Our Song of the Day is from The Magnetic North featuring Erland Cooper, Hannah Peel and Simon Tong who we first featured on Folk Radio UK back in 2012 with their debut album Orkney: Symphony Of The Magnetic North. Their new album, Prospect Of Skelmersdale, sees them turning to their focus to Skelmersdale in West Lancashire which was designated a new town in 1961. It’s a town with a strange history, one that witnessed falling house prices and rising unemployment in the Thatcher era and then, in a strange turn of events, the town was chosen as the official UK home of the Transcendetal Meditation movement in the 80’s. Band member Simon Tong moved there as a child in 1984. Watch their new video for A Death In The Woods:
Erland: “Death In The Woods was the turning point. It’s about a boy, going to meet his mates on a crappy bus on his way to a crappy location, just being a kid. There’s spit on the windscreen, shit on the pavement. It’s someone’s life. Lyrically, that song set the record on its course.”
If Orkney… is the musical equivalent of great nature writing then Prospect of Skelmersdale is somewhere between finely tuned kitchen sink drama and urban psychogeography. Inspired as much by the greys and greens of Kes as the soothing, cyclical patterns of meditative ragas, Prospect of Skelmersdale is a collection of musical snapshots of a uniquely British town.
Released March 18th via Full Time Hobby.
Pre-order via Amazon