#belbury poly

[dvoeverie-stitches]

[ofleafstructure]

Some people like to pair wine to their food course, I like to pair reading with a fitting soundtrack.

First Image: Poster by Julian House for Belbury Poly's 2012 album The Belbury Tales.

Second Image: Book cover by Richard Wells for Damnable Tales: A Folk Horror Anthology. Wells selected the stories as well.

[ghostswerepeopletoo]

Sing out, Louise!

12 - Ghosts in Folk Music

Ballads and broadsides, sailors and skeletons, sisters and sampling, and… have you seen the ghost of John? We touch on some common themes and formats as well as academic approaches to analyzing and archiving folk tunes/lyrics. Come for the intertextuality, sociofunctionalism, politics, and anthropology—stay for the boos.

[themancorialist]

Oldham Street, Manchester.

[burlveneer-music]

Belbury Poly - Root and Branch - from the new album, The Gone Away (Ghost Box) (natch)

Inspired by far-fetched fairy folklore, The Gone Away is the new album by Belbury Poly, the recording name of Ghost Box Records co-founder Jim Jupp. Vintage electronics, music room instrumentation and polyrhythmic sequences conjure up folk-ish, kosmiche melodies.

Evocative and unsettlingly familiar, it sets a darker and more serene tone than the last full-length Poly album, New Ways Out. Belbury Poly’s sound palette is still in evidence however; mellow analogue synths, rustic pipes and rusty strings. Gone are the usual supporting session musicians, with Jupp performing all parts himself. The album came together slowly over the course of three years while Jupp collaborated on various side projects and was finally completed a few days before the global lockdown commenced.

[placidhousee]

Belbury Poly / The Gone Away / Ghost Box Records Design by Julian House

[thehauntedgeneration]

My favourite Belbury Poly album, evoking the folk horror landscapes of Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood. The Willows, and especially Caermaen, are wonderful.

Listen to the full playlist here. Occasionally available from Ghost Box records.

I would be extremely greatful to anyone who recognises the Caermaen folk song.

[passionate-reply]

JOHN FOXX & THE BELBURY CIRCLE - “SUIT”

Ever since leaving Ultravox to pursue weirder and wilder things, John Foxx has been something of a serial collaborator, constantly teaming up with sundry other artists. I could list them all out, here, but I would quickly run out of space on this post, and spoil all of my ideas for other things I want to write about on my blog. Suffice it to say that I think it’s very valuable for creative people to collaborate, and that it forces us to rethink things and come to insightful new conclusions. The major threads of his style have remained very consistent, but each new partnership he forges seems to bring a bit of new light to his work in a way that’s satisfying to the devoted fan while still being interesting and breaking some new ground. 

I especially admire Foxx’s ability to indulge in what we might consider “trendy” movements in electronic music. One of my other hobbies besides music is fashion, and I see discourse about trends and their significance there all the time. The common-sense consensus always seems to be that one should feel free to reject trends entirely, while also feeling free to indulge in items that are trendy and have fun with them, as long as one is true to their own style and wearing what one genuinely enjoys. I think a lot of music critics are guilty of rejecting trendy movements out of hand, or at least believing that a trend is only valuable if it manages to stick around and turn into a more permanent fixture. You likely won’t be surprised that I see it more like leopard mini-skirts. Over the years, John Foxx has dabbled in everything from “electroclash” in the Aughts to “vapourwave” more recently, and earlier this past decade he went a little “hauntology.”

Chiefly associated with the independent record label Ghost Box Records, the brainchild of one Jim Jupp, the hauntology aesthetic is sort of like vapourwave for an earlier generation. They’re both heavily anchored in nostalgia and warped, incomplete remembrance of the cultural landmarks of the past, and portray that with indistinct or ambiguous artistic elements. They’re a little creepy and unnerving at times, distorting the familiar, and gaslighting one’s own memories of childhood innocence. But where vapourwave channels the bubblegum excitement of Neopets, hit clips, and the SEGA Dreamcast, hauntology is more interested in things like Mid-Century public broadcasting, old science fiction, and tales of the Fortean or occult. (“The Belbury Circle” are simply the “house band” of Jupp and associates of his record label.)

Anyway, “Suit” is one of my favourite things to come from this collaboration. The styles of Foxx and Jupp mesh together incredibly well, and it feels like a very organic progression for Foxx, who’s been wistfully musing about mercurial, laconic Englishmen in grey suits drifting through desolate groves for some forty years anyhow. Whatever you want to call it, it’s the perfect thing to put on to soothe you, while cozying up indoors, or perhaps on a train, in some chilly fall or winter weather. Hot tea optional, but preferred.