Artist | The Hardy Tree |
Title | The Fields Lie Sleeping Underneath |
Label | Clay Pipe Music |
Year | 2010 |
Design | Frances Castle |
Music | “… an orchestral jigsaw puzzle of sounds that hint at audio memories from lost kids ’70s TV programmes, ghost orchestras, cinema organs, folk song, static and crackle.” |
Desktop | Download image |
Notes | The title ‘The Fields Lie Sleeping Underneath’ echoed my own interest in the landscape below London’s concrete and brick. The hidden course of the Fleet river is perhaps the best known of Londoners’ fascination for the subterranean, but there are many more examples. I was immediately charmed by the first image I saw of Frances’ work.
Beneath the smoking clay pipe and frowning fox flow dark undercurrents: a zeppelin hangs in the night sky and a fatal accident is described in which a man shoots himself in the bowels. Lyrically many of the songs act as a wistful threnody for times past – ‘We Waltzed at the Astoria Theatre’ refers to the Charing Cross Road venue built in 1893 and demolished last year to facilitate Crossrail’s “… congestion relief, delivering a bigger ticket hall, additional escalators, step-free access, and interchange with Crossrail services”. Frances writes:
* Frances explains that a Gocco “is a kind of tiny screen-printing machine”. More info here. Buy your copy from Clay Pipe Music. |
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