2015 has been a very, very busy, but rewarding year. Here’s a little recap on some things that unfolded over the last 12 months.
Writing
Being involved in The Alchemical Landscape project really pushed my academic writing this year. I think The Bright Sound Behind the Sound is probably my best and most coherent writing to date, and will be preparing it shortly for journal submission. It was also a pleasure to submit work to two independent projects: Phil Barrington’s The Golden Age of Bloodsports (collected writings of Jhonn Balance), and Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies. The final paper of the year, “Good Books to Call By” enjoyed a very positive reception at Exploring the Extraordinary 7 and marks a new series of avenues to explore. Finally, I worked with my long-time colleague Nigel Morgan on Parametric Composition a comprehensive guide to algorithmic composition, which you can preview here and buy here!
The Many-Coloured Earth: Visionary Creativity, Imaginal Landscapes and the Hermeneutic Imagination [Academia.edu]
The Bright Sound Behind the Sound: Real-World Music, Symbolic Discourse and the Foregrounding of Imagination [Academia.edu]
“Good Books to Call By”: Speech and Materiality in the Necromantic Workings of Humphrey Gilbert and John Davis [Academia.edu]
‘For Learning, Not for Show: Esoteric Books from the Coil Estate’ in The Golden Age of Bloodsports [Academia.edu || PDF]
‘The Haunted Fields of England: Diabolical Landscapes and the Genii Locorum’ in Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies [Buy]
Sounding
Layla and I are both really pleased by the reception of Hawthonn, which we released in April and has been positively reviewed in The Quietus, Active Listener, Forestpunk and Modern Mythology, and also made #21 on The Quietus’ top albums of 2015. The ‘limited’ digital edition of 72 copies including Holophones (80 minutes of bonus audio) and the journal of our workings has sold out, but the unlimited edition is still available!
We’re working on some new material for either an album of EP before embarking on another major themed project later in 2016.
Another highlight of 2015 has been experimenting with Ben Chasny’s Hexadic system. The system was inspiring in many ways, and I wrote a two part blog to complement some of the ideas that I found it evoked. The collected Hexadic experiments are available on Sorath, and it was my intention to create an album that demonstrated the flexibility of Ben’s system away from the fretboard… although I hope to sit down with six strings in the near future. Six Organs’ recent Hexadic II is getting great reviews, too!
Not sure 2016 will be quite so insanely productive, but… we’ll see!
