I saw a film yesterday must be a hundred years old
Of a music hall dancer
She stole the show then stole my soul
Sometimes things we know must stay untold
If silence is gold
But I’ll never hold her close because I’m
From another place in time

I saw a film yesterday that was ever so old
Of a chorus line
My love was on the front row she dances so
Beautifully like a candle light
Or a lacewing’s flight
But I’ll never hold her close because I’m
From another place in time

The dancing light on Windermere knows all the secrets hidden there
The coin that’s thrown and disappears
Takes with it my love
Her image passes through the air
Ignites the dust that’s drifting there
Projected as my own despair for unrequited love

If she would come to me in the night
I will her close when I close my eyes
If she would lay down here by my side
If she would look back into my eyes
But all she is is flickering light
All that’s left is flickering light
From another place in time
Another place in time
Another place in time

Artefacts and Findings

Another Place in Time

Another Place In Time

The theme tune to the TV series Detectorists by Mackenzie Crook.

Detectorists

Traditionally, ghost stories are best told by firelight on dark evenings, and this exactly is how I chose to deliver this haunted tale. The lyric explores a presence; a deep sense of longing which will neither resolve itself nor be exorcised. In an era when most people have abandoned the old ways to embrace an existence minus spirituality, mystery and magic, this song illustrates that no matter how rational we think we are, we will never be fully able escape our own personal ghosts.

The ‘reflection by the water in failing daylight’ scene was filmed one evening at Fisherrow Harbour, east of Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth and the rest, this was recorded one cold and moonless night at Green Cottage in Bury, Lancashire.

The suitably Gothic thumbnail I have used for this track on here and for digital distribution purposes to iTunes etc. is actually a picture of a friendly rook I met, he was perched on a fence post set in the beguiling ritual landscape of Stone Henge in Wiltshire. There is a video to accompany this song which you can find on Youtube.

I See Ghosts

The invisible Sirens of the constantly changing Menai Strait landscape sing to me constantly, drawing me inexorably back to this most mystical of places. The old bridge has an atmosphere of its own, particularly after dark. This is the time when for me the place really comes alive. The clockwork tides and perennial pulse of the lighthouse at Penmon offer a sense of comfort, while the fluctuating strength and direction of the restless waters offer a constant reminder of how close to the edge of the world we really are.

The video which can be seen on Youtube was filmed after dark on location on the Menai Straits, at beautiful Penmon and at the Albert Halls Theatre, Bolton, Lancashire.

The Bridge of Lost Souls

The Bridge Of Lost Souls

Having lived on Anglesey as an infant and spending much of my school holidays thereafterwards, Puffin Island as the Victorians named it, became a fixture in the firmament of my imagination. The Vikings called it Priestholm because of the monastery, and the locals Ynys Lannog. Sadly, what the Druids called it, we will never know.

Like the moon, everyone I knew had seen Puffin, but no one had actually ventured there across those turbulent, swirling waters off Black Point at Penmon.

Inspired by an inexorable and undefinable attraction, I eventually wrote to the landowner Sir Richard Buckley to asked for permission to land a myself and party of close friends onto the island. The good Baronet kindly acceded so I took our small band of intrepid adventurers over the choppy sound in a small inflatable boat, eventually landing us all safely on the pebbled foreshore. 

The island was wild and incredibly thick with vegetation, we struggled on as far as we could up the steep path but we simply could not make it to the twelfth century ruins and the intriguing archaeology beyond. 

It is believed that Puffin is final resting place of at least one ancient king and we know that it is the sacred burial ground of the countless of monks of who followed in the footsteps of the island's sixth century hermit, St Seiriol. This is my kind of treasure island and it's hallowed soil surely abounds with the evidence of several millennia of personal stories, just waiting to be discovered.

The view back towards Anglesey and the mainland from Puffin is priceless. I feel very privileged to have had an opportunity to stand there and take it in. The chap on the cover photo is my brother Geoff who is looking out towards the 1843 Menai Lighthouse which bears the ominous words "NO PASSAGE LANDWARD", a vivid reminder to sailors to steer clear of the same treacherous rocks that inevitably rob the tackle of visiting mackerel fisherman every late summer. Those three words were something I would later pay homage to in the lines of this song: "With no safe passage on the landward side for a man that's all at sea, there was no safe passage for me". 

Well we all made it back safely, but not without our craft being unceremoniously dumped from the crest of a wave onto its side among the pebbles of Penmon, sending the crew sprawling in a cacophony of laughter.

The island has always had spiritual associations. It was a place of religious importance to the Druids, a people who were finally eradicated as a culture on Ynys Mon by the Romans nearly two millennia ago. 

Anyone who has visited here will have found the place utterly enchanting, this song is my tribute to this most wonderful and precious of islands. The video to accompany this song is can be seen on Youtube.

St Seiriol's Island and Me (Theme from Puffin Island)

St Seiriol's Island And Me (Theme from Puffin Island)

I love the word 'singularity', not that I get to use it often, but in 'everyday' parlance, singularity means uniqueness or individuality. When used in the context of science and physics, it gets so much more interesting.

The term is used to describe a moment in space-time when all matter was infinitely dense and small. The Big Bang was the point when this singularity unpacked itself at an unprecedented rate to create the vast universe we see today. Well that's the current theory anyway.

The words for this song came to me one night after I had stared in awe into a clear night sky. I was inspired by the knowledge that there countless worlds out there and was intrigued to think that that due to the unimaginable distances involved, the image I was seeing was in many cases, how some of the stars looked before I was born.Time and space stretched in all directions at once to deliver to me, at my relative point and at that particular moment, a singular perspective that would never be the same again. This little planet has to be the most exquisite of Time Machines!

During the production phase, I experimented using radio telescope audio recordings of pulsars as elements of percussion. These curious lighthouses of the universe rotate at varying speeds, sending beams of radiation sweeping into out the void like stellar Catherine wheels. Although the swansong rhythms of these highly magnetic dying stars felt right to use contextually, the lack of any sentience in their mantra contradicted the emotional essence I wanted the piece to reflect.

The song is simple in construction; lyrically I have used the Singularity theory as a metaphor for the human emotional experience of loss, that inescapable experience of union and irreversible separation that so often goes on to define us. 

When I listen to it back now, in the intro I can hear the pulsing hearts of a myriad of stars. After the first verse, cellos rise in unison before the melody separates, sending each element soaring to their own distinct destinies, never to be reunited.

Stargazing
Contemplating the distance between you and I
It isn't just those silent miles
We're divided by time
You and I were cradled in one place
Now I see we're moving further away
You shared with me
Singularity

You can find the video for this song on Youtube. Many thanks to Anglesey photographer Gwenllian Pritchard for allowing me to make a simple video based on her fantastic collection of photographs of natural heart shapes she discovered in North Wales. She also took the transfixing picture I used for the cover of a person unknown, stood at the apex of Snowdon, leaning on a singular upright stone as they muse over the stirring panorama.

Singularity

A song for which the video was filmed in the neolithic landscape of Brodgar and at the beach at Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland. Andy who wrote the music for this track couldn't make the pilgrimage there with me however I took with me a part of him in the wooden staff you see in the video on Youtube. He had carved it using the stem of a young tree from his Welsh mountainside woodland where he can often be found working on his encampment.
Video here: http://youtu.be/XpeSyC0mWp0

Brodgar

Whirlpools in my Mind.
I was influenced bythe plague doctor mask I came across near Kielder Forest and used a steampunk take this with the bird skull in the video for this song. Stories about the dreaded whirlpools in the swellies between the bridges to Anglesey both beguiled and frightened me as a small boy and they've been a source of fascination and wonder to me ever since. They seemed to me like portals to an underworld, watery black holes ready to drown those unfortunate enough to be caught in their grasp. 
The maths formula behind the spiral patterns we see repeated throughout nature is truly beautiful. The video pays homage to a couple of Leonardos: Fibonacci the medieval mathematician credited with the theory and Da Vinci who was fascinated by what rules lay behind the motion of water.

Another Place In Time

Ray Godwin

Related tracks