going through boxes

Listening to 

Lost Wisdom pt.2, Mount Eerie

Limmy on the Blind Boy podcast

I've been enjoying Emma Falconer's blog posts. There have been a few lately and they're always interesting. 

I started writing something new and painting angels with ink. It occurred to me that it'd be useful to refer back to my old diary for certain sections. I saw that there were quite a few pages left at the end so I've started writing in it again to help me keep track of the days. 

Hidden Rivers 2011-2020

I think I mentioned that I wanted to blog in more detail about the items inside the Sea Glass box set. The title for Hidden rivers is borrowed from a song by my friend Olly Watson. 

The songs for this were recorded at various times over two or three years on a four-track cassette recorder. The one called Wrens was probably recorded first and is about my grandmother and her life as a young woman. Then there is one about the riots that occurred in the wake of the shooting of Mark Duggan by the police in Tottenham. The last one called honeymoon is about when F. and I got married and spent a couple of days and nights in Berlin. We saw our friend Daniel and went to our favourite places.

I made a whole booklet to accompany this – It was a collage of diary entries and doodles – but I wasn't happy with it. I was reading a a big collection of Aline Kominsky-Crumb's comics and thought they were so brilliant and that the perfect thing to accompany these [mostly] wordless songs would be a confessional comic. I started making it in about 2016 but kept re-doing panels and word bubbles. 

The cover and title was the last thing I decided. I had this brass-rubbing of a special plaque about a hidden river 'beneath your feet' in Kennington. The elements just seemed to fit together comfortably.

Reading
lots of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics I picked up at Ace Comics in Colchester. We went there to see the castle and priory and had a nice walk in the rain and a Nepalese meal. It was my birthday!

Listening to
In Memory Of Nikki Arane by Eugene Chadborn and John Zorn. I got this from the Cafe Oto shop, they provide a great space in London for a diverse range of contemporary artists, including a sympathetic space for touring greats who have often been sidelined and otherwise erased from mainstream history. They are a not-for-profit community interest space and would love you to sell you something to enjoy at home while you are not able to visit them in person.

Island × 1 by Ana Da Silva & Phew. Purchased from my favourite record store Radio/ON. They currently have free shipping on standard delivery items(check there website for the most up-to-date information.

I haven't mentioned this yet but I've been trying to set up a little arts lab in my town. This Saturday (21 Mar 2020) at 7pm-ish, We're hoping to set up a live-stream, which people can join from their homes. It could be nice, who knows! I'll make some sounds and images, maybe you can join with your own?

This is a little video of the last one (note: next get together is digital only)