The Isle is full of noises...
Music and creativity on the Isles of Scilly
I realise, with a degree of shame, that it has been a while since I posted anything… The truth is that, over the last few months of glorious Scilly summer I have, frankly, been too busy making the most of the flat seas and uncharacteristically warm breezes. In the gaps when I’ve not been boating or messing around on the beach I have spent the time writing in my small studio set in the cool shade under a row of elms at the bottom of my garden. The result: a new book celebrating the extraordinary local produce of St Agnes - An Island Food Mile - a commonplace book of St Agnes.
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Almost exactly 10 years ago, I was having a drink in the Turk’s Head on St Agnes in the Isles of Scilly with a couple of long-haired, beardy types. We’d been brought together on St Agnes over the preceding months during a number of ad hoc, mildly random musical collaborations involving Lionel Richie covers, experimental bagpipes and the attempt to keep up with international saxophonist (and St Agnes lover) Tim Whitehead, as he blazed his way through Watermelon Man in front of a very lucky island audience.
As the pints went down, a flicker of an idea occurred to me (all the best ideas are born in pubs, surely). What if the three of us (plus a fourth island-visiting musician who had been responsible for a couple of cracking Africa-based Gig for Ghana celebrations in St Agnes island hall) came together to record an album of music inspired entirely by St Agnes? And what if we recorded the album on St Agnes itself, so as to really capture the spirit of the place? I was an unusual musical nerd from a young age in terms of my listening diet. My brick-shaped mono cassette player (these were pre-ghettoblaster days) was a pretty constant companion. I didn't have many tapes: Handel's Water Music was number one for a very long time until it stretched and distorted to such an extent that even I couldn't bear it. I had to resort to Benjamin Britten's Curlew River after that instead... a tougher proposition. A few years later, my big brother - considerably cooler than me - organised a family whip-round to scrape together enough for an early model Walkman for my birthday. He accompanied this with a copy of Super Trouper, concerned (rightly) that I was becoming irretrievably dull. Sadly, Abba didn't catch on, and I soon replaced it with a much-loved cassette of Simon Standage's classic Four Seasons with The English Concert. But it was Radio 3 that really shaped my listening over the years. My father, before me, always swore that he had been educated by the 'Third Programme' and, to this day, R3 has an uncanny knack of mirroring my musical interests at any given time. Yes, there is a fairly high proportion of the old warhorses - Brahms symphonies, Beethoven sonatas, Verdi operas, and so on. But this is diluted by a surprisingly adventurous streak that takes in experimental music, spoken word, jazz, ambient electronica and music by lesser-known (often female) composers. Imagine, then, my childish delight on discovering that a track from the new Full of Noises album - en plein air - was to be played on R3 Late Junction, presented by Verity Sharp, on Thursday 23rd May. Late Junction is an incredibly precious thing in the modern one-size-fits-all musical world: after they've played all the Bach, Haydn and Shostakovitch during the day, those nice inquisitive people at Radio Three give airspace to the otherwise unheard - Kalimba players from Zambia get their moment in the limelight, alongside Appalachian song, avant-garde electronica, Galician bagpipers and, er...me. Weird music of the World unite! The show is on iPlayer for a while - click here for the link (Full of Noise can be heard at about 17:30) but, in case you miss it, the track that Late Junction played was this one: The Meadow - 23/04/17 - 5am. It was recorded outside on the tiny island of St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, at dawn on a beautiful Easter sunrise. The dawn chorus was deafening and the island cockerel was in full voice... The whole album was structured around a series of twelve improvisations recorded over a year on St Agnes. The recordings capture not only my playing but whatever ambient sounds of the island were occurring at the time - wind and sea, birdsong, the day-to-day noises of human activity... The hope was to distill the essence of particular places at particular times, rather as a landscape artist, setting up his easel in front of a view, would aim to capture the fleeting effects of light. Back in the studio, alongside my producer John Elliott (of London-based folk/electronic ensemble The Little Unsaid - a man of unique and subtle musicianship) I added piano and electronica, aiming always to remain faithful to the atmosphere and circumstances of the original improvisation. The piano fragments on The Meadow, for example, hint at the opening of Bach's St Matthew Passion (it was recorded at Easter) and the track uses the field recording of the island cockerel to reference the part played by that thrice-betraying bird in the Easter story.
If you would like to find out more about en plein air, including streaming, downloading or purchasing the entire album, you can do so here. After a few heavy-duty blogposts in past weeks, here is something a bit more frivolous; after some high-fibre breakfast fare (unsweetened oatmeal and green tea, perhaps), here is the equivalent of a cappuccino and a danish pastry: a fairly ridiculous music video featuring a track from the new Full of Noises album - en plein air It 'stars' me, playing the recorder in the pouring rain. The real star is the trusty electric golf buggy of course. Either way, if you like the track, you can stream, download or buy the whole album here: https://fullofnoises.bandcamp.com/album/en-plein-air If you would rather have an electric golf buggy, they are available here: https://ezgo.txtsv.com/golf Enjoy your breakfast! It is good to get away from Scilly occasionally… To be overloaded with such pure sensory beauty on a constant basis - that endless sea and sky, that unspoiled air, that pristine soundscape - can lead to a loss of perspective. In the same way, the social minutiae of small community life need, from time to time, to be placed in the context of 7.5 billion other people going about their daily human business. Unfortunately for me, ever since a near-death episode on a Boeing 747 in the skies over Africa in 1999 - https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/dec/30/jeevanvasagar.lizstuart - travelling away from the islands has been a battle with anxiety and creeping self-loathing that I have lost more often than I have won. And so it was again. As I unpacked my suitcase in our Montparnasse hotel, rather more spilled out than a travel adaptor, my two smart shirts and the Rough Guide to Paris...
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Author - Piers LewinI am a musician and writer living on the Isles of Scilly. These articles and posts explore music, poetry and creativity inspired by the landscape and culture of the islands. Recent Posts
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