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On magic and music

posted by Sophie

29th April, 2013

We have less than 48 hours to go to fund From the Mourning of the World our latest project featuring many of the wild and uncivilised artists we’ve met on our travels – curated by Dark Mountain stalwart Marmaduke Dando.

“Without parallel, the velvety ‘honeysuckle bloom’ tone of, inspired choice, Bethia Beadman stands out as the albums startling highlight. Vocally mesmerizing and compositionally assiduous, her resonating hymn like swoon, Georgia, is a drifting, opulent duet with REM’s Mike Mills and sounds like a long-suffering Joan Baez fronting Anthony And the Johnsons: oh yes it certainly stirs the soul!” - God is in the TV Zine

What is it that interests you about the Dark Mountain Project, and this album?
When I was singing at the festival last summer, I felt a delicious sense of homecoming, somewhere that’s always been there if only we knew it.  I hope these songs settle together just like that.

Dark Mountain tries to offer some new perspectives on the way we live and what our values are. We think that art – stories – are a crucial way of doing that. Does that ring true for you?
Yes, though my mother taught me that stories are rather the only way to live at all!  Magic does inhabit the world of truth and I think it’s a mistake of some storytelling to constrict it to fantasy, which polarises the magical with the mundane or real.  We all need to feel its power to inspire our daily lives.

Can – should – music carry a ‘message’ of this kind? Does yours?  
I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘should’ since purpose is vast, but I don’t see a lot of point in creating mindlessly or endlessly unless it needs to be so.  I can’t help feeling an energetic awareness of ‘cyber waste’ that holds magnitudes of recordings or footage capturing something or other, that seemingly takes up no space except zeros and ones (I’m not even talking about the physicality of the hardware required), and then on a human scale, energy waste even in artistic creation.  I feel that it might be worthwhile to allow these things to inhabit a more sacred space, like sweets on Saturdays.  It’s down to personal discernment.  There’s a lot of art out there, perhaps it’s not so helpful to make more all the time unless it really wants to exist, or unless it can wash in an out with the tide, without weight or impact, sand castles then.  I don’t know!

Can you tell us something about your song on the record?
Well, you know, every single detail is a true event.  The adventure occurred in Georgia, in the USA and there were strawberries.  I really did retrieve a ring from the bottom of a lake, and the water was black-opaque with no way for me to see but through my soul light.  Every character is real.  The only thing that goes unmentioned is that it was also Easter Day!  For me, this is present in how the song sounds at times like a hymn.  I just remember that gorgeous heat, heavy and wet with green, yet light with spring.  It’s a psychological epic of love, loss and rebirth, spanning generations and continents, exploring relationships by proxy and projection, mirror upon mirror, family upon family, all the way to the song itself and its writing, questioned in the final verse.

What are you working on musically at the moment?
We are about to start mixing the third album.  Unlike my song on the Dark Mountain record, this album is entirely conscious.  Watch out.  It’s *the one*.

The song you’ve donated to this album, ‘Georgia’, has a lullaby feel to it, I wonder what the connection of that feeling is to the lyrics of the song itself. Can you tell us about it?
Perhaps the simplicity of image and melody within the lyric serves to soothe the listener whilst comfortably unfolding in a traditional folk form.  The story features archetypal symbols, a ring, lost into a lake, oh and it’s a waltz of course, so we lilt into unconsciousness upon meeting the water in that time signature… Lullabies are universal but may come into focus in a place with such a history as the South.  We sing such songs for comfort, to ourselves, to our children, to those we have lost and to those yet unborn.

Your performance at Uncivilisation festival last year captivated everyone there who witnessed it. Do you see your performance style as uncivilised, in whatever that may mean to you?
Thank you.  Perhaps my performance is uncivilised in the sense that it is boundless and bare beneath the sky and uncompromisingly seeks to get to the heart of the matter, the matter of reality, the heart.  But in truth, I think this is a highly civilised past time!

Your track is a duet with REM’s Mike Mills – how did that come about?
I was working as a sound trainee at The Hospital Studio in Covent Garden in 2007, where REM mixed their penultimate album, which brings us back to the fairytales of our lives…  MM’s vocals on the recording are so clever because they are both the memorising swamp I am lost in and the weighty anchor that holds me safe. And the latter quite literally in terms of the actual musical recording since I’d tried to capture the song as soon as it was conceived, resulting in times when it is barely vincible… Pianist Jools Scott is also exquisite in his piano accompaniment so I am able to wander with the in-discrepant footsteps of a child.  And Harvey Brown, violist and violinist, glistens as the last sight of winter slips away.

 

The end is in sight for this crowdfunding campaign – please support us by pre-ordering your copy of this most beautiful creation! 

Written by Sophie on 29th April, 13

Posted in: Blog, Featured

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Beating the Bounds

posted by Sophie

25th April, 2013

There are just 6 days left of this campaign to fund our first Dark Mountain album of wild and uncivilised music From the Mourning of the World. Acclaimed folk musician Jon Boden whose track Beating the Bounds appears on the album, took time out of his busy touring and recording schedule to talk post-oil possibilities and the future of storytelling.

What is it that interests you about the Dark Mountain Project, and this album?
I first came across Dark Mountain shortly after completing my album Songs From The Floodplain album which imagines life in a post-oil rural community. It was very exciting to discover that there was a broader artistic movement going on that tallied exactly with the ideas I was exploring. I feel that providing an imaginative, creative response to changing times is one of the most important things that artists (of all kinds) can contribute to society – offering positive ideas of where we could end up, rather than just doom-mongering. So it’s really exciting to be a part of an album of material by different songwriters all approaching these issues.

Dark Mountain tries to offer some new perspectives on the way we live and what our values are. We think that art – stories – are a crucial way of doing that. Does that ring true for you?
Yes, I think people become very attached to the lifestyle that they find themselves in and can’t really conceive of any other. So something that is an incredible luxury for one generation becomes commonplace for the next, and often people start believing they have a right to that luxury. I studied history and one of the most frightening things history teaches us is how quickly things can change. So telling stories and making art that opens a window onto different lifestyles means that people can be more prepared when change comes. Even if the stories don’t get it right, just preparing people for the idea that things will change, but not seeing that as necessarily all bad, is tremendously important I think.

Can – should – music carry a ‘message’ of this kind? Does yours?
I think the nice thing about songwriting and album-making as an art form is that it can maintain an ambiguity about the story it is telling, leaving more space for the listener to weave their own stories around the songs. Because music can be listened to over and over again (more so than say a novel can be read over and over again) the journey into that story can be more gradual and ultimately perhaps more profound. I know there are many albums and songs that have coloured my view of the world and that I can dip back into whenever I want to renew that colouring, so albums and songs that hint at stories of what-is-to-come can, I think, offer quite a profound experience for the listener.

Can you tell us something about your song on the record?
Beating the Bounds is the first of a song-trilogy which tells of the beginning of a love affair between the protagonist and a girl he meets in this song. He is taking part in a strange, rather corrupted folk custom, and she is looking on and basically taking the piss out of them all! I’m really interested in how folk song and folk custom might come to have a deeper significance in a post-oil future, and how this can be a great force for social cohesion. But one also needs to be aware that the power of ritual can work both ways, and that folk customs can be corrupted and mishandled if not looked after properly.

What are you working on musically at the moment?
I’m currently working on a classical commission for the Britten Foundation. I’m writing a set of interpolations for Britten’s choral setting of the traditional ballad Little Musgrave. The interpolations will be sung by folk singers with a classical (hopefully Britten-esque) accompaniment. The premier is in Snape in August.

Hear Jon Boden talk more about folk music and post-apocalyptic novels on BBC Radio 3′s The Essay.

 

We’ve reached just over 50% of our target and only have six days left to go! Please visit our crowdfunding page and order your copy of this stunning album.

Written by Sophie on 25th April, 13

Posted in: Blog, Featured

Comments: 1 comment - Read it here and respond

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The Art of Protest

posted by Sophie

23rd April, 2013

With just eight days to go until our crowdfunding deadline, Dark Mountain caught up with The Murder Barn‘s Chesca to discuss music and the art of protest.

What is it that interests you about the Dark Mountain Project, and this album?

Going back to a way of living which values the small things is something we are all going to have to get used to and many of us already subscribe to that. Any chance to bring that to a wider audience is welcome. The danger in ideas like the Dark Mountain project is that it can end up ‘preaching to the converted’ and putting out music, literature, art is a great way to bring new people into the fold, as it were. I think the idea of a vinyl album represents Dark Mountain’s ethos brilliantly, actually.

Dark Mountain tries to offer some new perspectives on the way we live and what our values are. We think that art – stories – are a crucial way of doing that. Does that ring true for you?

The Dark Mountain perspective is something which many of us were raised on unintentionally – usually because economically there was no other choice but to to live simpler lives. My generation has had false luxury bestowed on us over the last decade. We have all become accustomed to a way of living which we have borrowed and have to pay back.
Art, music, stories remain important as they are the places where we are shaped. If you want a message carried somewhere, let a minstrel, a storyteller take it. People will be more likely to listen. We all come from traditions like these – fairy tales, fables, folk songs. This is where we all learnt about life, the world, love, danger, death.

Can – should – music carry a ‘message’ of this kind? Does yours?

All real artists can’t help but have their ideals inform the art they make, I suppose. It doesn’t have to be worn like a badge to carry weight, though. Personally, everything I write is imbued with my opinions – it’s difficult not to let them in! My favourite songwriters captivated me with the poetry first, the ideals second. The best protest songs creep up on you in meaning, I think. I remember reading the backs of albums religiously – the meanings of the songs were obviously important but not always clear-lines would lead me to quotes from politicians, philosophers, books I had never heard of, little known poets. I always wanted to write songs like that. I think it is entirely possible to drive your art by your ideals, but the difficulty is doing it well.

Can you tell us something about your song on the record?

I’m aware that ‘America’ sounds like it may be a straightforward protest song, but, without wanting to be mysterious about it, I had multiple ideas in mind, lyrically. For the record, it is in no way an America-bashing rant. America as a continent obviously can’t be summed up in such simplistic terms, but it does seems to encapsulate extreme ways of thinking, living and that is fascinating to write about. I thought of it like The Roman Empire in scale, in it’s rise and in it’s eventual collapse. This is what happens to all empires. It is, in part, also about war and religious fundamentalism. I hope the the song stands up over time, so didn’t want it to seem about a specific event or time in Global history. I like others’ interpretation and never like to dictate too much of my own meaning to the audience. When I first wrote it, it felt like a vitriolic gospel song, full of anger, but now when I play it I feel a sadness in it. It’s as if the song follows the route America is taking. Or maybe I am just getting soft in my old age!

What are you working on musically at the moment?

We are currently in lock down at The Murder Barn writing and recording the album, which is turning into somewhat of an epic tale so hopefully we’ll have some gargantuan monster to release soon. We play April 25th at The Bull and Gate with Minuteman and Midway Still.

Our Double A side vinyl single (with free download) of ‘Harvest/America’, 4 track EP and free downloads of extra tracks are all available through bandcamp:
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We have just eight days left to reach our target. Please help Dark Mountain bring this beautiful creation to life by visiting our crowdfunding page and pledging for your copy of this unique album!

Written by Sophie on 23rd April, 13

Posted in: Blog, Featured

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