Yew musings

Before I step out for a misty solstice walk, and hopefully while Simon Bradley and Phil Harding race to the Halifax Beacon in order to save Time itself, here is a link to some work my husband has been doing with recordings I made at the Llangernyw yew.

Phil is calling for participation to contribute to a 40 minute piece of (rather wonderful) music, open until January 20th, 2013.

 While considering what the voice of Angelystor might sound like, he decided that it would be an aggregate of voices of all ages and sexes – the ancestral voices of the parish.

Phil would like people (globally) to contribute to the project by sending a recording of themselves saying a name.

This could be either: “Sion (pronounced ‘Shon’) ap Robert” – a man who, local legend tells, heard his own name spoken by Angelystor, or the name of a friend, family member or hero you wish to memorialise.

 If you would like to participate, please read more at his blog, Larkfall.


We have been using the Ancient Yew resource in order to find more local old yews to visit and pay homage to, sadly the gazetteer flags up many 'lost' yews, cut down while still healthy and relatively young. Last weekend we visited Hazlewood Castle's yew, which you can see in all it's glory as the first photo in this PDF.  Sadly on our visit the tree had been pruned to just it's central trunk, losing much of the bulk of the tree.

Hazlewood Castle overlooks Towton battlefield near Aberford, a place which we seem to be gravitating towards currently. We seem to have followed the course of the Cock Beck for a while now, either through Barwick, treading ancient paths, at Whinmoor, searching for the site of Penda's last battle or at Aberford, hunting blood-stained roses.

In final, and slightly less landscape related news, I have been photographing artwork created by a dear friend named John Godbert, who is a talented archaeological illustrator, also having his art featured on a myriad of album covers (such as The Fall's Live at The Witch Trials cover). He is also a rather spectacular performer, or rather, is never seen in the same room as Herb Diamante.

His collages mix imagery of the physical; biological technicalities and planets collide, with the paraphysical, John is interested in all kinds of the surreal but some of his most striking collages involve magic and the otherworld, mediums delivering reams of ectoplasm, Crowley sitting astride K2, the Cottingley fairy images. His artwork is available to purchase from my Facebook album or alternatively, Etsy.

Almias Revisited

Phil and Simon have been busy bees preparing the Almias App for Android (!) this past few months. This reworks the music and oral history elements (which were a little overshadowed by the tour and book aspects) of the art project we conducted for the Harrogate fringe a couple of years ago.

  I had the pleasure of testing it on and off the Crag and I think it's turned out wonderfully well, the original recordings of us singing and playing were made up on the crag and this brings the piece literally to life, making a changing acoustic environment depending on your movement and location on almscliffe.

The oral history interview with the landowner is also made more coherent by placing it upon the locations referred to, I am extremely pleased and proud that P + S have breathed new life into what was already a very wonderful project.

Go here to download the app!

Chandos Five Dance

One of my favorite Morris dances that Briggate dance is Chandos Five. The dance is set up with the five dancers in the figure of a cross, facing inwards and each dancer has a name for the figure she dances; pick-up, arches, twiddle, windows and reel.

Though it took a while to learn (I only had chance to dance it through twice at a practice and since then have had to muddle through at dance outs) now I know it well it has become very fun to dance and the various circles and arcs made as we move have played on my mind. I dreamt about the patterns it would make if you drew the dance out and Phil helped me make an image to represent this:

I would like to film some dances from above to try and create some images which show the patterns the dances make as I thought the Chandos pattern looked extremely beautiful.

We use bobbins with bells and ribbons on for a lot of our dances, North West style Morris is derived from the parade dances of mill workers, which also gives us the wooden clogs. Some people say the steps of some dances are supposed to echo the sound of the mill machinery, perhaps a little of the weaving patterns made it's way into the dances too. 

Institute of Stone Age Sex performance - Why Rush?

The Institute will be leading more forays into folk wyrdness at the Temple Works in Leeds on the 11th of May for the Why Rush? festival of experimental performance.

The Institute now features not one but two wonderful cellists as we have been blessed with the presence of Briony Yorke among our number. Also on the bill is another Institute member Seth Cooke, performing as Ultra Humanitarian.

We will also be leading a workshop on the Sunday on using vocal improvisation and vowel singing techniques. Come, drink and be merry!

12 Tapes

Aghartha and Seth recording in the Dark Arches.

I will be involved in a 12 hour long performance, 8am-8pm this Friday the 23rd of March at Gallery II in Bradford- the first performance of 12 Tapes which was conceived by Seth Cooke and our fellow Bang the Borers. The project has involved recording performances in 'B' inside car parks to cassette tape. Seth, Briony Yorke and I spent an evening a few weeks back recording in several car parks in Leeds for this project, including down in the Dark Arches, which came complete with its own ambient 'B' drone.

Also curated by Bang the Bore - this event at Left Bank on Cardigan Road in Leeds looks to be exciting.

Mary Bateman Artwork

I've been neglecting Mary of late, something I plan to make amends for. In the meantime I happened upon a portrait of the Yorkshire Witch herself by James Woodford, one of series of paintings relating to immortalised remains.

You can check out more of Woody's beautiful artwork here at his website.