Almost exactly six years ago, I went to the event where the final track of this CD was recorded. Organised by the Lux collective and staged in Cecil Sharp House (an oxymoronic establishment that kind of aspires to being a cornerstone of English Folk Culture, when no such thing can exist, especially in London), it was an extraordinary ragbag revue-style evening. And thus very English. After initially declining, J decided to join me at the last minute: I think I was already at the venue when she rang to say she would be along in an hour or so. The tall one from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain played a solo version of Pulp's Babies on his uke. J didn't believe me when I said it was a Pulp song. That relationship never really got off the ground.
At the time I knew little of either Jem Finer's work (outside The Pogues) or of Andrew Kötting's — at least it wasn't until I went to see another of Kötting's films that I realised I had in fact seen This Filthy Earth when it was screened at the Showroom as part of a Yorkshire Media Production Agency event.
And, as mentioned in connection with another Jem Finer CD, it was after that second film that I ordered Visionary Landscapes. The CD leaflet says of it,
Drawing on the unwritten and elusive histories of Folk and its reflections, Visionary Landscapes brings together diverse voices and perspectives from the British Landscape. It is bricolage and right carryon.
Jem Finer and Andrew Kotting have come together to produce soundscapes for a triptych of Super 8 projections at Cecil Sharp House. The original Super 8 footage was shot during the making of the film Gallivant.
I think the album sounds like an avant garde version of the BBC Radio Ballads, with maybe just a bit of Powell & Pressburger's sensibility. In other words, an awkward, but very English, bundle of contradictions, much like Cecil Sharp House itself.
| Buy direct from Jem Finer's website | Rate Your Music entry for this album |
Comments