There are a few locations where the labours of people from prehistory can still be seen.
The idea of following the story of human impact on natural history is part of the draft specification and one would assume it might follow through into the next iteration of the specification as one of the particular aspects of the new qualification.
Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is apparently considering charging to access some of the more well known locations they manage, including the stones of Callanish / Callanais on the Isle of Harris/Lewis. I visited many years ago.
One programme which is behind the increased interest in the area is a time-travel fantasy called 'Outlander'. This has proved very popular.
Cruise ships can arrive at some of these fragile locations in large numbers, which adds additional pressures onto fragile environments.
This album was recorded by the New Zealand musician Jon Mark in 1988 and is named after the ring at Callanish.
And here's a slightly different stone-circle related song...
Sanctuary is a music project by the multi-instrumentalist Robert Reed. In it, he explores similar themes, instrumental combinations and progressions that are influenced by the music of Mike Oldfield.
It's a pastiche of Mike Oldfield's music, but isn't Mike's music. It's played by one person, with the addition of vocals from singers including
The most recent edition was released in 2025.
For me, the 2nd album is perhaps the most successful in tone and themes.
Listen to this section of one of the Sanctuary albums, and if you are a fan of Mike Oldfield then check them out. Sanctuary no. 1 is on Spotify, but the other albums aren't currently.
Steven Wilson is a progressive rock musician, composer and also master remixer of other people's music - working with Jethro Tull for example to remix all their classic albums.
He has teased a new album using a video with a real sense of place... and unease.
Accompanying the video is a really creative website made to look like an old fashioned village bulletin board style website from the 1990s complete with some icons for earlier browsers etc. I remember adding banners and buttons like that to some of my early websites.
Sgt. Pepper - The Beatles, due to its fusion of fantastic music and the pop art of Peter Blake
Tool - Aenima. The limited edition CD from the 1990s has this weird 3D thing going on!
Raye - My 21st Century Blues
My dad had Supertramp's Crisis? What Crisis? on LP and I enjoyed looking at that when I was younger. Still a relevant image today.
Rum, Sodomy and the Lash by the Pogues - the wreck of the Medusa encapsulates the chaos of their music
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.
I was fascinated when I would fold it out as a child trying to work out everything in there it was so weird and surreal.
Ned's Atomic Dustbin - God Fodder. I had the record and it brings back good memories. I think kids nowadays miss out on album covers - they were great!
Public Service Broadcasting - The Race for Space
Thanks to all those who have contributed so far... still time for you to suggest your own... the Google Form is at the top of the right hand column on the blog page.
I came across a fundraising effort to produce a box set capturing Dick Gaughan's music, and also to provide some financial benefit for Dick himself, whose music has received little promotion and support for some time. I was fortunate to see him perform many times in the 1980s and early 1990s, including in small rooms in pubs where he was just a few feet away as he sang.
Dick Gaughan is a Scottish folk musician and songwriter. He has played with a number of other musicians, including a group called Five Hand Reel.
His music is very much tied to work and the landscape. He has recorded albums with songs about collieries and miners.
He performs songs by other songwriters as well as his own songs.
His most famous album perhaps is called 'Handful of Earth'
This is part of a line from Ed Pickford's 'Workers' Song'. Here is Dick performing it.
Kelham Island is an industrial part of the city of Sheffield and a place I used to visit a lot back in the 1980s and 90s when it was still quite industrial and not yet 'gentrified' with warehouses turned into housing, old derelict areas of land built on and new developments where the Whitbread brewery used to be. There are also still some empty areas to be developed.
Here's a recent BMTH track from their newest album. When they get it right, they get it right.
It's got some sweary Mary lyrics as you would expect.
Birmingham is the home of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne. The band was founded in the city, with the four original members: Terence "Geezer" Butler, Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward. Ozzy passed away in 2025.
The band were part of a wave of heavy metal bands at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s.
It includes a new one in Navigation Street and a bridge with bench for your selfie. There is also Ozzy the bull from the Commonwealth Games at New Street Station.
Black Sabbath Bridge, Birmingham - image copyright: Jon Hird
The band were closely linked with the origins of heavy metal, allegedly because of the noise of industry inspiring their music.
Birmingham is also the home of the NEC: a venue that I visited many times over the years, always with a bit of trepidation about the traffic and parking and route finding. This was a bit of a barn and filled by larger bands such as Genesis, Yes and Rush.
It's called Benny's Babbies, and you can see a key on the link above. This shows some musicians and other cultural people associated with the city.
How many can you recognise before you check the key?
Along with Sabbath, other bands associated with Birmingham include Judas Priest (another heavy metal band), UB40, the Moody Blues and Duran Duran, plus the Fine Young Cannibals.
It has been the location where a great many of his own albums have been recorded, along with those by musicians on his Real World record label, and others who have hired the space known as the 'Big Room' or other spaces such as the 'Wood Room'. It also offers a residential experience.
Often when starting a project or piece of writing, a simple thing to do is to search for particular phrases to see what comes up in terms of websites, writing, academic articles and other resources which may be of interest.
This song by Jake Thackray is described by Stuart Maconie as "maybe the best song about the northern landscape ever written, and one that expresses the link between us and the "hard beautiful indifference" of the countryside we grew up in."
My mum loves Jake's music and saw him play live several times, going back many years... there are plenty of songs that benefit from his lugubrious (I like that word) singing voice.... 'Bantam Cock' is another...
The rain is on the mountainside, The beast is in the silent meadow, The north countryside is patiently waiting again. Blackbird is dumb in the juniper, Lapwing shivers in the dripping thicket, Down in the stone-faced town, one door opens.
In a similar vein, check out the often-humorous songs of Bernard Wrigley, who has done a bit of acting too.... Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Phoenix Nights, Dinnerladies, Alan Bennett films, Brassed Off etc.
Today in 1998 I was down in London at Horse Guards Parade for the world premiere of Tubular Bells 3. I had been teaching during the day, and was picked up by my brother-in-law - another big fan of Mike's music - who drove us to Cambridge where we got the train to London.
The weather forecast was not great, but I had my Gore-Tex jacket which I was fairly sure would keep me fairly dry.
The venue was impressive and historic. The stage was set and we had decent enough seats.
We weren't expecting there to be a support act.. then Martyn Joseph came on stage.
And just as the concert was about to start, so did the rain... and it poured down.
There were thousands of men in the rain...
There was also a feeling that not all of the sounds were played live... certainly the glasses filled with water which were note for note perfect... the rain itself would have taken the glasses out of tune...
The concert itself was short - a run through of the album and the encore wasn't any new track, and there were no other Tubular bits.
The guitar solos were superb of course and it was Mike playing live, so you couldn't really complain!
I still have the polo shirt I bought when I arrived - just as well as the merchandise ran out quite quickly it seems from other memories of the evening.
Spell Songs’ third studio album: In Thin Air, forms a musical companion piece to Robert and Jackie’s book The Book of Birds - a book that is a love letter to the splendours and mysteries of birdlife, and a clarion call to halt the loss of birds from land, sea and sky.
The music was created within the contemplative green oak roundhouse of Ty Sanctaidd (Sacred House) in the grounds of Ty Trefacwn in South West Wales, and recorded at Castle Sound Studio in Pencaitland, East Lothian. As with our other albums In Thin Air has been recorded and produced by Andy Bell of Hudson Records.
Throughout The Book of Birds there runs a gentle mantra – “Nest, Egg, Beak, Song, Feather, Flight, Migration — these are the Seven Wonders that together conjure the miracle of Bird”.
Intrigued by this concept, the seven musicians have created an intricate new album that has an overarching narrative, capturing the remarkable world of birds from birth to flight.
In Thin Air was released into the wild on 4th September 2026
It's an interesting visual variation on Setlist.FM - using its data / API. There's a few issues as the first act I tried: Mike Oldfield had some concerts without set lists on the site so the data is incomplete..
Pick a band, tick off the nights you were actually in the room, and get the record back: every song you’ve heard them play live, how many times you’ve heard each one, the tours you were part of, and a print-resolution poster of it all.
It’s free, there’s nothing to install, and an account is optional - your nights are saved on your own device unless you ask them to follow you elsewhere. How it works
Find the band.
Search any artist, or start from the names in the ticket fan. Tick the nights you were at. Their whole documented touring history is there, newest first - dates, venues, cities and tours.
Already log your shows on setlist.fm? Paste your username on the home page and your “I was there” list arrives already ticked. Read your record.
Every song you’ve heard live and how often, your tours, your cities and countries, the rarities you happened to catch - and the nights that made them. Print it.
An A4, print-resolution poster styled for the artist, plus ticket stubs and a map of where you’ve been. Keep them in your collection and re-print any time.
It allows you to generate various graphics such as the ones below:
And here's one for Rush... again, it's not quite correct...
