This month’s Ceremonial Counties release – Worcestershire and the Isle of Wight – comes from the great Bell Lungs, a Scottish/Turkish singer, sound artist and multi-instrumentalist, and AHRKH, the solo venture of A P Macarte, who can usually be found in Salford noise rock legends Gnod. Macarte gives us fifteen minutes of power-drone inspired by the Mottistone longstone on the Isle of Wight (said to be the site of a throwing contest between the Devil and Saint Catherine). Macarte has delved deep into the psychic and occult history of the area – which is also famous for being the home of David Icke – and his research has informed an immersive, earthily psychedelic piece. It is built up from shruti box, harmonium and synth, and the result is a satisfying slab of arhythmic, amelodic drone. On one level, it is highly meditative, but it is also oddly engaging: slow bursts of sound begin to emerge from its humming heart like solar flares, and it seems to quicken and tense as it draws to its conclusion. Proof that one-note music, in the right hands, can be complex and edifying.
Bell Lungs takes us to rural Worcestershire, specifically Raggedstone Hill in the Malverns, where, according to legend, a young monk was condemned to wander after consorting illicitly with a female herbalist. The monk, in his madness, threw himself off the hill to his death, cursing his brotherhood in the process. Out of this tale, Bell Lungs (the stage name of Ceylan Hay) weaves a musical tale of her own, using voice, drones and various plucked strings. It’s a creeping, shifting soundscape, where the boundaries between the profoundly religious and the occult become blurred. The most well-known of Christian prayers becomes strange and morally ambiguous, liturgical Latin begins to sound like an alien language. It’s enough to draw a deliciously dark shadow over the sunniest of days. But there are light and beautiful moments too: a passage of coquettish laughter, a list of herbs, a sense of delight in the human body and the things that make it well. What ties it all together is Hay’s uncanny ability to inhabit multiple voices and make each one sound persuasive. It is an extraordinary piece, a folk opera condensed into fifteen minutes, full of the inherent theatre of religious hypocrisy and occultism.
Note on the Series: Each tape can be collected individually each month or as part of a full subscription, and they are available directly from Folklore Tapes at www.folkloretapes.co.uk, via their Bandcamp page at https://folkloretapes.bandcamp.com/, and from selected independent record shops.