MOUNT SKIDDAW RINGING ROCKS RECORDING SESSION ~
On the occasion of the publication (Nov. 2025) in the Italian magazine In Your Eyes of an interview with Matt Howden, focused on the recent publication of the album "Language For Stone" by Matt Howden and Keith Howden [AR R6], we publish the photo diary of the expedition carried out in 2020 in search of the musical stones of Mount Skiddaw. Some of these photos were a corollary to the interview, which however is only in Italian: we therefore take this opportunity to publish the English version as a corollary to the photo reportage.
In 2019 Archaeological Records commissioned Matt Howden and Keith Howden to produce an album and a collection of poems dedicated to the lithophone built by Peter Crosthwaite in Keswick and the musical stones of Cumbria. In addition to the willingness to let us record the sounds of the stones in the local museum where the instrument is kept, we wanted to go further, looking for the outcrop of stones that Crosthwaite had drawn from. After much searching we located him, and organized an expedition to record the voices.
[AR R6] "Language For Stone" - Matt Howden / Keith Howden has been released in a limited edition of (n.5) lathe cut vinyl, and CD.
The album is available for free dowload on:
Merch from Archaeological Records
How was the “Language for Stone” project born?
The project was born via Giulio Di Mauro, and his exploration of musical stones, his revealing of the story of Peter Crosthwaite to me. He and I have connections from way back in the mists of time, and he knows my work often deals with nature, with the land, the more pagan elements of this world. Add to that, that I guess 'I am my father's son' in this respect: My father Keith Howden who's poetry deals in similar currencies and metaphors based on nature, rituals and landscapes. And for both of us, landscapes that are rooted in the North of England, home to the Skiddaw stones.
How was the musical research carried out to prepare this work? And how did you locate the stones?
My initial act was to commission my father to 'get on and write poems' we could use; then a magical, quite often hysterically comical mystic journey around the Lake District with Giulio and my fisherman friend Tim to find the stones, (Tim went fishing at this point). Then to sample the stones that Peter Crosthwaite handily compiled into a many-metres long lithophone in Keswick Museum. My secondary (but equally important) research went into the pubs of the local area of the Lake District- those with good local food, those with well-kept real ales ;)
Giulio will tell you about the stones, and his research: [... Giulio Di Mauro's foray: The English trader Peter Crosthwaite returned from one of his trips to the East with a vivid memory of a large lithophone he had seen in China. These were probably large hanging stones, which hang vertically and are rung like bells in rooms inside temples which amplify the sound. It is - Crosthwaite had intuited it, and was admired by it - a particular type of stone, one that has a mineral composition and a density such as to be able not only to emit a melodic sound (to our ear) but also to propagate this sound internally so as to emit it ringing and clean, apparently and amplified. Crosthwaite was lucky enough to come across very similar stones by chance, right in his native region, and after having collected enough of them he intoned them following the structure of a piano. According to the research we carried out, there are no other locations with the emergence of musical stones in England other than Cumbria. We located them by comparing documents and maps and asking the help of a few friends that are more fond of geology and topography than us. But we have also been very lucky. ;)]
Your musical style as a duo is unique and very original, rooted in two other beautiful previous collaborations. For the two of you, is yours music or rather a poem with sounds?
Who knows?! We both do our own thing, artistically. For me, writing the music was an act that was and must be secondary to the words, their meaning, their clarity- when they happen - but never simply background to the words. The music has to breath, to inhale and exhale sympathetically, with, in the words - then stretch limbs in the spaces around the words, between stanzas, pick up and carry themes into the musical realm.
Is the word as an act of birth, reference and power still valid in this era of very fast images?
A word can still pin a star to a night, or sink a politician or battleship, I would hope. But I take your meaning, and share much of the concerns that lie within your question. To answer more directly, then simply 'yes' suffices, but only to those who care for, curate, or revere words - and all too often throughout the ages there are only some fuckers paying attention to such powers, and more are simply concerned with 'what's for dinner?' ;)
Is working with such a close relative easy or does it entail difficulties?
If we'd had to work together it would have been impossible, working slowly towards the terrible ;) Fortunately two 'lone wolves' could do their own thing. My father, his poetry in perfect isolation- save for the fact we explained the project, talked of the Skiddaw stones. The poems are cast, then the musical work can begin. I'd made some experiments with the stones and their sound, but all began properly once the poems were recorded and in place in my music software.
England is not a place like any other, it has very specific characteristics and history, how much does it influence your creations?
It for sure, does. I'm probably too embroiled in them, the normal condition of being to see clearly how it affects me and my work. I'm a lover of walking and landscapes, and especially early in my career, much of my musical writing was heavily influenced by the visual. And Language For Stone certainly was. There is a particular roughness to the landscape that I wanted to capture in the music - sometimes with Classical-ish melodies played by a folk orchestra; sometime splintering electronics applied to a clean violin held note; something gnawing at the edges of the music.
The album has a mixed feeling of playful scientific research and evocative mysterious folk mythology. Are stones conductors of sound waves or are they creators of music themselves?
The Skiddaw stones certainly need to be hit, and they don't have their own Bandcamp or YouTube channel, and in fact their greatness lies in their musical ineptitude. By this, I mean they are wonderfully imperfect- both the stones we hit and mis-hit ourselves, crudely dampening whilst being held in the other hand. Even with the Crosthwaite lithophone, they are crudely carved- others ring clear, some an imperfect harmonic, yet more slightly flat, dampened, another, more airy. All faults a good musician picks up on and exaggerates for the amusement of all.
You expanded the dimension of violin playing, and inspired many. Does music still have a fertile space for creation or has everything already been heard?
Oh, always new space ahead! I keep trying to make music like it has never been heard before, but it is hard to even hear it in your own head, let alone create the impossible instruments played ignoring the time-space continuum we exist in. We may just not be trying hard enough, I suspect. i shall get back to it :)
Future projects?
At the moment I am recording the 'definitive' collection of the best of my back catalogue of songs written over the last 30 years. 50 or so songs exclusively for my patrons (www.patreon.com/MattHowden) to try and capture their very essence and how they are now as songs. Before I move on to the next Sieben album, where I will indeed attempt music like it has never been heard before - or at least take it to a place I have never been before with it :) Thanks for the interview.