Study Series 3 and 4 and Farmer's Angle (Rev. Ed) - Pre-ordering now

This September is a big month for Ghost Box with the release of the next two singles in our Study Series. Study Series 03 "Welcome to Godalming" is a split single with Belbury Poly and Mordant Music who come together with two very different musical portraits of a small English town. Study Series 04 "Familiar Shapes and Noises" sees Broadcast and The Focus Group continuing the magickal collaboration begun on Warp's Witch Cults of the Radio Age.

Also due at the same time is Belbury Poly's Farmers Angles (Revised Edition) EP. This is an updated version of the first ever Ghost Box release. Back by popular demand, it'll be available on 10", CD and download. It features three new tracks, one a re-imagining of one of the originals by The Advisory Circle.

All three titles will be available on 10th September, but you can pre-order right now at the Ghost Box shop.

Markets of Britain

(with thanks to Dan Lewsley)

Get the new look for Autumn now.

Available from the Ghost Box shop now.

Also coming to Ghost Box in September:

Study Series 3 & 4:  Mordant Music, Belbury Poly, Broadcast and The Focus Group.

Ether

Love this little film by Dolly Dolly:

Cafe Kaput Music

Jon Brooks "off of" The Advisory Circle, has just launched his own digital only record label Cafe Kaput. The first title out of the bag is the marvellous Music in the Classroom by D.D. Denham.

It will be available 6th September through itunes, amazon and the gang. You can read the full story here and hear some clips here. I wonder if one of D.D. Denham's synthesizing machines would improve attendance at Sunday school ?

The Outer Church with Position Normal, Brighton, 11th August

10th September 10", CD & Download

Electric Eden

I'm currently enjoying Rob Young's new book Electric Eden, a kind of psychological history of British folk music. The book traces a lineage of visionary music taking in composers, archivists, folk traditionalists, folk psyhcedelicists, rock outsiders, and contemporary electronic fantasists. The commonalities for this diverse crowd are identified as the yearnings for a golden age or an imagined past, and the influence of British literature, film and TV, rich with a sense for landscape and nostalgia. It is shown how, time and again this uniquely British sensibility is electrified with a keen sense of modernism and an awareness of what the future may or may not hold.

Its an epic and absorbing read and makes all kinds of truely enlightening connections.  I'll say no  more because I've not finished it yet (I did, of course, skip ahead to the back to read the bits about Ghost Box, so I know it ends well). Beware though,  this book will seriously extend your music, reading and film wants lists and reading it will very probably cost you a fortune.

The book is published by Faber & Faber and is available just about everywhere. The Electric Eden Blog is here, and I gather there'll be an illustrated talk tomorrow night, 5th August, at The Wire Salon in Cafe Oto with guest Jonny Trunk playing some records.

Mr. Young also features in similar vein in a spot of lighter reading, kindly brought to our attention by parishioner Matthew Kempson. 

Its the August edition of  Sight and Sound (back issues available if you miss it) and it includes the following fascinating articles:

Cover feature: The pattern under the plough

The rhythms and rituals of rural life have seldom been conspicious in British cinema. But in feature films of the 1960s and 70s and documentaries across the decades, tantalising traces of the ‘old, weird Britain’ can still be unearthed. By Rob Young

Absent authors: Folk in artist film
William Fowler maps the enduring links between British folk culture and artists' film-making.