Jerusalem Artichokes
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These recordings were made when I lived in the Borlin Valley in South West Cork in 2005-2006. My friend Caspar and I moved over there after working as care workers in Saltburn / Newcastle for several years. His family owned a few acres of woodland opposite Knockboy Mountain on the Cork and Kerry border. Beautiful but remote with the nearest small town being a 20km walk away.
I was a head case at the time, full of romance and inspired by teenage addictions to Thoreau and Kerouac. I truly thought I could live and thrive in this beautiful desolation. We moved there in August of 2005 and began to build a 16ft x 16ft cabin which we then lived in. We were assisted in the construction by a local joiner who ensured we wouldn't immediately die in our little house.
I could truly write a book about my experience there, as comical as it was tragic. Sad and exquisite. I didn't know what to do in life and was trying as I might, to make music with the limited equipment and skills that I had. I has bought a filthy Edirol field recorder from a place in Newcastle called Smokey Joe's which just about worked though it reeked of cigs. Walking out in the woods and on the mountains I would record whatever I thought was interesting with more than a passing interest in the sound of wind over wire fences and metal gate posts. Musical obsessions around then were Joe Colley, jgrznich, Jonathan Coleclough and Olivia Block. Trying to unpack and understand their processes was a constant trial but the trial was escapism from the fact we only had 2kg of Jerusalem Artichokes to eat.
'Grave Stele' was recorded in the incredible wooden house I lived in briefly during the build period. It was built by Tony Cohu in the early 90's. Inside the dappled lit corners of the living space we would sit on cushions and summon navigations from the ashtray. Viola, guitar, whistle and pedal feedback.
The track 'Anu' is the OG recording of what became Saphrealia. I was reading Monica Sjoo and visiting neolithic sites and recording things on top of large grassy earth-breasts. Above the buried bones of the Ancient Irish. Amorphous, androgynous voice and wind blown pipes tuned into feedback tones.
'Post-Cow' was recorded one night after I was scared to death by climbing into a field on the walk home in pitch blackness to be confronted with 1000's of glowing orbs bouncing away in front of me. They were the mirrored eyes of hundreds of cows alerted to my clambering. I had no idea. I moved toward them and they moved toward me. Soft hoove clops just about puncturing the dead silence of the valley. Suddenly the orbs bounced violently as the cows proceeded to charge me. I had a point and shoot camera which I flashed in order to see where the fence was. The bovine cloud relented. You can hear the camera flash and mechanism in the song alongside short-wave radio recordings being sent through Argeiphontes Lyre.
'Trio for One Mouth' was recorded toward the end of my time in Derrynafinchin. I missed everyone. I wanted so much to kiss someone. I took a bus to Cork and stayed in a hostel one night before my flight early the following morning. Buying a bottle pint of whisky and talking to strangers, I was asked about Emmanuel Kant while drinking at the Franciscan Well. I didn't understand. Someone told me I'll make a million pounds and die. I continued to drink heavily for 20 years.
Sometimes revisiting somewhere or something can restart your spring. Sometimes it just makes you think about lost time. Achievement is dust in the air, the lattice drawn on the liver embellished. Stoke the oven, cook me some artichokes.
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