Recorded one hot day in the summer of 1993 whilst living in a dank back room in #54 Crossgate in the heart of Durham City, right next door to The Angel.  There was a strong community feel in that picturesque corner of town between resident academics and transient drinkers (and vice-versa) & times it felt like a village - certainly more village-like than actual villages I'd lived in; hell it's one of the few places I've lived that I actually miss!  The music was also moved by impressions of Chagall who I was pretty obsessed with at that time, hence the working title - 'I & the Village', later just 'Village'.  The painting was on the cover of a book called 'Chagall - The Masterworks' (bought at The Works on Silver Street along with two others on Miro & Klee)  which I had propped up for inspiration.  20-years later, July 2013, I saw the painting for the first time at the Tate Liverpool Chagall exhibition, leading to a week-long search in the archives.  Not bad, even though I say so myself - a simple ostinato of crwth, saz and plant pots with a modulating melodica improvisation that still sounds pretty cool to my ears.   

Composition & performance by Sedayne : Cura Saz, Crwth, Plant Pots, Bells, Hohner Melodica Alto. Recorded on a Yamaha MT44 4-track cassette machine + Alesis Midiverb 3.

I & The Village

This revisits an earlier theme by way of a free-styled raga.  My 'Myth' themes each came to me in dreams; at the time I dreamt a lot of rural pre-industrial cultures & villages which would invariably feature music, some of which which would survive in my walking brain long enough to sing it into a microphone.  Channelling?  Not sure, some of those dreams were very vivid, and the music even more so, likewise the primitive / pagan / pre-Christian / agrarian / Indo-European / ancestral communities in which I found myself.  But all a long time ago now; I haven't had a dream like that in almost 20 years....

Recorded October 1993, Durham City, on my old Yamaha MT-44 four track cassette machine with an Alesis microverb 3.  Instruments : fowler calls / rattles /  bells / dumbek / Yugoslavian double flute / goat / crwth / koboz / saz.. All performances : Sedayne.


October Myth (October 1994)

Recorded at some point in the autumn of 2002, this is edited to about half the length of the original 'No-Age Crwth Raga' from a CD-R album called 'From the Proverbs of Hell - Sonatas for Crwth & Proximal Continuo'.  The drone & drum loop was programmed from some very basic software that came bundled with the sound-card I was using at the time (Audigy Soundblaster?) and the crwth was improvised in real time, recorded onto Cubase, which I no longer have, but wish I did.  In fact, of all the 'kit' used to do this, only the crwth survives to fight another day, but seldom has it ever sounded as sweet as this...

In Seed Time Learn, In Harvest Teach, In Winter Enjoy : Autumn 2002

This is the piece that was featured on BBC Radio 3's Mixing It back in 2000, from my 90-minute cassette album HOMETIME, recorded on my old Yamaha MT-44 cassette 4-track and mixed through a long defunct Alesis reverb using the MT-44 EQ to add rhythmic emphasis in real-time.  Boca Chica is an area of North Blyth, though the name is no longer current.  As a kid it was the name of a colliery row on the bank of the river in the shadow of Blyth Power Station and the title of the piece relates to the line 'You can see the moon from Boca Chica, but you can't see Boca Chica from the moon,' from a story I wrote around the same time I recorded the music.  The Hometime album also received praise from Ben Watson of (but not in) The Wire.  He wrote: 'Its attention to slow slow-shaping timbre managed to burst through my anti-folk prejudices... Handful of Dust meets Alan Stivell? Sonically immersive / anxiously celtic but guaranteed devoid of romantic bullshit.' 

I still think of it as a personal best & hold out hope for an official release one day... 

Instrumentarium: gardon / assorted whistle flutes / dumbek / crwth / alto melodica / ankle bells / animal bells / soil / corn / fowler calls / spectral leakage

Boca Chica from the Moon - Part 1 : Autumn 1996

This is an improvised & completely misheard rendering of the Scot's folk song 'Where the Gardi Runs' from the singing of Clive Powell.  Field-recorded entirely live in the old rock-cut wine cellars of Belsay Hall in Northumberland.  I made the Jouhikko (Finnish bowed-lyre) myself in 1983 from wind-fallen spruce + horse-hair strings based on the Otto Malmberg original.  Pretty rough, but rough is muckle braw.   

Sedayne : singing / jouhikko / ankle bells / Sami 3-hole wooden fish flute.

Here's the original (as sung to Clive Powell by Jane Turriff; the words anyway, I made this tune up myself on the spot)

Oh I wish I was where the Gadie rins
Through the brawlin' wheat an' the yellow whins
Aye an' loupin o'er the bogie lins
At the fit o' Bennachie

Weenst a had twa braw lads,
twa braw lads, twa bra lads,
Weenst a had twa braw lads,
But noo I havna naen

One was killed at the Lourin Fair,
Lourin Fair, Lowrin Fair,
One was killed at the Lourin Fair,
The ithery ane was drowned in the deep (sea or Dee?)

They crowded in sae thick on him,
sae thick on him, sae thick on him,
They crowded in sae thick on him,
He couldna fight not flee

Oh I wish I was where the Gadie rins
Through the brawlin' wheat an' the yellow whins
Aye an' loupin o'er the bogie lins
At the fit o' Bennachie.

Gardi Rins : 1995

Recorded whilst residing in a wee room in a dilapidated house on Crossgate, Durham City during the spring & summer 1994,  this music draws upon a diversity of inspirations, in particular the Ancient Egyptian pomegranates in The Oriental Museum (which confirmed the notion of Biblical Fruit) & summer days filled with light / warmth / even moved to perform despite being Very Ill; taking to the streets with crwth & berimbua on glad & balmy days in celebration of Alchemical resplendence, light, 100% optimystic faith in dub-wise Proximal Indo-European Imrov. 

*
Part One : BIRD AFLAME (2.18).  Recorded entirely live during rehearsals for my one-man show of the same name & featured in my solo storytelling performance at The Crick-Crack Club in London later the same year.  

(storytelling / berimbau / bird / bells / melodica) 

Rap: aye bird gazed out at day / saw sun risen there / saw sun risen where cloud came bright / where cloud came bright in bright blue sky / wind sang the day / wind sang the day ablaze / afresh / aflame / ablaze / afresh / aflame / and bird saw in this the dreaming eye of kema / the dreaming / dreaming eye of kema wakes / gazing out at bird / gazing out sky where bird flew / gazing out at sky where bird flew away into clear bright air til kema saw bird no more / away into clear bright air til kema saw bird no more 

Part Two : MAIA (10.04). Acoustic dub-wise jubilance based on The Lady With the Golden Slippers from Sun Ra's seminal Nubians of Plutonia on which I exchange solos with my various instrumental selves on Chinese Rizla Flute / Surrogate Koboz and Hohner Melodica Alto via my old Yamaha MT44 cassette 4-track complete with real-time dub echoes.  That I can still love this music almost 20 years on is testimony to something.

(berimbau / woodblock / dholak / birds / Chinese flutes / melodica / koboz)


BIRD MAIA : Spring 1994

Recorded whilst residing in a wee room in a dilapidated house on Crossgate, Durham City during the spring & summer 1994, this music draws upon a diversity of inspirations, in particular the Ancient Egyptian pomegranates in The Oriental Museum (which confirmed the notion of Biblical Fruit) & summer days filled with light / warmth / even moved to perform despite being Very Ill in celebration of Alchemical resplendence, light, 100% optimystic faith in dub-wise Proximal Indo-European Imrov.. 

*

Part One : BIRD SAW YEAR FALL (3.29)  Recorded entirely live during rehearsals for my one-man show of BIRD & featured in my solo storytelling performance at The Crick-Crack Club in London later the same year. 

(storytelling / harmonic pipe / rattles / bells / frame drum) 

Rap : bird saw year fall / year fall rise there / where moon set / where moon set sea water shone / water shone flare there / where bright hare ran / bright hare / brother hare / brother hare / sister hare / brother hare go there / bird saw brother hare go there / go where / go where / go where / where go brother hare / seeking dark land / said brother hare seeking dark land where no more shone moon / where no more moon shone / bird said / bird said brother hare we go / we go where no more moon shone / come bird hare say / come bird go there / still shining moon set hare ran bird flew / chased the year turning wheel fall risen there / seeing bird hare sang / seeing hare bird sang / seeing bird hare sang / aye seeing hare bird sang / seeing hare / bird sang 

Part Two : PSALM 102 Vs 7 (3.24)  This comes out a primal modal shadow of spontaneous Indo-European modality arising when one juxtaposes Plant Pots with Overtone 3-hole pipes and a Hohner Melodica Alto .  How this relates to Psalm 102 is anyone's guess really.  The verse in question: I have watched, and am even as it were a sparrow : that sitteth alone in the house-top.  I was very ill at the time in the initial rush of Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome which had me just about flattened most days.  Shame the old analogue tape-stock hasn't fared too well over the years, but there's a cunning here that still has me smiling.
 
(harmonic pipes / rattles / birds / bells / plant pots / melodica) 




BIRD BROTHER HARE : Spring 1994

Having just found an old hard-drive stuffed with things recorded in the dim / distant past, I've opened up PLOUGHMYTH HISTORIES to make various selections available for a short spell until I replace them with something else.   

Ploughmyth : Histories

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