Aug 17: Dungeness - on 12" shingle...

I've been planning to head for Dungeness for quite a while. I took this picture back in 2012, when flying over the cuspate foreland. I finally made it there in early August as part of a Kent road trip with my son.

Image: Alan Parkinson

I found there were a lot of musical connections with the place.

Source: Wikipedia page for Dungeness - selected examples.

Dungeness appears quite often in music videos, album covers and adverts. It featured on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1981 album A Collection of Great Dance Songs.

British band The Soup Dragons shot the videos for their top 5 1990 hit '"I'm Free", and follow-up top 20 1991 hit "Mother Universe" on Dungeness.

The shingle beach and fishermen's shacks feature extensively in the Lighthouse Family promotional video for their 1998 song "High".

The acoustic mirror at Dungeness is featured on the cover of the album Ether Song by the British indie band Turin Brakes. 

Dungeness appears on the covers of albums as diverse as So Much for the City by The Thrills and Aled by Aled Jones. 

The Prodigy's single "Invaders Must Die" video was filmed here and shows both the acoustic mirrors and the lighthouse. 

In 2011, the music video for the song Walk the River by British band Guillemots was filmed on the headland.

In 2012, Nicki Minaj's single Freedom was filmed on the beach and with the acoustic mirrors. It has rude words in it.

Athlete have a song on the album Vehicles and Animals called "Dungeness" which is about the area. 

Aug 17: 2020 - COVID year

We are getting close to the present day now and 2020 was a year when we saw the world change.

The UK's first national COVID-19 lockdown began on March 23, 2020. Boris Johnson ordered the public to "stay at home," only permitting residents to leave for essential shopping, medical needs, one form of daily exercise, and travelling to work if absolutely necessary. My school stayed open for essential workers' children and we had months of fine weather where we were confined to in and around the village apart from heading to queue to get into the supermarket to buy food (and hopefully some toilet roll). A local village shop in Castle Acre did a great job of supporting local people who were shielding and avoiding contact.

Music became important to many people... I listened to it while working from home, and while cooking, which became a bigger part of life. I got to know the local fields and woods around my village well and saw the full growing cycle of crops from sowing to harvest. Everyone was concerned for their health and the health of family.

Mary Chapin Carpenter released an album recorded live without an audience, but then shared this excellent track, which she hasn't bettered since...

Between the Dirt and the Stars. The guitar solo on this is excellent...

Produced by Ethan Johns (Ray LaMontagne, Paul McCartney, Kings of Leon) and recorded entirely live at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath, in southwest England, the album finds the 5-time GRAMMY Award-winning singer-songwriter pondering life’s intimate, personal moments and exploring its most universally challenging questions at an unprecedented time. 

Written at her rural Virginia farmhouse before stay-at-home orders became the “new normal,” the songs celebrate invaluable experiences and irreplaceable wisdom, while also advocating exploration of the best in all of us.

Tangerine Dream released an excellent album at the end of 2020 capturing the sound of the original band, with three members who worked really well together...

Here's a 2016 version of the track 'Proton Bonfire' from this album.

Bob Mould closed out the year with 'American Crisis'.

What music kept you going through COVID? 

Please let me know...

Aug 16: Protest Songs #5: Trespassers

There is a long legacy of landowners fencing off their land, and preventing people from accessing open space.

The Young 'Uns have released 3 albums of songs.

The Kinder Trespass is one of the more famous events in gaining access to land to walk and overcome the power of landowners to prevent access to their land.

It took place in the Peak District near Glossop.

I've followed the route of the Trespassers numerous times up to the Kinder Downfall.

Aug 16: 'The Lark Ascending' #2: Elgar and the Malverns

The second in a series of posts linked to Richard King's book 'The Lark Ascending'.

The first chapter of the book mentions Edward Elgar's links to the Malvern Hills. He was born in Broadheath, in the Malvern Hills near Worcester.

The National Trust and other organisations refer to the area as 'Elgar Country' and the National Trust manages 'The Firs' - his birthplace, which can be visited.

As you step into the birthplace cottage of Sir Edward Elgar, in the heart of his ‘beloved country’ between Worcester and the Malvern Hills, you are stepping into a space that inspired and comforted him, his entire life. Stand within the four walls of the humble cottage where he was born and be immersed in a world that Elgar believed already contained music that was there for the taking.

He appeared on the UK £20 note for some years.

There are various walking routes that can be followed which trace walks Elgar himself took - where inspiration was provided for pieces such as 'Land of Hope and Glory'.

Aug 16: 2019

2019 saw some interesting albums released. Spotify Wrapped produced a summary of the year - always some tracks in there which make no sense.

IQ released 'Resistance'. This has some good tracks in typical IQ style - they have a very particular way of building their tracks, with the distinctive voice of Peter Nicholls.

Rymden features three Scandinavian jazz musicians.

I have several albums by two of the members of the group.

Bugge Wesseltoft is a really interesting musician and he has collaborated with musicians in very different styles. He is a Norwegian pianist and composer. The first album I have of his is called 'New Conceptions of Jazz'.

He has worked with a whole range of different musicians.

Magnus Östrom on drums has also released a couple of excellent albums.

Some tracks of his are similar in style to Nick Bärstch's Ronin.

Here's a set from a 2019 jazz festival...

Also in 2019 was Bob Mould's 'Sunshine Rock', Big Big Train's 'Grand Tour' and Nick Cave's 'Ghosteen'.

Rammstein also released 'Deutschland' - which has featured on the blog separately.

What were your favourite pieces of music from this year?

Aug 15: 2018

From my Spotify Wrapped, I can identify the tracks I played most through this year. 

They include the following albums:

'Remain' by Folly and the Hunter - this was their best album - more recent ones don't have the same atmosphere and songwriting.

'Severed' by The Decemberists - this introduced some different textures and timbres to their usual sounds. Still recognisable as the work of Meloy et al. 

Take a listen here....

Public Service Broadcasting released their Titanic EP, which had its premiere in Belfast. 

Here's the track 'White Star Liner' from their EP.

Bob Mould released 'Sunshine Rock'. 

This was the stand out track....

Here's 'Deep Blue' from the album 'Avalanche' from Imar.

What were your favourite musical memories from 2018?

Aug 15: Audio Atlas x 2

Via LinkedIn and Brendan Conway.

Audio Atlas is an exploration of musical genres and a natural music search.

This Audio Atlas website is a living atlas of the world's music.

Developed by Jed Anang and others.

• Spin the globe and click any country to discover its genres
• Search across cultures, eras, and continents
• Sign in to contribute genres and suggest edits

I tried Madagascar first...

It suggested a genre called Salegy.

An up-tempo 6/8 Malagasy popular music from the north, descending from antsa vocal tradition and popularized by Jaojoby. It features tight guitar riffs, accordion or keyboard, and driving percussion.

It also suggested a song in this genre.

Why not give the globe a spin?

From Norway's love of Death Metal to the Morenada of Peru, there's a whole world of music out there for you to explore... and contribute a guest post about if you have the time.

Aug 15: ECM Podcast

There are now 70 episodes of the ECM Podcast, which shares news of acts on the roster of this record label, which has helped determine my musical taste over the decades.

Aug 14: Shipbuilding

Public Service Broadcasting are a band that has featured on the blog a number of times. Their music is always interesting, with each successive album developing their sound a little, and being based around some historical period which allows the integration of sounds and speech from the time. I have also been able to see them bring their music to life many times.

They premiered their Titanic suite at an event in Belfast. The band wove together the voices of the Titanic's survivors in a special musical commission for BBC Music's Biggest Weekend in Belfast. 

The music was first performed at the Titanic Slipways in May 2018 - taking it back to where the "unsinkable ship" itself was constructed by thousands of people from the local community.

Southampton also has a strong connection to the ship as it is from here that the 

Here's a BBC recording of the first performance.

Aug 14: 2017

2017 was the year when Spotify started doing their Wrapped, which contains lots of statistics about your listening through the year.

Here's one of the songs in my Top 100 that year: 'Our New World' from the huge Dream Theater album 'The Astonishing'. They can be a bit 'speed for the sake of it' for my liking, but this is nice.

The Mute Gods also released a great track, with Nick Beggs on bass...'The Tardigrades will inherit the Earth'.

I saw a few concerts this year too.

The year started well. One winter's Friday morning, I listened to a new Mike Oldfield album for the first time on the way to work, after it had appeared overnight.

Return to Ommadawn ended up being the final album that Mike would release before his retirement.

Public Service Broadcasting released "Every Valley". I've mentioned this before several times already.

What was your favourite music from this year?

Aug 14: Celtic Connections

I often let Spotify follow on suggesting similar music once the music I listen to has finished. This sometimes leads me to make new discoveries.

A few days ago I started listening to some music by the French musician Gabriel Yacoub.

This led to further discoveries - as shown below...

Aug 14: Donn/Dubh

New from Real World Records and playing as I write this.

Donn/Dubh (Brown/Black) is a bold reimagining of Hebridean musical heritage, rooted in Arun Sood and Angeline Morrison’s shared connection to the islands. 

Inspired by 10th-century Celtic texts linking wind directions to colours, the album transforms traditional Gaelic melodies into expansive new compositions. 

Drones of Scottish folk instruments intertwine with bass-heavy rhythms, lush synths, abrasive guitars and immersive soundscapes, exploring questions of tradition, landscape, identity and belonging.

As this review in the Guardian says:

Morrison, co-founder of the Black British Folk Collective, has brilliantly brought forgotten Black histories into the folk canon for years, including on 2022’s The Sorrow Songs. That same year, Sood’s Searching Erskine used sonic collage and old recordings to conjure the lives of residents on his grandmother’s abandoned home island of Vallay. Their talents converge around Alastair Smith’s startling production: Morrison’s deep voice, ghostly one moment, lullaby-warm the next, inhabiting soundworlds recalling the shuddering shadows of late-90s Boards of Canada and Unkle.

In Gaelic, Donn means brown / dark, while Dubh is black.

Some elements remind me of Martyn Bennett's work.

Here's a sample track...

Aug 14: "The Lark Ascending" #1: Vaughan Williams & KES

"The art of music above all other arts is the expression of the soul of a nation"

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Richard King's 2019 book explores British music and its link with the landscape of Britain.

I have a copy of the book and enjoyed reading it when it first came out. I've mentioned it previously on the blog.

I've now revisited it for this blog and there is plenty of relevance to the blog's theme, so there will be a number of posts to follow through the next month or so.

Vaughan Williams is referenced in the prologue and his quote that "Folk music is not a cause of national music, it is a manifestation of it'.

He wrote 'The Lark Ascending' which was premiered in 1920 having been started at the outbreak of the Great War.

It was premiered near Bristol.

Vaughan Williams believed that music was a latent force in all people... "the only means of artistic expression which is natural to everybody."

The soundtrack to the Ken Loach film 'KES' (from Barry Hines' book) has a wonderful soundtrack by John Cameron.

"Kes flies higher" has a link to 'The Lark Ascending' in its structure and feel...

Chapter 1 of the book explores the piece in more detail.

It epitomises an idea of place, and because there are no lyrics it hasn't been (mis)interpreted as Blake's 'Jerusalem' has been.

It invokes a reverie: a country dance observed by a bird in flight, "a lyrical expression of grace and freedom".

King says that Vaughan Williams "achieves a synthesis of air and earth as the skylark shares in the merrymaking taking place below and the intoxicating sense of euphoria is absolute."

Vaughan Williams described folk songs as "an individual flowering on a common stem".

Aug 13: In the Pool

This is the 'B' side of a single released by Mike Oldfield.

It's an instrumental piece, and one that many people may not have heard...

Today was very much a day for being in the pool...

Aug 13: 500 posts

I've added my 500th post to this blog. 

Not bad since I started it on the 1st of January. Some of them were guest blog posts this time round. Thanks to Carl Lee, Brendan Conway and Sandra Patterson for their contributions, with more promised. 

Thanks to everyone who's visited and read a post too.

Please consider adding your own memories whether as a comment or via the Google Form. If you use that as a search phrase you can see all the posts where there's a chance for you to add your ideas as a Google Form.

Here's a song featuring the number 500.... sing along!

Aug 13: The Belfast Fleadh

I've been reading about the Fleadh which has recently finished.

Belfast hosted the Comhaltas Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, the world’s biggest celebration of Irish music and culture, for the first time in 2026. 

The city welcomed 1.65 million people between Sunday 2 August to Sunday 9 August 2026, more than doubling the estimated 800,000 visitors.

Aug 13: 2016

Up to 2016 now and just ten years ago.

Big Big Train released 'Folklore'. This was one of their best albums with some excellent tracks

The album really starts to pick up with the boisterous extravaganza that is “Winkie”, which tells the story of a carrier pigeon sent to relay a message of a stranded soldiers, not your average Prog story. The song swirls between various parts for what is one of the heaviest tracks the group has produced. The song also contains the best instrumental sections on the album, brimming with colorful keyboard parts at times recalling Tony Banks on Colony of Slipperman. This is one of the highlight tracks on the album. You will need to listen to the song to find out if the pigeon is successful.

Source: https://progreport.com/big-big-train-folklore-full-album-review/

Dream Theater released a double album called 'The Astonishing' which had its moments, including this appropriately geographical track.

What were your musical memories of 2016?

Aug 13: A Song for the Horses

As permafrost in Siberia continues to melt and the steppe in the Gobi turns to desert, people in Mongolia are faced with overlapping climate crises. Some nomadic herders describe climate change as the end of a world. They are quick to add that the world has ended before for Indigenous people in North Asia, as waves of colonialism have left the steppe with a complicated web of apocalypses. A Song for the Horses by K. G. Hutchins examines cases in which people respond to the pressures of climate change by drawing on cultural heritage to foster social resiliency.

Hutchins’s ethnographic research, spanning more than a decade, provides a vivid and intimate portrayal of Mongolian life. Musicians use the morin khuur, or ‘horse fiddle,’ to engage with the subjectivities and agencies of nonhuman animals and other beings. This work is a significant contribution to the posthuman turn in social sciences, engaging with theories from prominent scholars such as Donna Haraway and Anna Tsing .

As climate change continues to impact communities worldwide, this book offers a unique perspective on how cultural heritage can be mobilized to address environmental challenges, providing valuable lessons for global efforts to build sustainable and resilient futures. At the intersection of music, environment, and posthumanism, A Song for the Horses shows how Mongolian musicians use cultural traditions to imagine and build toward alternative futures beyond climate change and neoliberalism.