this led to horsemouth listening through the  musicians of bremen back catalogue in search of droney bits. 

hmm. he's thinking about how to record and share it. maybe he should record it on cassette. 

meanwhile the consolidation of the music industry proceeds apace. (not that this bothers horsemouth he is sunk beneath the music industry and into the 'making-art-for-the-sake-of-making-art'  world). 

yesterday  a strangely busy day. a phonecall from an aunt. mum visits the health centre and does some food shopping. 

later a trip in a land rover over to the local filling station to pick up chicken feed.  in the evening he watched black rain (fiercely dull). 

today a greyish morning (very mid as the youth would say). 

horsemouth is contemplating activity

ok it's not even 9.30 and horsemouth has completed all his tasks for the day and accidentally deleted all the texts from his phone (again). 

he barely understands or uses his phone and it's a solid pre-historic brick. 

horsemouth is praying for the landline not to go. someone is in hospital and if the phone goes it's probably bad news. no news is probably good news. mornings he thinks of as dangerous times. mornings and weekends. 

meanwhile his mum is due down the doctor's again on friday (which will be today when you read this). 

meanwhile rain (so horsemouth is excused watering). 

later he went out for a walk on the common. he was on his way back when it started raining. he could hear the water gurgling in the water butts (which is a good sign). 

horsemouth is feeling anxious

why is horsemouth feeling anxious?

his anxiety is mostly social anxiety - that he will have to go somewhere and do something and there will be people there and then… 

having moved to the wild, he has less social interaction with people and thus less practice at doing it, and so the less he is reassured by the banality of most interaction. 

he’s getting on for three years of life in the wild (there was a fair amount of back and fore for the first two and a half years).

musical endeavour

even though horsemouth was mostly a solo folk guitarist in the wen there was still a community of musicians, singers and players and gigs to go to. but to be fair this route has been largely blocked off for the last 5 years. horsemouth (or musicians of bremen) has managed about one gig a year since the covid pandemic and a handful of jams. 

he has (it is true) learned new songs but he has made little effort to write new songs.  a brace of new songs from four years ago sit on soundcloud undeveloped.

broadly horsemouth is out of the old thing but he’s not into the new thing

last night he watched trois hommes a abattre (1980 jacques deray) an alain delon vanity project.  a beautiful morning outside. horsemouth is contemplating activity.