Thursday 11 December 2008

The Music Box: Chapter Sixty-Five

Knocking sharply on her own door, Emily still wasn’t sure what she was going to say. Standing there, as Crouch, with Mr Wills by her side, shifting uneasily from one foot to another, each opening line jarred as too strange, too likely to raise her father’s eyebrow in that quizzical manner he had.

The door suddenly swung to and Emily’s heart jumped for joy to see her father well; distracted and a little vacant - he must have been in the midst of writing – but seemingly safe.

“Did you forget something?” he asked, clearly expecting that it had been her mother and her back from their walk sooner than expected.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, rubbing his eyes and taking in Mr Wills and Crouch standing in his doorway.

Emily looked to Mr Wills and cleared her throat loudly.

Mr Wills looked sideways at Crouch, stood up a little taller and addressed Percy.

“Mr Button, this here is Mr Crouch. He has, he says, a message of some import which he hastens to impart.”

“Oh, I see.” Percy looked from Mr Wills back to Emily, who had finally come up with her story.

“Well, do come in from the cold, it’s awfully draughty out here.”

Percy took a step backwards and opened the door more fully so as to let his visitors through. Emily stepped over the threshold from the cold street into the warm vestibule, but Mr Wills hesitated on the step, fiddling nervously with his hat.

“Um, if it’s all the same to you gentlemen,” he began uneasily, his eyes shifting and downcast, “I really should be getting home to the wife. Martha’s been a little poorly of late and I don’t like to leave her on her own too much.”

Percy looked from Mr Wills to Crouch, hesitated a moment and then replied. “My good sir all is well, return to your wife and please send her our regards and best wishes for a hasty recovery.”

Mr Wills replaced his hat on his head, touched its peak in thanks and turned on his heel with no further word.

Emily stood waiting for her father to close the door and usher her through to the living area.

She allowed Percy to take Crouch’s coat and hang it by the door, then accepted his invitation to proceed through to the living room and take a seat by the flickering fire.

Every moment was precious and there was little time for formalities.

“Mr Button, you are no doubt wondering what has brought me here.” Emily was fighting the urge to reveal everything, knowing there simply wasn’t a chance to convince her father as to what was happening in the short time before her mother and Crouch were due to return.

“Well, I must admit it seems it must be an unusual occasion that would bring you here,” Percy began, carefully.

Emily could see there was a wariness about her usually open father, a certain distaste for Crouch’s presence in the home. If only he knew that he had been here for some time!

“It’s nothing too unusual. I have it on good authority that you are a man who has what they call a ‘way with words’. My business has been a little slow lately and I was thinking, with a little more time on my hands, it would be a good time to get my story down. I have, Mr Button, led a somewhat colourful life, but when I try and find words to explain half my deeds, a quarter of my experiences, one tenth my adventures, they invariably fall short. If I need a poker built that befits my fireplace, I would visit a blacksmith. As I need a story told that will befit my life, I have sought out a wordsmith.”

Emily stopped to let the words sink in. She was surprised and somewhat disturbed at the way this little speech had rolled off her tongue. It had come all too easily and she didn’t like how much it had sounded like Crouch, how easily his words still came out of his mouth. Emily began to wonder if she was losing a grip on her own self, if the longer she was in Crouch’s form, the more she was being absorbed into him, becoming like him, until, some time likely quite soon, she simply ceased to be.

Watching her father carefully to see his reaction, Emily She knew his interest would be piqued. She knew how much he loved to write, but knew also he would find Crouch an unpleasant character and would find this a less than appealing approach out of the blue this way. She felt bad to have had to mislead him so, to tap into this love of his to justify her presence in the house, but had seen no other way. She only hoped she had calculated her father and his honour correctly.

“Mr Crouch,” Percy began slowly, clearly measuring his words. His piercing blue eyes, eyes Emily felt lucky to have inherited, did not dart around the room to avoid Crouch, yet he managed to avoid revealing too much distaste.

“It is true that I have devoted much of the latter portion of my life to working with words. My hands were never able to turn wood as well as many, to swing an axe like other men. Not for me the underappreciated artistry of a perfectly formed loaf of bread, the tailored coat or the coaxing of sweet musical joy from a flute.

“I could be surrounded by all the fish in the sea and never catch one, or return from a day in the mines with not even a pocketful of coal.

“But one could say that yes, words, though arriving late, live with me in some form of affinity.

“That is not, I hasten to add, a suggestion that I command them, that they somehow jump to my every whim and fancy. Quite the converse in fact. At their most generous, at the height of my powers and when I am in what I consider to be a realm where they are aligning closest with my wishes for them, it is at best an uneasy truce.

“For the most part, far more often than not, it is a pitiable struggle to make the least sense with the most recalcitrant of building blocks. Imagine for a moment, if you will, the task of building a house.

“Now picture undertaking this task with no tools but your bare hands, with not bricks but a substance akin to sand, or even, at times, water; trickling between your fingers, no straight edges, no reliable form, no consistency of density or shape or weight.

“The location upon which you must built this structure is not, as you may prefer, a level, sheltered position, but in fact a steep, undulating hill, naked to the elements, cursed with the wildest winds, the most violent storms.

“Now, consider that you finally succeed in creating a stable foundation upon which to build the rest of your project. Suddenly, the plans you had carefully stored away in a secret part of your mind, a part you thought impenetrable, have simply vanished. Crystal clear the day you began, they’ve now faded beyond all recall, turned inside-out and upside-down and simply blown away like so much dust.

“Meanwhile, the sand and water, at first so prone to slipping and blowing away, have sat just a moment too long. The sun has got to them and they’ve clung to each other so tightly, baking under the glare of scrutiny that they are solid as a rock. Your bare fingers are powerless to prise them apart – they are no longer what they were, they will not do what you had hoped they might do.

“This – this is what it is to write, to work with words, to turn a life into and the scribbled soaking of ink into paper in the vain and ultimately fruitless hope that, at some time in the future, that ink will somehow be able to be drawn from the paper once more, to pass up the quill and leap out from the paper into life once more.”

Shocked by the passion which her father had displayed, Emily wondered if he was addressing himself as much as Crouch. Rarely had she heard him discuss anything in such a manner, much less his own involvement in writing.

No doubt it’s because I’m seen only as a child, she thought, wondering if that is how she would forever be seen.

But he continued.

“Every time I sit down to write, these are the things I face. This, when I work with love. This, when I wrote of what I know, of what I wish to know, of what passes through my mind in those moments of unbridled life, where we are bursting with an unquenchable desire to dance, to shout to the world, to belong to a life that has so much to offer.

“Now, what you ask of me is this. You want me, I am thinking, to get inside you; to retrace your steps, rewind your days - re-breathe your very breath. You want me to get inside your skin -” at this Emily gave an uncontrollable shudder “- and, to all intents and purposes, become you.”

Her father paused a moment, and Emily was unsure whether to say anything, whether this was a question, or a statement, which is more, she thought, how it had been weighted. She took a breath to gather her thoughts but thankfully Percy continued.

“Now, nothing gives me greater pleasure in life than my writing – my beautiful family aside of course – but it’s not simply a matter of rolling up my sleeves and writing whatever I like. Far from it in fact. And, the simple fact of the matter is, Mr Crouch, I would find it very, very, difficult I suppose you could say, to take the steps that would be needed to take on such a task. I’m certainly not one for rumours, and I take all I hear with a liberal dose of salt, but, to put this in the gentlest way I possibly can, there are certain aspects to your story, as I understand it, that makes what you propose something beyond what I feel can have events transpire in the manner in which you may have envisaged in coming to me today.”

Soaking up what her father had said, picking apart the carefully couched words, Emily deduced that he was gently suggesting to Crouch that his request would find no succour in this instance. She weighed her next words carefully.

“Do I take it then, Mr Button, that what you are suggesting to me is this. My life, as it is, would find nought but trouble when measured against any attempts to wrest it into a shape suitable for notating; that any efforts to render it in a form other than that in which I myself must live, no matter what inspiration and perspiration were applied, would be ultimately futile regardless of to whom I entrusted the task of wielding the quill, no matter what faculty such a person may have with language, be it spoken or written?”

Emily was once again disconcerted by her own unexpected faculty with language, this speech that began carefully in her own thoughts but quickly developed a pace and level of reflection that she believed beyond her conscious application. She also knew this is not really what her father had indicated, but wanted to give him a gentler way out than she is sure Crouch really would have.

Her father looked at her closely and for a moment she was sure he had seen her – not Crouch but her, Emily, looking back at him. But her jolted shock of excitement at the prospect was short-lived.

“Mr Crouch, you have understood me very well. While your proposition intrigues me, it is, ultimately, an endeavour that can only end in disappointment. My suggestion to you is to entrust these tales, these chapters in what I have no doubt is a most intriguing and incomparable life, to your memory. The mind is a most wonderful thing, the master storyteller. Your retrieval of these memories will offer you far more than any mere scribe can hope to emulate.”

Emily sense her time was running out. There seemed to be little opportunity to slip upstairs as hoped – on what pretence could she possibly draw? Then it occurred to her. She raised her hand to her mouth and coughed lightly, then more violently. Her throat made a choking sound and as her father looked at her with concern, she croaked the word ‘water’. As Percy raced off to the kitchen, Emily stopped her racking cough and quickly turned to the window. She has just enough time to turn the latch and step back to her spot before Percy came in, a cup of water in hand.

Emily let out a couple more coughs for good measure, and took hold of the cup. Holding it to her lips she took a small sip and returned it to her father.

“That’s better. And Mr Button, may I say I am truly sorry to have troubled you so.”

“Think nothing of it. I’m sorry I can’t be of more assistance with...”

“Oh do not despair on my behalf, I see in what you say the good sense of one who knows about such matters. I will take your advice and take leave of you without any further ado.”

“I shall see you out. Here, don’t forget your coat. Good day Mr Crouch.”

“Good day Fa- Mr Button,” Emily stumbled, passing from the warm, stuffy air of her home into the bracing cold. It wasn’t until the door had closed behind her that she realised how heavily the rain now fell. It must have been falling for some time, for there were large puddles forming where the cobblestones were less evenly placed.

A passing carriage sped by, its spinning wheels flicking up muddy water from the puddles and forcing Emily to jump back from its splashing passage. After it had passed she raced across the street and took shelter in a doorway a few doors further up, away from town. She watched the upstairs window and was pleased to see the light that showed her father had returned to his study. She ducked back behind the doorway when she saw him peer out from behind the curtains, evidently looking to see if he could catch a last glimpse of Crouch disappearing down the street.

Percy must have been satisfied Crouch had passed the corner out of view, for the curtain dropped back into place. The soft light against it grew a little brighter, suggesting he had turned his lamp back up and was settling down to some more work after what must have been a most disturbing distraction.

Emily had just worked up the courage to return across the street and try the window, when from the corner of her eye she saw two figures walking quickly up the street. The woman cowering under her coat may have been any mother living up and down the street, but the young girl in bright red relief against the dun coloured terraces was unmistakably Emily Button.

Thursday 27 November 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXXIII: Halcyon

Oh yes, I forgot I had even written this one - was quite a nice night, and proves I haven’t been entirely lazy...


Halcyon turns 10

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Feet and their itchy ways

My it's dusty in here...

I really have no excuse, other than having spent much of recent time in the vicinity of Vietnam, and been a little distracted by the endless beauty of her landscape, culture, food and people.

Planning for imminent further travels seems to be taking up a bit of time now that I'm back, along with sifting through these memories.

Words will find a way to seep up and out though, as is their wont, so I'll coral a few and drop them in here soon.

Friday 5 September 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXXII: Alex Masso Ensemble

While it may appear I’ve been a little lazy of late, I’ve at least managed to put a few words together for the Alex Masso Ensemble show last week, and they’ve just popped up over at the always peek-atable Resonate magazine.

Wednesday 13 August 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXXI: Chante avec les loups

The next wolf-infused chapter of The Music Box is almost ready, but I’ll stall for the time being with a wolf-themed link to ‘La Blogotheque’, a French music weblog with rather fine tastes.

They’re using a photo I took at the Iron and Wine show earlier this year in talking about Sam Beam's wonderful Wolves (Songs of the Shepard’s Dog), as part of an article about the Wolf in popular music.

I’m pleased to see they made mention of Bonnie Prince Billy’s stellar Wolf Among Wolves, and of course gave thought to the darkly delightful Wolves by The Accidental.

Well, here it is...

Friday 8 August 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXX: Sigur Rós

sigur rós

Sigur Rós
Hordern Pavillion
August 2, 2008


I faced a small dilemma in even coming tonight. So perfect was the last Sigur Rós show I saw, so rich and detailed and finely hewn, it seemed it would be tempting fate too sorely to expect such an experience again. And yet if it was too similar, relied upon the same buttons being pushed, even that would disappoint in its hint of stasis.

I needn't have fretted so.

It was a chilly night it's true, but I doubt the Hordern Pavilion had ever hosted such a natty collection of scarves and woolen hats. We Sigur Rós people seem, it turns out, to be scarves and woolen hat people. Either that, or the chilly, glacial scope of their music subliminally works its way down to our bones and it's not so much a matter of predisposition as self preservation.

The audience was younger, too, than I recall. Yet this seems fitting for Sigur Rós' regressive trajectory, their swim upstream back from life's very precipice, wisdom gained and the end stared in the face, before they turn, quietly, walking away from the light, from nothingness and weightlessness towards that first moment of wonder, of childish glee at the colours and sensations and incomprehensibility of all that simply is.

The stage lit only incidentally, the band emerged from the wings, regally attired and positively glowing. What would they start with, how would they set the tone? Judging by the response, the opening submarine 'ping' of Svefn-g-englar was the perfect choice for many, the ideal entry-point for our magical mystery tour.

There is something inexplicably hypnotic about that depth-sounding 'ping' that carries us through helplessly, wisps us away from our firm grounding and takes us on a submarine meander beneath the ice floes. The water outside is so cold it loses its miscibility, twirling in a slow dance that leaves oily outlines against the portals; sea monkeys gazing idly back as we journey who knows where.

Kjarri Sveinsson's organ carries us along until the first of those sweeping, bottomless cello bowings across Jónsi Birgisson's electric guitar brings in turn the night's first shivers, the sky above splitting wide open (ignoring for the time being the minor matter of the roof in-between). His singing, the untethered Hopelandish wail that hovers high but unforced, flies out in clear soaring lines, before the drums, reliable until now, suddenly stutter and the whole precarious puzzle tumbles into its own icy undertow, which we only now realise had been there all along, shadowing every step.

Just as it all begins to fade away, Jónsi's voice, not so much dominating as increasingly holding a certain sway, breaks out - an impossibly long, sustained note, a siren call we can't help but follow; if we perish, so be it. We catch our breath in consort, waiting, waiting, and still it holds. This is no smoke and mirrors, it reminds us, this is the outer limits of the possible, being pushed that little bit further than we ever knew they could.

Finally, with gasping relief, we surface at our first secret destination, the frightfully graceful picnic spread of Glósóli. Treats beyond our wildest imagination are spread as far as the eye can see, and we gorge on creamy sugared treats beneath fluttering coloured flags catching the cliff-top breeze. Jónsi's every slicing bow guitar peals off a reverberating sliver of live electriciy, racheting the tension notch by notch.

Only two songs in, and the rest of the world is forgotten. Even the very constructedness of what we're seeing and hearing melts away – there is such a seamless, intuitive communication in the band's musicality that they rarely become themselves; they are already and always Sigur Rós.

The joyous innocence of Sé Lest is a striking follow-up, all music box melody and tinkering toys taking on a life of their own, our Icelandic elves playing percussively in a magic toyshop overflowing with beautifully hewn trinkets and wide-eyed whimsy.

Such is the inspired flight of imagination that when they reached the moment on the album at which the horns in Sé Lest enter, it seemed as though a marching band has appeared on stage, crisply dressed in flawless white, gold tasselled and chiming in to perfection. We pictured them marching across the stage for the short passage and then simply evaporating, leaving us wondering if such a preposterously perfect occurrence had been nothing more than a collective wish and melding of memories rendered momentarily material.

When the brass playing foursome The Horny Brasstards did return to the stage for Ný batterí, it appeared that they must, after all, exist.

There is a space or dimension that exists uneasily between the childish reverie of the voyage of discovery and those midnight phantoms that are its flipside; wonder and terror two facets of the same experience. It’s through this slippery netherworld the goodship Sigur Rós sails, charting new territories while laying their faith (and we ours) in the stars.

Originally drawn to the drama, the mysterious romanticism of these vast Icelandic soundscapes, it's been a perilous but rewarding journey to follow Sigur Rós into newer territory. Takk managed to balance the grander, sweeping statements of ágætis byrjun and ( ) with some more optimistic, concise tracks and consequently benefited from the breath of fresh air.

Their fifth full-length album með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust ("with a buzz in our ears we play endlessly") has continued further down this vein, stripping away the layers and exposing the skeleton within.

Though breaking with their signature strengths, this immediacy and intimacy is not entirely unwelcome. The conciseness and precision serves two purposes, both on show tonight. The first is breaking up the longer, swirlier pieces, providing some calm against which the storms appear to reach even greater heights.

The second and perhaps most important for their longevity is to reveal a little more of themselves. Counter-intuitively, the more we're faced with ceaseless doom-laden ice-castles in the sky, reverb-soaked end-of-time crescendo-driven epics, the less we believe in them. But when more austere works such as the joyous lilt of Hoppípolla are neatly juxtaposed with the more brooding works, we feel we're witness to a truer picture, a more multi-dimensional wholeness that makes the peaks and troughs all the richer for their surprise and intensity; it more closely reflects life and we sense they truly mean it, that they aren't simply going through the motions.

It is these moments of light that made it so deeply unsettling when Jonsi drove his bow to destruction during Ny Batteri and made set highlight Festival all the more bewitching.

There were times at which I missed the strings, those curious imps Amiina who so delightfully lent their talents to fill out the more pastoral pieces on previous tours. Without them there are moments in which we miss the delicacy, the lightness of touch and the revelry of the incidental.

But the horns played their role superbly and made for a worthwhile deviation. They are offered up with a deft touch, made to shimmer and vibrate rather than honk and puff. This helped to add a sense of subdued desolation, the fog rolling over us from the sea and enveloping our thoughts and very being.

Something I also realised tonight that doesn't jump off the albums at first listen, but is in retrospect quietly buried there, is the integral role of the rhythm section in anchoring Sigur Rós, keeping them from drifting away into pure ambient wallpaper. Orri Páll Dýrason's drumming is tight and disciplined, a clock-work reliability to its machinations, while Goggi Holm's bass is restrained, yet highly fluid. It's sensual, yet not solipsistic or romantic, slinking just beneath the radar but leading us along all the same.

They know when to catch, and when to release. Simmering away imperceptibly beneath Sæglópur, biding their time during the gentle piano opening and as Jonsi's vocals weave in with the bright semi-hopeful chords, they let the more melodic elements dance merrily for a while, before gatecrashing with fearful power. They trigger a violent reaction in turn and before we know it searing strips of molten electricity are torn off the guitar, Jonsi's previously measured voice now hauntingly plaintiff, drowning in a sea of pain.

Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur offered a brief respite, a few rays of sunshine breaking through, but they were soon snuffed out by Hafssól and its relentless bow-shredding menace and ache.

After this exhausting and troubling intensity one wondered what could be pulled out next, and set-closer Gobbledigook was a startling but contagiously joyous choice. The subdued stately hues that had been the provence of the simply-lit stage throughout the night were shaken off for a clap-driven kaleidoscopic rainbow, an eruption of playful chords, acoustic guitar scratchiness and major-key celebration. 'La-La-Las' were spilling from every corner of the stage, the song and set climaxing with a snowstorm of confetti bursting forth like the joy bursting from thousands of hearts.

It was such an uplifting, surprisingly unmisanthropic finish to the main set that we were all the more disarmed by what was to follow after a brief break, the harrowingly destructive Popplagið that stood as the first encore.

Opening gently enough, that rarest of Sigur Rós devices - a guitar riff - lulls us in and draws us along without too much caution. It’s a touching little riff, minor and almost apologetic, but it’s hummable and sneakily draws us into the dark heart that opens around us before we realise.

Coddled by an equally unthreatening bass, it’s not until we’ve wandered far too far into these verdant woods that we hear the first thunderous clap, the distant rumbling storm rearing its unsettling green head upon us. But then it eases and we laugh at ourselves - 'jumping at shadows' we knowingly smile.

And yet... those drums. They’re building. The Horny Brasstards have laid down their brass and taken on drums, pounding them with increasing fervour, banging away in primal synchronicity.

The Sigur Rós entity soon lets out a sigh. It's not simply ghostly, not merely a dream - it crosses over into a ghostly dream, thrashing on and on mercilessly into a phantasmagoric nightmare. On and on they push, a raw, draining, eviscerating exorcism that seems to have no end, until, finally, it peaks, spills over, topples forward in a frothing surge. Desperately, sinking sinking, you cling onto some passing flotsam, chewed up, spat out, exhausted - exhilarated. Shivers run through your skin, then you shed it, soar above, looking back down upon the spent shell.

At this point they could have left us, battered, bruised and broken, to wander off into the night. It was the kind of transcendently majestic rock finish that stays with you in tingle form for days, so it would have been tempting to send us off with its aftershocks still washing over us.

But, perhaps a little wary of just what frame of mind that might leave us in, Sigur Rós returned for a final time to bring us back to earth, wrapping us in the quiet embrace of All Alright. This sweet, pretention free lullaby brought us down beautifully, not so much anti-climactic as rejuvenating; a gentle butterfly wing on the cheek to wish us well along the long and winding path ahead.

Wednesday 23 July 2008

The Music Box: Chapter Sixty-Four

Isabelle closed the door gently behind them, noting that it was catching again, due to all the recent damp. She still wasn’t sure about heading out in this weather, but felt compelled by something she couldn’t put her finger on to follow her instincts and go. She wondered whether it might be something to do with the man she had imagined meeting in the forest.

Perhaps his cryptic little spiel would make more sense if she was in the woods? His words kept playing around in her head – “trust yourself”... but with what? The image of the laughing wolf also kept flashing before her eyes, and she shuddered. There had been no wolf sightings around these parts for years, yet some strange things had been happening lately.

With all this playing in her mind Isabelle was quite startled when she looked around after closing the door and, just a few doors down the street, saw that strange, cold Mr Crouch.

“Emily!” she cried, putting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Emily had been looking back up at the window through which Percy was still working. Something told Isabelle she must not let Emily see Mr Crouch, under any circumstances.

“What is it?”

“Oh, it’s just, do you think I might have left the copper too low? I don’t want it boiling dry.”

“It’s fine, I saw it myself before we left, it’s quite full.”

“Oh, that’s a relief,” sighed Isabelle, truly relieved as she saw Crouch disappear though Mr Wills’ front door.

“Okay, well let’s get going, if we’re going to beat this rain.”

The pair walked down towards the main road, the daughter stepping in big strides to try and keep up with her mother, than giving up on that tactic and going for swifter, smaller steps. Emily was wearing a big red cloak wrapped around her shoulders and a bright red woollen hat, while Isabelle had opted for a simple black cloak, her head bare so as to better sense the true state of the weather.

Isabelle puzzled over what had brought that Crouch fellow up to their end of town, and what he and Mr Wills could possibly have in common that would have brought them together this way. She hadn’t ever spoken directly to Crouch, and did not usually make it a habit to take a dislike to somebody without having at least met them, but for him she was willing to make a rare exception.

There was something about his cold, shadowy look, his way of moving that seemed immediately like skulking, and though she was not a fan of gossip, dismissing most as mere scuttlebutt and a sign of someone with too much time on their hands and too little respect for others, she had heard enough stories about him to know she wasn’t comfortable with the thought of him being anywhere near her Emily.

They reached the corner where the lolly shop stood and Isabelle waited for Emily’s insistent tug on the sleeve that always followed, but she was quietly surprised when no such tug came, when no imploring eyes looked up at her like saucers brimming with spilt tea.

Of all the small things that had seemed strange of late, this one threw Isabelle the most. She didn’t exactly approve of Emily’s sweet tooth, but it was simply too strange that she seemed not even to give the window, crammed with every colour of the rainbow in the form of lollipops, humbugs, bullseyes and liquorice, a second glance.

Emily must have sensed Isabelle’s concern, because she shortly felt her eyes looking up keenly at her, burning two small holes through her cloak. But the pair walked on in silence, their pace picking up a little – due to the chill in the air, Isabelle told herself, pulling her cloak a little more tightly around her shoulders.

Isabelle felt something touch her hair, and then again. Small round specks began to appear on the path, dark little dots that began appearing on the road as well. Isabelle looked up to see heavy black cloud passing over the top of them, galloping by like frightened stallions.

“Emily, I think we best turn back,” she said, looking down at her daughter, who seemed to be lost in thought.

“Mmm? What was that?”

“Look, it’s started to rain and I think it’s going to get much worse any moment – it’s best if we turn back.”

Emily slowly returned from wherever her mind had drifted, looking around and seeing the spattering rain drops. Isabelle once more saw that dark shadow pass across her face, then slip away as she looked up.

“I suppose you’re right mother, I imagine you know best.”

Isabelle thought that a strange way to put it, but by now the rain was gathering a bit more force and was spitting quite heavily. The pair wheeled around and began to head for home, but before they even reached the corner the skies opened. A blinding flash of lightning forked above their heads, seemingly jumping from one roof to another, followed almost instantly by a tremendous crash of thunder that sounded like the sky was splitting in two.

Grabbing Emily be the hand, Isabelle pulled her into the doorway of the lolly shop, just as the rain began to torrent. Even from the doorway they were getting splashed, so they opened the door and passed into the shelter of the shop.

“Ah, the delightful Miss Button, so good of you to drop by," smiled Mr Pollock, the silver-haired shopkeeper. “And I see you’ve brought your big sister along.”

Isabelle smiled, for Mr Pollock seemed never to tire of this flattering line.

“Isn’t it simply ghastly out there? Come in, get warm. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“No thank you, but you’re very kind to offer.”

“Oh phooey, it’s nothing at all for my favourite Buttons.”

“Emily, while we’re here, how about choosing a few treats? It will make up for not getting to the woods today.”

With a wan smile, Emily nodded and began looking around at the shelves. All along the walls of the shop, the side walls and the wall behind the counter at which Mr Pollock stood, his hands pressing down, fingers poised like five-legged spiders, there stood jar after jar of treats.

Boiled sweets and chocolate pieces jostled for shelf space alongside sugar-coated nuts and – Emily’s favourite – liquorice.

“Lovely weather,” observed Mr Pollock, a gleam in his eye. “Just the day for a picnic.”

“We were lucky to get away without being absolutely saturated,” Isabelle said. “A couple more seconds and we’d be drenched.”

“Well, stay here as long as you need, it was all pretty quiet so it’s nice to have the company.”

“Thanks. We’ll choose a few treats and be off once it settles.”

Tuesday 15 July 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXIX: Sono Perception

In which I waffle on a bit about this and that in the general hope of making some sort of sense of 'Sonic Art', all over in the part of the webesphere known as Resonate magazine.

Thursday 10 July 2008

She sits to write

She sits to write, but her fingers freeze.

She sits to write, but nothing comes out.

Snatches of conversations, snippets of thought, countless answers to questions long since past – things she could have said then, but make no sense now.

She sits to write, but the weight of all those words already out there, pushing back against all those clouding her own mind, is too much. They laugh as they casually poke each word that threatens to spill back in, warning her to find a new patch, to go somewhere less crowded.

She’s on her second cup of tea. She’s quite full enough from the first, but the familiar action – the flick of the switch on the kettle, the brief silence, wondering if she has switched it on properly, then the slow hiss as the water begins to catch, begins to swirl, organises itself and votes on which particles will become steam and escape through the spout, which will be poured into the teapot and take on the honey hue of the tea leaves – soothes her.

It’s all part of writing, it’s all part of the delicate mask that must be assembled, the hood put over the writer who must become blank, erased, forgotten, before she can begin. Her stories must not be hers – they can’t be hers anyway, she doesn’t know who she is.

Thinking about who she is is the quickest way to upset her, freeze her. She has no idea. She fancies she should, by now, have a clue, an inkling, an occasional wake-in-the-night connection that whispers to her a truth, a secret, a startlingly clear image that disappears as soon as it arrives.

But no, never. Not once.

Is that why she writes? To find herself? Not likely. She’s looking to lose herself, find out less and less about herself until there’s nothing to know, or not to know, there’s just nothing, which leaves knowing at the door, knocking gently, half-heartedly, disconsolately perhaps, then wandering away, down streets black with lost tears, a black as silky and shiny as a raven’s haunch, a street rustling with the same sound of death upon us that’s brought by that very same raven’s swishing, time-stopping flight.

She sits to write, lost inside that veneer of time that sends the minute hand swirling out of control, yet the hour hand never moving.

She sits to write, but now her mind has wandered. Her nose itches, her foot’s asleep, tucked back under her chair. The birds are carrying on like they’ve just woken to find a new day waiting, but she knows the day is well underway. It’s passed her by really – while she sits, waiting, trying, it’s gone. She has nothing to show for it, no trace of writing, no hint of an idea. She could have walked down to the small park on the corner of her street, felt the sun tickle the back of her neck like a familiar love, pulled out a favourite book, fallen asleep with the smell of its well-thumbed pages and old ink gently wafting into her daydreams.

But she didn’t. She stayed to tackle the empty page, to put her demons to rest, drive a pen through their mocking heart, their leering, jeering faces that once peered round doorways, but now perch happily on the edge of her desk, flipping through old magazines, laughing at her choice of passages pulled from other books, written in her leaning hand in a small exercise book originally bought for her own words to fill.

She sits to write, but blood pounds in her ears, blood she pictures a deep black, a stultifying inky black, blood sour with loss, blood thickening by the moment, stale blood that’s curdling and crusting.

‘Help’ she whispers, but nobody hears.

Tuesday 1 July 2008

The Music Box: Chapter Sixty-Three

Slipping off Crouch’s wet boots, a torrent of water pouring from each as she sat sodden on the edge of the sea, Emily knew she had to get going. There was no time to even stop in at Crouch’s store and see if there was anything into which she could change – she would have to go like this.

With no real plan at all as to how she was going to get inside, she knew she must make for her home if she was going to have any chance of getting her parents out of harm’s way. Striding briskly away from the shoreline and up to the main street, Emily was intensely aware of the stares she was drawing. She must have been quite the sight! Throughout her ordeal her hat had miraculously stayed perched on her head, and now she was grateful for the chance to pull its brim down over her eyes. Even so, from their corners she could pick out the village folk past whom she wilfully strode, catching small snippets of their murmuring as she stomped by.

A squelching was coming from her boots as the last of the sea water hung on tenaciously, as though excited to be travelling this far from home. She squeezed what water she could from the ends of the coat, feeling the chill in the air start to penetrate. She was bound to end up with a cold is out much longer, but had more pressing matters in mind.

After what seemed an eternity – learning that the when people were staring at you, time seemed to all but cease to tick, Emily reached the top of the main road. Branching off onto her street, she began to slow her step. She tried to shrink into herself, which wasn’t so easy with such a large frame as Crouch’s. Moving from doorway to doorway, she kept an eye scanning up the hill, where her house stood.

A sudden gust of wind managed what the ocean hadn’t and swept Crouch’s hat clear off her head, sending it tumbling across the cobblestones. She was so used to wearing it now that without a thought she went after it, stooping to pick it up where it had settled on the edge of a step. The door opened and a stern face peered out, though Emily saw this quickly skip to a look of near panic.

“Oh, Mr Crouch, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. What... what... what brings you here?”

“Oh, I’m just passing, my hat...” Emily trailed off and didn’t know what to say. She spun on her heel and made as if to leave, but saw the front door of her own home, just a handful of houses up, had swung open. She was stuck to the spot as she saw herself step down into the street and turn her way, with her mother following just behind.

“You must let me in!” she cried to Mr Wills, as she now realised him to be, sending the poor man jumping half out of his clothes.

“I mean, please could I see you for a moment, I have something I’ve been meaning to ask.” Emily saw Mr Wills was most unimpressed at the thought of Crouch crossing his threshold, but also that he was scared enough that he seemed like he would not dare the consequences of saying no. After wavering for what seemed like eternity but could have only been a moment – Emily aware that if the real Crouch or her mother looked up for a second, she was sure to be discovered – Mr Wills stood just far back enough for Emily to brush past. She felt very rude and knew Mr Wills must be scared half out of his wits, but knew a second longer and she would have been discovered.

As it was she had caught a glimpse of her mother as she hurried to close the door. She longed to turn and embrace her, to jump with joy to know that she was still okay, but to have done so would have been impossible – she would have scared her to death and had no chance of setting things right.

No, her only chance was to get into her home unseen, to leave the liquorice Oscar had slipped into her pocket somewhere Crouch would find it, and wait for him to eat it. She still wasn’t sure how she was going to explain to her mother what had happened, but that seemed less important at this stage than getting into her home. She knew Crouch and her mother would not be out long. She wanted to follow them, to see what Crouch was up to, but knew to do so would be to miss what could be her only chance to get inside.

Emily didn’t dare think about what might have happened to her father, but took heart at seeing her mother and, yes, even Crouch, acting normally enough. If anything had happened to her father, she reasoned, they wouldn’t be getting out and about so casually. After the shock of having seen them began to subside, she began to wonder where it was they might be heading.

“So, how can I be of assistance, Mr Crouch?”

It was Wills – of course he would want to know what business she had here.

“Oh, well, I was going to ask you something, but it’s completely slipped my mind. I‘m afraid I must bid you farewell.”

Emily raised her hat as politely as she could, spun on her heel and made for the door. Then a thought struck her.

“Oh Mr Wills?”

“Yes Mr Crouch?”

“Tell me, are you on good terms with your neighbour, Mr Button?”

W-well, yes, I suppose you could say so,” he began, warily. “W-w-why do you ask?”

“Do you think you could grant me the courtesy of an introduction?”

Mr Wills just stared, his dry lips slightly parted, clearly not quite believing what he was being asked. And it must seem awfully strange, Emily realised, Crouch here completely out of the blue, not giving his reason for arriving and suddenly asking for an introduction to someone else – again without explanation.

She had to think quickly.

“It’s just that, well, I have some important new to share with him, but would you believe we’ve never had the pleasure of meeting in person. I just thought that, well, it would be best this way...”

It was the best she could do, and though Mr Wills still had a puzzled look to him, she saw that while he was wary of anything further to do with Crouch, he realised this was at least a way to get him moving along and keeping him happy.

“Well, I suppose I could. Just let me get my coat and let Martha know where I’m going.”

Friday 27 June 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXVIII: the hermit awakens

A small milestone passed quietly this week.... three months since attending my last gig.

Now by gig, I should clarify by pointing out that I did not consider the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, any performances at the Sydney Conservatorium (where I saw an inspiring rendition of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time last Sunday), various jazz and improvisational shows and their ilk to count as gigs. By gigs I meant bands playing songs that the ordinary man or woman in the street would say was a band playing a song at a gig.

One of the main reasons for the three months was to see if I could do it, the other was a slight case of simply going out too much and not having much time left to do my own things. In a ridiculous six or so weeks from late January into March, I seemed to end up at gigs by fourplay, tunng, low, mice parade, joanna newsom, sufjan stevens, arcade fire and bjork (all in less than a fortnight), iron & wine, broken social scene, okkervill river, feist, beirut, pj harvey, sonic youth... and more. After the joy that was Múm I decided to take a bit of a break, and here we are three months on.

It's possibly a coincidence, but during the break I've enjoyed the orchestral concerts more than I have in a long time. But I think that might be more interesting programing and better seats than in the past few years - the ACO's show last week with guest director John Storgards on lead violin was outstanding, particularly Lutoslawski's vivacious Preludes and Fugue for 13 Solo Strings.

Certain wags may argue (have argued, continue to argue) that my three month moratorium was made simpler by the paucity of touring acts through the period and my tendency to talk my way out of most of the performances I actually went to as being gigs as such.

All I know is I made it. I've now got a Sigur Ros ticket for their August show, but that's far too far away - I think I might have to go see Grand Salvo next Friday, but even that seems a long time away.

Thursday 26 June 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXVII: dj museum

When last we were away Peter and Angela were kind enough to water our plants and bring in the mail... while they're away it seems to be our turn to repay the favour by hijacking Peter's splendid radio show, Utility Fog, which features, if i remember correctly, postfolkrocktronica, from granular pop to orchestral breakcore and beyond...

I think I know who got the better deal, but given they're off gallivanting around Europe and off to see My Bloody Valentine in Glasgow maybe they're coping somehow. Oh well.

While I've been doing bits and pieces of production, it's been a while since I've done any programming or on-air presenting. I'm rather looking forward to it and it's been fun auditioning tracks that might get a spin - the idea being to try and keep to the flavour of the show while lending it a benjamin and serena sprinkle.

Thanks to the wonders of the interweb, apparently it will be streaming from hereabouts from 10pm Sunday to 1am Monday, Sydney time.

So thank you to Peter for letting us play with your shiny show and enjoy the rest of your trip - we'll try not to break it while you're gone ;-)

Tuesday 24 June 2008

outing

She stares out of her window, sitting straight-backed behind the empty passenger seat. The passenger door is open, nobody is sitting there. It must be for her mother – the father would be driving, a car like this. The years on her face outweigh her size, the muscles drawing her brow in, like she’s squinting against the glare of existence, or as if she's seen it all before. Seen all there is before her, already. She seems to be wearing make-up, but isn’t. She seems to be looking past wherever her eye appears to be resting. Though it isn’t resting at all, it’s working, always working. What she’s seeing is not necessarily there.

She’s lost in thought. Not imagination, but reflection, not possibilities for the future, but ruminations on the past. She’s all in black, a crushed velvet, lace trimmed. Real lace. Her hair is a shock of white spilling over its gentle, scalloped neckline, preternaturally blonde, prematurely straightened before it could find its natural curl.

She stares at the spot her mother’s heel last trod, before the glossy green door closed. She’s gone back for something – a scarf, a glove, something they forgot to pack as they went to the car. She forgot it knowingly, aching for the moment to herself. She left it on the dressing table well aware she would have to go back, timing it so they were all in the car but the key hadn’t turned. She knew he would be annoyed, knew he would spend the time tapping on the dashboard and looking every ten seconds at its clock, choking with silent rage, as if that would somehow make her any faster.

She walks up the stairs, not fast not slow. Her breath is so tight, her chest so locked, you could hold up a mirror to her mouth and no mist would appear. She wants to go faster because that’s how she does things, slower because she needs that moment to stretch on as long as it can, as far as it can go before snapping.

He drums his fingers on the dashboard. He looks at the clock again, then checks his wristwatch. Its heavy, gold body gleams against his tanned arm, black hairs curling over its band. The cuffs of his starched white shirt peek out past his coat, the gold cuff-link flashing like toothache.

She looks down at her shoes, their tiny buckles, the rough scuff on the end of the left one where she dragged it over the gutter getting into the car. ‘Mother will not be pleased’, she thinks, not sure whether she herself cares. Not sure of anything. She looks at the freckle just below the third knuckle on her middle finger. She scratches at it, as she always does while waiting for something, anything, to happen, but it doesn’t go anywhere. It never goes anywhere. The skin beneath it whitens and the freckle slides back towards her wrist, but then returns to exactly where it had been.

She is too cold, or too hot, but not quite sure which. Her father drums on the centre of the steering wheel, sucking his back teeth.

She is close to the window, so close her forehead almost touches the glass, yet no mist of breath appears.

She closes her eyes.

Tuesday 17 June 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXVI: Mike Cooper & Chris Abrahams

Mike Cooper & Chris Abrahams
+AustraLYSIS Electroband
April 4, 2008


I've been tinkering on a few things lately, but here's another piece put together for resonate magazine.

Back soon...

Thursday 5 June 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXV: Sydney Symphony Orchestra

Dimitri Shostakovich & Georges Lentz
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
March 26, 2008


A little something I put together that's now popped up over at resonate magazine.

Sunday 1 June 2008

back from bundanon


It’s been less than a fortnight since I left Bundanon, but already it’s feeling like a fairly pivotal turning point in my creative life.

Having moved fairly smoothly from school to university to the workplace, finding myself in jobs (journalism/newspaper editor) that offer plenty of challenges and require a substantial amount of attention from my mind, I’ve never really had the opportunity to spend any great stretch of time on creative projects.

Those that I have pursued have been, invariably, either spontaneous or reactive. My two novel length works-in progress both began as short stories that simply got out of hand, taking on a life of their own. On the photography front, I’ve been very much of the verité school, shooting what I see, the world ‘as it is’ without my interference. I acknowledge, of course, the choices I make in subject selection, framing, composition and the like, but have rarely been active in setting up or directing a scene or an image. I’d figured this was a stylistic choice, a philosophical consideration of photography as documentation and momentary, but am now wondering whether it was simply a lack of time.

On the writing side, the hope entering the fortnight had been to finish a few projects, in any spare time that may have emerged around our main major life between buildings project. Yet after two weeks these never even made it out of the suitcase – this was a place and a time for thinking afresh, for inventing/crafting not polishing; opening doors not closing them.

So instead of wrapping up existing projects, I seem to have started more than I can keep track of. Central is the life between buildings song cycle, to which I intend to co-contribute text along with Rhiannon and Danielle, and work on more visual ideas that will hopefully augment its final presentation.

‘The Last Supper’ is to be a 12-song song-cycle, co-created by the life between buildings team of Serena Armstrong, Danielle Carey, Rhiannon Cook, Julian Day, and, in there as well, me.

The cycle will build upon written texts exploring the last meals of condemned death row prisoners, combining the irresistible motifs of Food and Death.

The idea is to create a work that can stand alone in a traditional performative sense, incorporating visual elements , but there is also strong interest in looking at the ‘event’ possibilities the idea holds, to explore its potential in installation or even ‘happening’ terms, such as incorporating the work into an actual meal with audience interaction, a blurring of the active performer/ passive audience lines.

This idea developed throughout Bundanon and grew richer each day, particularly in the second week. We would share our thoughts and ideas for it, discussing its difficulties and problematic aspects as well as what intrigued us.

Once the idea had developed to a point where we could all see where it might be heading, we were each able to work on bringing our various strengths to it, working on potential texts and some basic musical possibilities.

Amidst all this, as I was being drawn further and further into the surrounds, I also found some windows to experiment with some visual ideas. With a fortnight to spend free of daily concerns (cooking and grooming matters notwithstanding), my early ideas for some photographic series developed, expanded and then shifted quite substantially. For reasons I expect I’ll explore at greater length down the line, I’ve developed a fascination bordering on obsession with red. Red in all its forms, but particularly red as a thread – in this case wool.

‘Threads’ are a theme I’ve begun to quietly follow, but the red is quite recent and appeared quite suddenly, almost violently. Apart from its symbolic elements, which I’ll discuss down the track, I’m quite taken by the difficulties cameras appear to have in processing reds of this intensity.

My early red interventions at Bundanon were quite rushed and quickly executed. I wasn’t sure if the idea even had any lasting worth, and hadn’t fully understood what it was I was trying to say. Spending more and more time wrapping objects, winding the wool around the man-made or natural items that drew me, that seemed to be asking for a red challenge, or echo, I found the time and space to think more about what it was I was trying to do, and say.

I had gone into Bundanon thinking I would look at spending more time on photo manipulation – working with layers to get my photos to look at the relationship between the ‘observed world’, text and music. But instead of post-production and scanning, layering disparate images for a common cause, I found I was more and more drawn towards creating these layers in real-time and real-space.

The poetics of the bush and its musicality was utterly enthralling. I couldn’t face sitting at my computer trying to recreate when here was a chance to create directly, to interact with the natural surroundings and enter into a type of direct dialogue.

Hence the paperbark/paperback project, the Byron rock, the Haydn gum, and variations on the ‘poe-tree’ project. Many more ideas have also been sifting through since my return, with the urge to create kicked along again after seeing Jeanette Winterson, a favourite author, speak at the Sydney Opera House to open the Sydney Writers’ Festival on Tuesday.

While perhaps seemingly like a fairly haphazard hotchpotch of concepts and threads, each, in their way, has been spawned by the Bundanon and life between buildings collaboration. In the past I’ve tended to work fairly individually, drawing upon my own ideas and bouncing them up against, well, myself.

I think what I’ve taken from this experience is not just the amazing time I had working closely with such creative, inspiring artists (and good friends!), but I have learned how ideas bounced around can grow and develop and take on a life of their own, thanks to the enthusiasm and input of others.

So while we have a common cause in our central project, we all each have other strands to follow, other threads to explore, that each developed, to some extent out, of the collaborative process. The actual ‘practice’ part, the writing or the photography is, for me, still a fairly personal path. I tend to process ideas over a longer period than some, then quietly chip away at them, channelling through my work things I can’t always explain in discussion. I think my strength in working with others is more likely to be a piece of text or a photo that tells a story, rather than ‘discussed’ input as such – that may change, but my work seems to come from a part of me I don’t necessarily have access to in conversation form.

To spend two weeks immersed in this, in such a deeply inspiring place as Bundanon, has been an experience that will ripple through my life for some time.

This was an inspiring group of artists to spend time with, and I like to think we’ll be able to keep working together, even if loosely, under the life between buildings umbrella.

Wednesday 21 May 2008

Papyrus Diaries I: Jeanette Winterson

In the lead-up to my Bundanon residency, organising anything AB (after-Bundanon) was pushed pretty much to one side. That was even going to apply for the Sydney Writer's Festival; I'd gone as far as making sure I put the festival guide safely away for my return, but wasn't going to fine-tooth comb it until this week.

That was until sister Sally pointed out that the opening address was by Jeanette Winterson, at which point we promptly booked tickets (an early birthday present from the sweet thing). Now sadly Sally couldn't make it, something about marking tests to discover just how illiterate
and innumerate our students are these days, so it's best if she's reading this now she doesn't read any further – you didn't miss a thing, I assure you.

Okay, now for the truth of it.

Winterson's address was erudite and inspirational, drawing together so many strands and threads to tie the practice of art into nothing less than the future survival of the planet. Her manner was beguiling and her points clearly illustrated, while the striking turns of phrase
that litter her books, seemingly so effortlessly, followed one after another. So much so, as pointed out by my fellow rapt attendee a little hummingbird you would be busy digesting and trying to file away one salient point and another three gems would go gliding by.

While it would have been an inspiration at any stage, it could not have been better timed in terms of my reflections on art both in general and specifically in terms of my own pursuits since Bundanon.

From her captivating opening: "History is not a suicide note, it's the story of human survival", the gauntlet was thrown down and we were taken on a ride through cosmology, melting ice caps, Marx, cave paintings, Captain Cook's amazement at being unable to entice Indigenous Australians with shiny new things (the population that seemingly wanted for nothing, the adman's worst nightmare), Chomsky and much much more.

Winterson traced the journey through the 'suicidal' 20th century to the first glimmers of hope of a new beginning – the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of Thatcher and Reagan – to 9/11 and the sudden return of 14th century notions of evil and the new Crusades. Her aim, it soon dawned, was to tie art back into the centre of all this, to make it make sense at a time when we wonder: surely there are more pressing matters?

The need to return art to the centre of our lives, the centre of our culture, is something Winterson feels passionately. Most artists do, of course, but not many explain it so well, show us why it is more than elite indulgence. For in Australia in particular and no doubt many other parts of the world, the arts are very successfully painted as elite, as indulgent, as detached from 'real life'.

Yet Winterson showed how art belongs at the centre of a life lived to its potential, that it exercises our brain as it is intended to be used. Her discussion of the mind as a closed off, resistant system that abhors change and struggles against the unfamiliar was not
exactly new, but the way she tied in the idea of art as the 'connector', as the conduit to understanding and opening up new potentials was revelatory.

She reminded us of Susan Sontag's own reminder, that we should ask not only what art is about, but what art is.

The idea that art predates history, that it's only through paintings, poems, oral histories passed down to today, that we only know of a history because of art, was followed by the discussion of art as not existing in this history, but always as part of a perpetual present. Hence we don't go and see Shakespeare to learn about Elizabethan England, but about ourselves, our relationships, our struggles.

Winterson made us think about the value of art outside a system that must see everything in terms of its potential to increase wealth, the bottom line that overlooks the cost of reaching it.

What I found very interesting, listening to Winterson with what I guess is my writer's hat (not a label I'm prone to using), was how different I found the message to that in her interview in the Sydney Morning Herald over the weekend. Approaching that with my reader's hat, writer's hat and journalist's hat all struggling for limited head space, I was left a little flat by what had seemed a world view that verged on nihilistic in its casualness about the future of humankind.

While I share similar sentiments about not wanting to get overly excited about this one particular species in the context of the greater universe, fate, design or sheer dumb luck has lobbed me smack bang in the middle of it, and it is something I tend to care about to some extent. Even some of my best friends are human. Hell in a handbasket we may be aheading, but in the meantime I'm still interested in what we can do to avoid hastening the self-extermination process. If the planet needs us to go ahead and do ourselves in all the sooner then fine, but if there's a way to undo some of the damage before we go, I'd quite like to at least explore it a little further.

I took a very different message from last night's address. This gave me a little more respect for Winterson's position on the one hand, but also made me put my journalist hat back on and wonder what happened to have such a disjunct between the direct Winterson experience and the mediated Herald one. In many ways a lot of the content overlapped, but I think the final message was very different. This reminded me, I suppose, about how much the media can steer certain angles, whether by design, ignorance or even by utter accident. Maybe Winterson has
shifted her view since they talked, or maybe...

It's got me thinking about those themes that keeps coming up at the moment in my work and those around me - truth and death. Or perhaps that's just one them, as death is perhaps the ultimate truth. But I've begun to see that there is perhaps far more truth in fiction than ever credited, and far less of it in real life than I've been realising.

The main message I think I will take is the idea that we can have a return to imagination, without infantilisation. The trick , now, is to ensure the creative life is a central part of life and not allowed to be deemed a luxury, a peripheral part of life.

Tuesday 20 May 2008

not so grey

another x-post, to bring the museum back up to speed...

Today marked the seventh day of our Bundanon stay, so why does it feel like we just got here?

I realised upon waking that while I had walked back and forth across the property many a time, had traversed its open fields, dipped a toe in its river, skirted its grand homestead and returned many times to the swallowing bush, I still felt strangely disconnected from the environs.

The visual sweep down from our cottage to the homestead and the river beyond, back up the treed ridge on the far side of the river, allows us to see much of the 300 cleared acres of the working farm. While perched on the very edge of the bush – which makes up the bulk of the 1100 hectare property – the cottage has its back turned to the trees. It’s their presence I feel strongest, but until today it had been a looming feeling rather than a deep awareness. I could hear the birds and had seen plenty of the kangaroos, wombats and even snakes that came and went, but all my time in there had been active; imposing art ideas and projects without spending enough time doing another of the things which I had come here to do – listen, learning, find what inspiration it could impart.

I realised in doing so, I was repeating a lot of the mistakes artists made early in Australian colonial history – their cultural and artistic baggage so heavily laden with British sensibilities that they – quite literally – couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Paintings from that era, pastoral projections onto an untameable bush, build from a palette entirely unsuitable for the subject matter; pastel tones and wan light borrowed straight from a British sky that simply does not exist here. I was reminded of a discussion with a Brazilian photographer who is often criticised because the skies in his photographs are deemed ‘ too blue’ – it seems we cannot conceive what exists outside our own engagement, comprehension and direct experience.

I wasn’t bringing this particular sensibility, but I certainly hadn’t taken the time or set up the mind space for meaningful exchange. I had come with ideas for how to interact and ploughed on with them with barely a moment to see what suggestions it might make.

Feeling it was time to try and move beyond the same mistakes, I took a new route up the ridge to an area of the bush I’d not yet visited. Clearing my mind of potential projects, of photographic or textual possibilities, I was there simply to be. To see, hear, touch and smell, though stopping short of taste. I wanted to hear what the bush had to say, before trying to speak for it.

Selecting a place in a small clearing, beneath a towering silver gum, I lay, considering what I saw and how it compared to D.H Lawrence’s description in Kangaroo:

But the bush, the grey charred bush... It was so phantom-like, so ghostly, with its tall pale trees and many dead trees, like corpses, partly charred by bushfires... And then it was so deathly still. Even the few birds seemed to be swamped in silence. Waiting, waiting – the bush seemed to be hoarily waiting... it was biding its time with a terrible ageless watchfulness, waiting for a far-off end, watching the myriad intruding white men.

Was this accurate? Did it capture something essential about the harsh, unforgiving, unlovable Australian bush? Not from what I could see.

The green of fern of leaf of palm of moss of mottled bark; the countless browns of stripping bark of fallen leaves, their neighbours orange and red. Purple toadstool red berry golden sun silver gum cobalt sky. The white of flowering gums, the black of soil below – the one colour I couldn’t find was grey.

There were ghosts and phantoms aplenty, but these corpses spoke not of death but of life – every corpse-like tree and charred stump was swamped by viridian ferns and proud gums, played host to teeming life.

In place of stillness or silence was a ceaseless treetop chatter, gum tree crowns rustling their rasping dry leaves, while from beneath the soil a sub-aural hum, worms and ants and termites and beetles (not to mention the ubiquitous Bundanon wombats) rumbling about their business.

A passing fly with buzz in trail showed the first sign of life between soil and sky, but was soon joined by the melodious melange that made up even this tiny segment of bush. In the space of a few minutes, my ear slowly attuning to their song, there were chirps, twitters, flute-pitched whistles, twitches, wit-woos, zupzups, vupps, tzetzetzes, zharps and a dozen more songs that leave our alphabet adrift in their sonorous wake – the further from our language and ability to replicate they were, the more indelible their mark.

At first I couldn’t see from where any of these sounds were coming, but a few minutes of lying still and they soon started to emerge, swooping, fluttering and flapping their way across the clearing, from tree to tree and branch to branch, adorned in feathers blue, brown, red, orange, gold and green.

Amidst all of this, thinking once more of this ‘grey’ nothingness, fell a peerless light, a gold and silver gilt; dappled streaks of honeyed tones that seemed a rich and precious gift.

Seven days in, I had finally arrived at Bundanon.

- Benjamin

Bundanon - Day One

Okay, so the Museum is about to reopen... a little dusty it is too, but seems ripe for a small revamp while the inspiration iron is hot.

I'm first going to cheat a little, and cross-post from over yonder in life between buildings land, as my follow up posts referring to Bundanon may then make a bit more sense.

Might not, too, but we'll see.

So, let's step back to Day One:

Guided safely to our destination by two giant wombats, it was a relief soon after 1am to finally reach the end of the long winding dirt road that passes as the link between Bundanon and the world left behind. With the bottom of the car scraping along the last 20-odd metres, Serena and Julian elected to jump out to see if the lighter load would ease the passage.

Danielle had arrived in the middle of Monday, her 30km bicycle ride from Bomaderry to Bundanon occurring with hardly a hitch (although with three enormous dogs in various pursuit), while Rhiannon had survived the epic journey from Canberra through Kangaroo Valley and down past Cambewarra Lookout a few hours earlier.

Waking up this morning it was exciting to realise that there was essentially nothing we had to do but what we wanted. After cups of tea, some breakfast and coffees, we elected to begin our stay by exploring the vast Bundanon property. Setting out from our 1870s cottage, we passed the cluster of studios presently housing photographers, writers and visual artists, visiting from England and Germany. Some have been here for weeks, with Margaret clearly sad to be heading off in a few days.

A little confusion over which side of the fence we should be on – and a pulse-quickening crash course in the difference between a cow and a bull – and we were soon on the sandy banks of the Shoalhaven River. Peering through the gentle water we saw small schools of fish going about their lessons, with balled up snow-white clouds tumbling overhead. A gentle breeze or jumping fish would occasionally ruffle the water, but it was mostly a clear sheen reflecting back grey-green gums and sandy boulders.

Across the river and perched loftily over an upstream bend loomed the unmistakable figure of Pulpit Rock. Pulpit Rock features in countless Arthur Boyd works and it’s easy to see what drew him to it time after time, what spurred that silent, see-sawing tussle to capture its ever-shifting pinkish orange form. A meander back through the Homestead gardens, fingers teasing smells from well-kept beds of herbs, was followed by a peek through Arthur Boyd’s studio windows before it was time for lunch.

After lunch came the serious business of mapping out our next two weeks. We’ve come to Bundanon for the opportunity it affords for a creative escape from the daily routine. A few familariar chores follow us along of course – the need to eat, tidy and occasionally sleep – but the emphasis is on freeing your mind and creative spirit in an inspirational environment; Arthur’s idea of a living arts centre.

Interaction with the environment is impossible to avoid – like nesting birds we each accumulated various leaves, barks and flowers that caught our eye, along with an all-but spent balloon that must have blown in over the trees and fields, a refugee from the distant clutches of a child’s grasping hand.

We’re all here to collaborate on our artworks, and the question of collaboration and what it involves seems to bring as many definitions as there are contributors to this collective. There is a spectrum of views as to what constitutes a collaborative model of art and the best way to get the most out of our time here. Also interesting is the range of views as to goals and hoped for outcomes – while some prefer to see this as an opportunity to learn more about ‘process’ and the act of creatively working together is an ends in itself, others are drawn more to an ‘outcomes’ based model whereby the success of the project will depend upon the measurable output of creative work and its ongoing appeal.

There’s still much to be worked out along these lines, but the immediate plan is to roll up our sleeves and simply jump into it; to soak up the beautiful environs of Bundanon, to take advantage of the rare opportunity to think and feel without a thousand other things – work, family, friends, Big Brother – vying for our attention.

-Benjamin

Tuesday 29 April 2008

Bundanon




Well we've made it - the life between buildings project has entered its Bundanon phase. Rhiannon, Danielle, Julian, Serena and I are all settling into our digs quite nicely, very pleased to have packed plenty of warm clothes.

As such, the museum is likely to be fairly quiet for the next fortnight, but we're expecting a flurry of activity over in life between buildings land.

-B

Thursday 17 April 2008

The Music Box: Chapter Sixty-Two

Watching the dry twigs cast out their small spirals of smoke, their feet being licked by dancing orange flames drunk on the oxygen they drew all too quickly, Isabelle held out her hands to snatch some of their warmth. The day had started still and blue, the light tickle of the sun’s fingers on her exposed neck as she hung wet washing out on the clothesline. But in this last hour, a change had begun to send out an advance party from the north. Clouds of cotton candy escaping a distant carnival had at first skittered by, now being followed by a dense bank of sooty storm-clouds riding low on the coat-tails of an icy wind.

Isabelle shivered though was not sure it was through cold, for she was wrapped in a light grey cardigan against the settling chill. Emily had returned to the kitchen but she had sent her back up to get something warmer on. Isabelle turned at the sound of Emily’s light footfall signalling her return, seeing she had chosen a black coat that was still a little long in the arms, so that only the very tips of her fingers could be seen. She noticed that the fingernails poking out of the cuffs had all been nibbled right back, a habit she had though Emily had left behind some time ago.

While Emily had been upstairs, Percy had arrived home. He told her that Emily had seemed in high enough spirits and that though she may have been a little quieter than usual, he was reassured that there was no reason for undue concern. He had delivered Isabelle a light peck on the cheek with his hand resting on her elbow and told her there were a couple of things he need to be working on but that he would join her and Emily for lunch. As he had passed from the room and Isabelle heard the creaking of the stairs as he took them, seemingly untroubled and with his duties dispensed, she wondered if she was simply reading too much into things.

She decided the best thing to do would be to keep Emily nearby, to keep her occupied so she could keep her under a close watch. With Emily now returned to the kitchen, Isabelle tasked her with scrubbing the potatoes and preparing the table for the three of them.

They worked quietly, each making the odd reference to the weather or the tasks at hand, but mostly passing the time in silence. Normally Emily would have been restless by now, looking for ways to escape until she was called back for lunch, but she was instead going about her jobs with a methodical concentration, her normally gentle face setting tightly, a shadow falling across it and leaving her, Isabelle realised, almost unrecognisable.

The water over the fire had reached a rolling boil, the lid on the pot lifting and falling with a gentle clatter, puffs of steam lifting it on their search for escape. Isabelle had always been fascinated that something so slight, so insubstantial as steam – the same steam whose fingers would wisp around her face as she leant over the pot, leaving a damp warmth as it disappeared into nothingness – could get so worked up that it could, if only briefly, lift a solid, metal lid.

“Mother?” began Emily, breaking her from her steam-born spell.

“Yes darling?”

“I’ve been wondering. Is there any chance we might be able to go for a walk in the woods after lunch?”

Isabelle considered. While she would normally deem this weather to be far too unsettled to allow Emily to venture out, this might be just the breakthrough she needed to find out what was on her daughter’s mind. She knew walking was a good way to get talking, to go beyond the usual chatting and dig a little deeper.

“Let’s see how things look then, but I’ll keep it in mind and we’ll make sure we’re all rugged up if we do go.”

Emily smiled and Isabelle was heartened to see that she seemed the happiest she had for days. Perhaps everything was going to be okay after all.

Wednesday 19 March 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXIV: Múm




Múm
Manning Bar
March 18, 2008


How I love the Icelanders. Those cute little vikings, playing their strange little games. Perhaps it's the vast gulf between us, spatially but also geographically, that intrigues.

After days spent on golden beaches, baking under blindingly blue skies, it makes a pleasant change to don some wings and rug up for the journey north, to a land of ice-green castles and eternal childhood... or so it can often seem.

Predictably Björk (while in Sugarcubes) was my first encounter with this land, a snow angel with a Cockney twist. Along the way I picked up a certain fondness for the electronic tinkerings of Múm, but as they drifted along on unsteady seas following their excellent debut Yesterday was Dramatic - Today is OK it was soon overshadowed by an adoration for the bombastic dramascapes of Sigur Rós.

In their wake, Múm seemed a tad anaemic, a little too indecisive and directionless. Their lack of sweeping gestures, unwillingness to unleash grand musical statements about the state of human existence, relegated them to a pleasant background, unambitious glitchy aural wallpaper to cook by.

Tonight, however, they peeled themselves of the wall and plopped themselves fairly and squarely in the middle of the room, adding a little shimmy for good measure. Their line-up change has clearly done them a world of good and we're all the richer for it. Late on stage due to "getting caught up in the traffic of life", they quickly settled us in for the ride, setting the scene with an icy wind across the frozen tundra.

With the arrival of Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy, not only do we have a line-up expanded to seven members, but what it's hard to call anything other than songs. In the past they seem to have worked in spaces, on scapes rather than journeys, moods rather than stories.

Electronics may be at the heart of the song writing and the general Múm experience, yet on stage it played but a bit part, subsumed by wave after wave of instrumentation - cello, violin, recorder, harmonica and even kazoo giving beautifully flawed flesh to the bass and drum skeleton that danced into being. And of course it wouln't have been Múm without plenty of the usual melodica mayhem.

I have a not-so-hidden soft spot for a bit of doom or gloom in my music, a weakness for a little nihilism with my glockenspiel, but I can see this new bounce in their step is doing Múm's music a world of good. The joyous 'Marmalade Fires' with its warm and fuzzy sweet nothings should be required listening for Architecture in Helsinki, a lesson in cheerful layering that manages not to descend into over-sugared, gratingly hyperactive inanity.

An extended 'Dancing Behind My Eyelids' was gloriously cheerful, a playful nod to Stereolab on its way to a three-way recorder duel breakdown. 'Blessed Brambles' was another uplifting treat, while the occasional Eastern European influence creeping in gave a welcome sense of them pushing into new directions and drawing us with them.

Of the older songs, it was heartening to hear 'Oh How the Boat Drifts' given some life, the twinned male/female vocals bringing it to a much more satisfying conclusion than the wispy coo of the Summer Make Good version.

The same reinvention lifted the two-song encore to delightful heights. 'The Ghosts you Draw on My Back' and that tingling final couplet: 'I hope tonight you will touch my hair/ And draw ghosts on my back' could have been the perfect slowburn ending for sending us out into the moonlit midnight, but the twitching electrowave clatter of 'Smell Memory' was more fitting for this newfound cheerfulness, the indescribably memorable synth line still skittering and jittering around my head, where it's bound to stay for days.

Thursday 13 March 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXIII: Iron & Wine




Iron & Wine
Manning Bar
March 11, 2008


Welly well, this one is bound to split the faithful. But they can't say they weren't warned...

When Shepherd's Dog spilt from the Iron & Wine crucible last year, it was not quite what many may have expected. Where previous experiments had delivered a hushed, delicate substance, salty, brittle and liable to dissolve under the weight of no more than our gaze, in its place we now found a malleable, multi-hued affair with a whole lot more bounce.

There were hints of this fuller sound on 2004's Our Endless Numbered Days, but the image that still came to mind when I thought of Iron & Wine was the bushy-bearded The Creek Drank The Cradle and its fragile, acoustic, front porch whispers. We were reminded tonight of the intimacy of these early songs, the husky hush over finger-plucked guitar, when Sam Beam and sister Sarah took to the stage for the hauntingly gorgeous 'Trapeze Swinger', its eloquent graffiti at the pearly gates a peek into a vivid past near-perfect. Sitting back-to-back with 'Jezebel', we are struck by the powerful forces that are absence and memory, and how well Beam paints with these themes.

At this point, for better or worse, things took a turn for the fuller. The band took a few songs to settle in, but once they did there was no denying they had found a groove. What's more complicated is deciding whether this groove was the right one. I expect there will be a bit of angst about the drumming, and the general direction in which it carried the show. The dub element gave Sam a fairly strong base from which he could branch out, opening up new spaces for jamming out a few ideas. It was a little unsettling to see this go as far as the Fozzie Bear pedal (wokka wokka), but when it clicked it carried us along quite well.

A niggling feeling I couldn't shake was a certain paint-by-numbers approach from the band at times, coming across like session musos out on a field-trip. There wasn't the same fire in the belly Sam clearly has, and Sarah was really the only other one who kept us believing that they meant it. So when working it was a treat, when not quite working it came across as a lite-dub Wilco.

The fuller arrangements worked really well with new songs such as 'Boy With A Coin' and the fantastically hewn 'House by the Sea', and even gave a nice kick to older works - 'On Your Wings' and 'Cinder and Smoke' revelling in their make-overs while retaining their low-key rhythmic genius.

Yet one also couldn't help but wish, at times, for a little more breathing space for Sam's more delicate pieces. 'Sodom, South Georgia' needed stripping right back, the beautiful bare bones on the album sadly over-dressed. And surely with a band this size, there was room for the occasional banjo outing? Oh well, minor quibbles. As the songs gained in instrumental richness, they lost a little in terms of having our breath taken away by these snatches of lyrics for which I fell in swoon with Iron & Wine.

When I first heard Sam's voice warble "Those band-aid children chased your dog away" over the edge of a gorgeous 'Sunset Soon Forgotten' precipice, I was swept off my feet and haven't turned back. Dig a little deeper and such turns appear all over the place, but are harder and harder to find as the music does more and more of our thinking for us.

So here I am again, facing the same dilemma posed by Jason Molina a little way back. I cherish these troubled gents in their nakedly exposed solo mode, and humour them well enough when coddled by a band. They're enjoying it, it's where their path has taken them, and the choice is to get used to it or miss out on those moments of magic they can still deliver.

Thursday 6 March 2008

Vinyl Diaries XXII: Beirut



Photo by obo-bobolina

Beirut
Manning Bar
March 5, 2008


This could have been an utter schemozzle. Shuffling onto stage lost in the midst of his eight-piece band, bedecked in a cartoonishly ill-fitting sportscoat, Zach Condon was looking more than a little ruffled, to put it politely. Watching his eyebrows try and find a horizontal as he finally located the microphone, one darting away just as the other was brought into check, it was as though Dylan Moran had taken his place and we were about to be treated to a stumbling run-through of Black Books: The Musical.

A couple of slugs from a silver hip flask - 'Jamesons, the only way to beat the jetlag' and a few mumbled nothings that made less than no sense and all did not bode well. Until...

'Nantes'. Condon the crooner shook the shabby Irish whiskey soaked 22-year-old by those over-fabricced shoulders (helped in no small measure by a fill-in drummer who seemed at times to be the only one holding the whole show together). While singing, Condon thankfully slid into some parallel universe, if not of sobriety at least of comprehensibility.

The twin-ukele urgency leading into 'Brandenburg' took us out of the Francophilic The Flying Club Cup and back to the Balkan whimsy of Gulag Orkestar, with the set travelling fairly neatly between the two with a spattering of pieces from the Lon Gisland EP.

While centring very much on Condon's rich, dreamy voice, it's the thoughtful instrumentation that makes Beirut that little bit special. It's all been done before, and pinches shamelessly from traditions with their own rich history that we're all a bit too short on time to thoroughly explore ourselves, but it's no less fun for it.

There is a risk of such rampant eclecticism and pilferring devolving into mere pastiche, unreconstructed gestures of overbearing irony and knowingness with a wink. But Condon skirts this danger with his unbridled enthusiasm, the collector's glee in the finer points of his obsession. Seeing these broad brushstrokes of influence all brought together on stage was a treat, witnessing the way such simple drum and bass patterns are so cleverly layered with violin, piano accordion and, of course, the brass.

Of such brass, there was no shortage. Condon took to the ukelele a couple of times, but it was the trumpet that got more of his attention. Most songs took advantage of the playing talent available, with neatly-layered combinations of trumpet, euphonium and baritone sax all adding their warmth.

Come to think of it, brass seems to be the new black. In the last couple of months no self-respecting artist/band has toured without a brass section - it's been used to fairly good effect by Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire, Bjork, and even Broken Social Scene. Sufjan is probably the only other act where it was quite as essential as it for Beirut. As with his show it's no mere adornment, but weaved into the very essence of the music. It gives it both its drive and its colour and it's nearly impossible to imagine it being left out.

The best thing about it tonight, for these brass-jaded ears, was the way it fizzed rather than honked, slid rather than popped. And the rather sexy baritone sax always makes me smile. Melding with the rest of the ideas floating around the stage, the brassy bits provided rungs by which to follow Condon on his merry, spiralling march.

Whether this march is ascending or descending I'm not quite sure - and I don't know if they are either. Perhaps its neither, and both; Escher writ musical.

Relaxing into this hot air balloon ride across continental Europe, vast green territories dotted with the occasional spire or lake, its a highly pleasurable journey. He might be drunk as a love-sick skunk, but Condon's charms are in the outpourings of his affection, for travel, for music, for life.

Those wondering whether Gulag Orkestar was a lucky strike by a precocious one-trick pony might these days need to reassess. Despite the affection I felt for mournful 'Mount Wroclai' and the nicely complete 'Elephant Gun', one moment right near the end of the first set stood out and gave plenty of hope.

This was 'Scenic World', which started its life on Gulag as a near-throwaway; two minutes of cheesiness slipping along on a lo-fi bossa beat. It was reborn on Lon Gisland, with an all but hidden keyed riff from the original passed on to the piano accordion, taking more of the spotlight. Tonight, however, it had been handed on to the violin, with glockenspiel in support. The sea-scouting, see-sawing trip was slowed to about two-thirds of the pace and all these beautiful, previously undiscovered crevices opened.

While I don't expect these crevices to be re-explored by Beirut - the eternally restless Condon unlikely to give his laurels such a resting - this reinvention did show that these are living works, breathing and growing gracefully and opening up new paths, rather than museum relics destined for the dustbin of musical history.

Wednesday 5 March 2008

The Music Box: Chapter Sixty-One

Food! Emily finally had it, the secret to how one could get into and out of the music box without Crouch’s infernal machine.

She now knew how he was able to come and go on a whim, how he could put terror into the hearts of those who lived in the box, of Oscar and Bernard and Minerva and – she had to stop thinking about them, it was all too much.

Emily had known all along that there was no way she was ever going to get Crouch back in that chair, there was no way of tricking him that was going to have any chance of success. But this – this opened up a door of opportunity. Even if only the merest hint, it was still something to latch onto, it was the return of hope.

Her heart raced with excitement, but before she could double-check the last thing she had read – to make absolute certain that what she believed was true – the book burst into flame. Emily was still sitting and the book has been resting in her lap. In seconds it was a blazing ball and she had no choice but to push it from her, watching as it fell towards the sea. It hit the water with a hiss and plunged instantly from sight beneath the seething froth, just as Emily saw with horror that the flame had licked at Crouch’s suit, catching the end of the jacket and racing up towards her chest.

Without a second thought she followed the path of the book, tumbling through the air and crashing into the water below. For some time, Emily wondered why the water wasn’t colder. It dawned on her that shock had set in – she had only moments before she would feel the icy clutches of the sea’s frozen fingers drag her even further down. Emily forced open her tightly clenched eyes, desperately seeking a sign of where in the depths of the water she had finished. Shattered shards of light danced teasingly all around her, but she thought she could perceive the direction from which they seemed to be coming. But as she began kicking out, hoping she was heading up, Emily was sure she could see bubbles passing her, racing down to the floor below.

“Bubbles don’t drop!” a voice shouted in her head. “You’re going the wrong way!”

Struggling against the weight of Crouch’s heavy clothes – now unfeasibly heavy as they soaked up what seemed like every spare ounce of the sea – Emily felt the searing heat of lungs desperate for air. She kicked and kicked but could bear it no longer, feeling her chest ready to burst. She opened her mouth and sucked in, waiting for the choking torrent of water to fill her. But the crisp cool sensation in her throat was not water at all – she had somehow broken the surface and was drinking in the beautiful clean air.

Emily felt her body dragged away from the pier, drawn out towards the horizon, but the next sensation was of being drawn up and up and up, climbing a wall of water building high over the surface below. She watched in amazement as the shore came hurtling towards her, finally realising that it was she being thrust towards its edge. Emily careened down the front of the wave, twisting and tumbling all the way, losing all sense of direction and even where she started and finished, what was her and what belonged to the sea. She finally found herself tangled in a pile of slimy green seaweed as the wave receded.

Lying flat on her back, staring up at the darkening, heavy grey sky, swollen like bee-stung lips with an angry stormhead, her chest heaved with the precious life-giving act of breathing she has always simply taken for granted. It occurred to Emily that she had never been taught to swim.