Computers are now a staple of modern life, but in our latest FRUK video exclusive by Simon J Jones, the artist winds back the clock to the early days of distressing dial tones and white noise.
Better known to our readers as one-third of the award-winning modern folk song and storytelling trio Harp & a Monkey, on The Computer, Jones once again stays true to his key artistic commitments to gentle understatement and enduring charm.
With hypnotic curlicues of harp, guitar, viola and harmonium underpinning a distinctive vocal style, this song sets the tone well as the opening track on Jones’s debut solo album, How Things Work – a fragile and quirky song cycle celebrating his enduring passion for vintage Ladybird Books.
From explorations of the seasons to key historical figures, on How Things Work, Jones has embraced the visual and written aesthetic of a classic British publishing house and provided a fitting celebration of the positive role it has played in the lives of generations of families.
Simon explained of this latest offering: “I find it really interesting the way The Computer (first published in 1978) embraced the wonders of ultra-modern technology in the same gentle way, and with the same gentle tone, that Ladybird used for everything it did – it could just as easily have been talking about a quintessential pastoral scene in middle England as cutting-edge technology. After reading it you feel let down to discover that computers aren’t made of finest cartridge paper, straw, and bicycle innertubes!”
Jones added: “There’s an interesting story about The Computer book: in the 1970s the Ministry of Defence is said to have ordered a number of copies of it for its staff – but printed with a plain cover so that they didn’t recognise it as a Ladybird title primarily aimed at children. From what I understand, this book was seen as a much more accessible and understandable introduction to computing than anything the MoD had itself produced at the time.”
In our review of How Things Work, we described it as “a delight from start to finish” and a “significant artistic achievement”. You can purchase it via Bandcamp at: https://simonjohnjones.bandcamp.com/