The
Magic Lantern

Today’s ‘Remakes’ preview is the fantastic Hot Feet’s interpretation of the ‘No One’s Fault’ recorded by the band themselves in Rob’s Garage, Woodchester, Stroud.

Photo by Martha Webb

Not just a truly amazing band but some of the best people you can imagine, we’ve shared tour vans, stages, sheds, houses, tents, jams and long nights at the Albert. Based in Stroud, they have a unique sound centred around Marianne Parish’s incredible voice which emerges from an almost impossibly telepathic dream team rhythm section of Jack Page on guitar, Rob Pemberton on drums and piano and Lachlan McLellan on bass. Over the course of two EPs they have weaved a woozy, mesmerising sound (something akin to a trance) that can suddenly explode into colour when you least expect it. They are currently recording their debut album which is very, very high up the list of things i am excited about for next year!

I’m over the moon that Hot Feet and I will be playing together in Stroud at the SVA Goods Shed on the 9th December before journeying back to London together to play at the London launch on the 10th December at Kansas Smitty’s Bar.

Find out more about Hot Feet at www.hotfeetmusic.com

In anticipation of the release of ‘Love of Too Much Living – Remakes’, I’m going to be previewing a ‘remake’ a day from today until the release on 7 December.

So it gives me huge pleasure to share the first ‘remake’ – Emilia Martensson’s beautiful interpretation of ‘Harvest Moon’. It was the first to be ‘remade’ and helped give me the idea to make the rest of the record.

The world had just turned upside down and I suddenly back staying on my parents floor. I’d just written this this song a few nights before, when Emilia came over. As soon as I’d played it, she stopped, told me to play it again and then asked if she could sing it on her new album, which she was just about to record. No one had ever asked to cover a song of mine, let alone a singer as wonderful as Emilia so when I heard the first mix of her version, I had no idea what to expect. By the end of track, I was in tears, both because it was the first time I’d really heard the song – been able to understand it, rather than just perform it, and because of what they had made out of it.

Emilia remade ‘Harvest Moon’ at the ‘Fish Factory’ in London with Barry Green on piano, Adriano Adewale on percussion and Sam Lasserson on bass. String arrangement by Rory Simmons. It appeared first on the Emilia’s album ‘Ana’ released on the Babel label, 2014.

I’m very happy to say that Emilia will be joining me at the London launch of the record on the 10 December at ‘The Shed’ at Kansas Smitty’s. Tickets available here.

www.emiliamartensson.com

‘Love of Too Much Too Much Living – Remakes’ is out on 7 December and available to pre-order here – all proceeds go the to Campaign Against Living Miserable (CALM).

Pals! I have made an unusual album – ‘Love of Too Much Living – Remakes’ and it is out on the 7th December 2015.

I say I have made it, but really it’s been a team effort – and what a team! One of the great joys of doing what I do is the inspiration and love I draw from the other musicians around me. We’re like a family, we don’t all agree all of the time, but we’re there for each other when it matters, and the respect for what we each do, however different, runs deep.

For the past three years, I’ve spent most of my time playing alone, and the last album ‘Love of Too Much Living’ was very consciously a record I wanted to, needed to, make on my own. But once it came out, and having played these songs hundreds of times over the last year, I started to hear the relationships implicit in this music and the musicians around me. I am delighted to say that the product of this exploration is a record of ‘reinterpretations and reimaginings’ of my songs from ‘Love of Too Much Living’ by some of the members of this diverse musical family of which I am lucky enough to be a part.

It has been a revealing, emotional and at times overwhelming experience to hear my songs remade in such different ways, by people whose own music is a constant inspiration to me. I can’t thank all the artists involved enough.

I see this record is an act of love, a demonstration of the communities we build around us, what they mean and why they’re important. As such all proceeds from the sale of the record will go to a charity that’s very close to my heart – the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). Check out their work.

I have made 150 very special, hand-made hard copy CD of the album and this together with the digital version, is available to pre-order here:https://themagiclantern.bandcamp.com/…/love-of-too-much-liv…

The record is officially out on the 7th December and I’ll be previewing a ‘remake’ a day on my website, bandcamp and facebook page from next tuesday 24th November until the release on the 7th December. I will be playing a few shows to support its launch around the country with some of the artists involved in the album. The launch party is on the 10th December at ‘The Shed’ at Kansas Smitty’s Bar in London – it is very small and the gig will especially intimate so please, please get a ticket in advance if you want to come! Tickets for the launch are available here:https://billetto.co.uk/en/events/the-shed-with-magic-lantern

Thank you as ever for your support, and hope to see you all at a gig somewhere, soon!

Upcoming gigs:

03/12 – The Crypt, London – Phaedra Ensemble/Magic Lantern debut
07/12 – ‘Hatstand’ at Kitchen Garden Café, Birmingham w/FaceOmeter
09/12 – SVA Goods Shed, Stroud w/Hot Feet
10/12 – ‘The Shed’ at Kansas Smitty’s, London – REMAKES ALBUM LAUNCH PARTY w/special guests Emilia Martensson, Hot Feet, Zac Gvi and more
17/12 – The Lighthouse, Deal

This song comes to me every now and again but i’ve never sung it, so this mornings practice has been listening to as many versions as possible while getting my tongue around it. Amazing to hear how malleable the song is and in particular, the difference between the male and female singers. Sammy Davis Jr though. This. Is. The. Real. Deal.

I had the great pleasure of playing at Smugglers Festival yesterday afternoon. Broken finger, grey skies and a current antipathy to gigs in fields not withstanding, all the weight I feel like i’ve been carrying recently fell away. Half way through my set it started raining and the faithful crowd threatened to leave so i quickly played Sunny Side of The Street whereupon the rain stopped and sun came out. I am claiming 100% credit for that. The rest of the afternoon was one amazing act after another, Hot Feet playing cracking new songs, Cocos Lovers bringing the house down, but my personal favourite was a the duo of Max Baillie on violin with Sura Susso on kora. I hadn’t seen Sura’s brother Modou (also an incredible kora and djembe player) for nearly 8 years since we played some pretty bizarre Manu Chao style west african/spanish reggae with El Pato Band in Bristol (yes it was as odd as it sounds). All in all, a wonderful time to see old friends and be reminded how much this is a community that we make, we share, we’re a part of. Big love to everyone at Smugglers Records and Onwards!

Speed has a funny effect on the mind. Wizzing along on an early morning train under febrile Turner-grey smudged skies, the summer is ending. And as it leaves, without grace and in too humid drizzle, everything turns to new beginnings. Terms starting, jobs commencing, another final push towards the endless summit. So much is happening, as it always is, and time passes. I’m heading to Stroud to play a gig this afternoon (2.30 on the Cornhill stage) and I’m surrounded by a crowd of familiar thoughts, of self-doubts and worries, of excitement and the déjà vue of long experience. I don’t know what any of this means, or if it means anything at all. But I am speeding somewhere. I am turning up. And I’ll do it all again tomorrow.

Pals,

The Green Note is by far one of my favourite venues to play in London. First big gig in London for a long time. Mighty music from Manchester’s finest unhinged reed, word and string botherer Alabaster dePlume , left-field stories, contested poems and general in the moment inspiration/silliness from Wilf Merttens, impeccable sound and quite possibly some astral predictions from Oscar Cainer and some new never before heard songs from me + everyone who comes gets a high five and an enlivening evening of existential exploration delivered with humour and lightness of being, promise!

Here’s how Wilf describes what he does in his own words:

“Whatever you do, please don’t tell me a BORING STORY. I smash boring stories with my griot stick: whack! whack!, says my stick as I go, moving through the jungle at incredible speed, dodging spiders, tigers, ghosts, hungry ghosts – and then, BANG! I’ve fallen into a pit, I’ve stumbled into a bandit’s den, I’ve turned into a fox, I’m being chased by hunters, I’m chasing a rabbit, the rabbit’s making me soup, selling me stones… next thing I’ve turned into a bird!: I’m free to dance up from breeze to breeze, free to soar in the sky… But then a mountain rises up abruptly in front of me, blocking my path. I wish, I wish to be the man digging a tunnel through the mountain, but the sun is beating down on his head like a hot soft hammer, so I wish to be the sun, then I’m the sun burning everything up, but the clouds are blocking my way, so I wish to be clouds, but the birds are flying through my belly and tickling me, so I wish to be BIRD, but then a mountain rises up abruptly in front of me, blocking my path… so I wish to be a storyteller, who can move mountains, fly like bird, burn like sun, billow into any shape like the clouds that march across the sky. I am STORY TELLER! I RULE EVERYTHING I SPEAK OF! And it’s gone straight to my head.”

http://www.wilfmerttens.co.uk/