M G Boulter is our latest ‘Off the Shelf’ guest. In this series, we ask artists to present objects from a shelf or shelves in their homes and talk about them.
This month saw the release of M G Boulter’s new album, Days of Shaking, one of our Featured Albums of the Month. In his album review, Danny Neill describes Days of Shaking as a “bold and mystical set, a record that manages to weld M G Boulter’s suburban, day-to-day life writing with some far-out outer space thinking that gives this song collection many chewy moments; anyone hoping to easily digest each track should think again, a lot is going on here. These songs are interconnected, weaved together by memory and folklore, friendly ghosts, imagined voices in the air and recollections of childhood UFO sightings; it is all about the mysteries of the unexplained and the natural world, meditating on how we make connections in our everyday lives in order to feel some purpose, a path or an enlightenment, whether real, imagined or simply hoped for.” He concludes, “M G Boulter has aimed high with this one and taken time to create a full-length work that demands, as well as rewards, deep immersion.”
Before we take a peek at those shelves, watch his latest video for “Quiet”:
Off the Shelf with M G Boulter
A Piece of the Berlin Wall
This piece of the Berlin Wall sits on my bookshelf in the living room above one of my desks. I’m fascinated with historic objects, and I like to imagine that if they were a camera or eye, what they would have seen. This small scrap of concrete from the Wall was given to my grandfather by his German friends in 1989. It too sat on one of his bookshelves when I was growing up, and it was something that, as a child, I was constantly drawn to. When my grandfather died in 2015, I inherited all his books, shelves and the trinkets of his life. This piece of concrete shrapnel feels like a splinter from the big world history that shaped the lives of generations, including my own. Whenever I pick it up, it reminds me of the story my granddad told me once, which was that the mother of his German friend lived in Dresden (East Germany), and when she died, the government simply wrote to his friend (living in West Germany) to say his mother had died and the state had taken all her belongings; he never retrieved family photos, wedding rings, clothes and all those other precious things we hold dear as mementoes of our family. The collection of these wall fragments must have had held so much significance and symbolism for the people of Germany.
Small Black Statue of an Egyptian God
I bought this in the crypt gift shop at Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow around 2017/18. I’m not a great holiday maker, but I was compelled to get away and always had a romantic notion of Glasgow. I caught the train up there and spent three days reading a book and mooching around the city. I didn’t do anything spectacular; I dined alone and caught a sightseeing bus to look at all the sites. This statue reminds me of that time, a snapshot of three days in my life when I had no agenda but to open my eyes and experience.
Palomino Blackwing pencils in a Richard III Mug
I love quality pencils, pens and paper. As I grow older, I find it a joy to use a decent pencil to sketch ideas, and my pencil of choice is the Palomino Blackwing. For Christmas, I was bought a box of them, and they sit on my shelf in a Richard III mug I bought at Bosworth Field gift shop many years ago (one side of the shop was Henry VII merch, the other side Richard III merch, you had to choose your side). I got hooked on these pencils years previous when visiting Southampton, and my host gifted me a Blackwing – I never looked back, as they say. Truman Capote supposedly used Blackwings to write all his books with. I find writing a slowing activity which allows my mind to churn through words and ideas. It’ll take me years to work through all these pencils, but they’ll sit on my shelf until then to remind me to keep writing.
Knitted Brussel Sprout
My mum is a retired nurse, and growing up, she was always up around 6am, cooking us breakfast and making our packed lunches before heading off to work. When she retired, she threw herself into crafting, and a little like someone who has an allotment, she now produces a surfeit of crafty items. I have a whole shelf full of knitted gnomes and mushrooms. One Christmas, it was a Brussels sprout. Anything someone makes and gives you seems totally precious to me and worth keeping.
Southend Bus Toy
I get a lot of visitors here in Southend, Essex, where I live. A regular guest throughout the years has been the folk singer Lucy Farrell, so much so we jokingly call my living room the ‘Lucy Farrell Suite’ whenever anyone comes to stay. One time, she brought me this little toy of a Southend bus she had picked up at the indoor market in Maidstone. I was overjoyed at the time – another trinket for the shelf to bring back memories of happy times.
Icon of Christ on the Cross
I studied medieval history when I was younger, and whenever on tour, I try to fit in visits to interesting places. A few years back, I visited Lastingham in North Yorkshire. In the crypt of the local church there I found these huge tenth-century stone crosses, and I learnt that this was the mother church of St Cedd. In the seventh century, Cedd was sent from Lastingham to the East Saxons (in Essex, of course) to spread the gospel. He built a church at the now remote Bradwell-on-Sea (it’s still there and is one of the oldest churches in the UK), and he became the patron saint of Essex.
The connection between two places so far apart amazed me at the time. We’re all interconnected by so many stories and people and events, a thought that inspires me to continue making my Clifftown Podcast (listen on Spotify | Apple Music), which explores the hidden histories of Southend-on-Sea. These icons were available to take for a donation. It sits on one of my highest shelves and reminds me of St Cedd.
Books
It goes without saying that most of my shelves are taken up with books. I’m an avid reader and have been since I was a child. I really enjoy hearing what other people have been reading and what different books interest people. So much so that I have a monthly book club on my Patreon website (https://www.patreon.com/MGBoulter), where we discuss what we’ve been reading. It’s fun to hear what people don’t get on with in a book or to hear their passion for a particular style of book. The book I’m reading at the moment is this, ‘The Fat of the Land’ by John Seymour. It was given to me by some wonderfully hospitable people in Pembrokeshire who were putting me up after a show. The book is about a family finding self-sufficiency in 1950s Suffolk – it’s a treat, and it’s next up on the book club.
Notebooks
I am stubbornly analogue and have been keeping notebooks of my lyrics, songs and ideas since 1997. I catalogue all these notebooks and sometimes dip into them when I am looking for inspiration. It’s incredible how the mind works because sometimes I can open a book from ten years ago, read a few lines and experience the moment I wrote it exactly, recreating the mindset of a past me…it can be terrifying at times, so I try not to do it too much.
Old Mobile Phones
I’ve never thrown my old mobile phones away. These objects become depositaries of your life for years and on each of these dusty, forgotten bits of plastic and metal are photos I don’t want to lose, even though I’ve not viewed them for years. There are pictures of late relatives and Christmas dinners and backstage gig photos and smiles…I’m not ready to get rid of them. Writing this article reminds me I should really put some time aside to getting these photos saved somewhere else.
Piece of Quartz from Barricane Beach, Devon
I thought I would end on this one. This is an unremarkable piece of quartz I picked up on a Devon beach one weekend in January 2024. It was a lovely bracing walk and I was happy. I picked it up to keep and shows that I will literally take anything back home to archive…
A huge thanks to M G Boulter for sharing his memories and shelves…long may he continue to archive…
Days of Shaking is released today, 7th June 2024, via Hudson Records.
Order via: https://hudsonrecords.ffm.to/daysofshaking
Tour Dates: https://www.mgboulter.co.uk/tour-dates-2/