{"id":328,"date":"2013-04-22T22:55:31","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T04:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/?p=328"},"modified":"2013-04-22T23:00:22","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T05:00:22","slug":"belbury-poly-and-hauntology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/archives\/328","title":{"rendered":"Belbury Poly and &#8220;Hauntology&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I wasn&#8217;t aware of &#8220;hauntology&#8221; as a musical term (or any other sort of term) until I came across Belbury Poly. Philosopher Jacques Derrida coined the term to describe the relationship between the past and the present. The music that falls under the label is a mixture of old and new electronic sounds. It&#8217;s generally quiet music, with occasional vaguely sinister undertones. <\/p>\n<p>Jim Jupp (Belbury Poly) described his own music in this way in <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cyclicdefrost.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/belbury-poly-interview-by-emmy-hennings\/\">a 2009 interview<\/a>: <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"spquote\">Part of a theme that\u2019s ongoing in all the Belbury Poly records . . . is a tradition of British science fiction, where you\u2019ve got on the one hand the setting of a very traditional background, with very ancient things, but you\u2019ve got this weird, cosmic stuff happening [at the same time]. A lot of old British sci-fi books \u2013 John Wyndham, for instance \u2013 have these really mundane, quaint little village settings, but all of a sudden something really freaky and cosmic appears in the middle of it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"spquote\">What is freakish is not necessarily overt \u2013 a nuclear war, or a sudden landing of carnivorous aliens \u2013 but a more subtle, unsettling sensation that the ordinary world is lying side-by-side with any number of other, stranger ones. It might only take turning a street corner at the right (or wrong) moment; opening a door that you\u2019d never noticed before; switching on the television in time to catch a sinister glitch in the broadcast: any momentary gap in the border between here and elsewhere might thrust you into a new \u2013 or an old \u2013 reality.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I like all of the Belbury Poly albums, but if I had to choose one to recommend starting with, it would probably be <i>From an Ancient Star<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/autofish.net\/images\/web_log\/0328_bp_faas_280.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>A couple samples (Youtube links):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fFSPgS1YIaI\">Adventures in a Miniature Landscape<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=766z1ChmMfc\">Chapel Perilous<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Advisory Circle is another artist in the same genre and on the same record label. <i>As the Crow Flies<\/i> would also make for a good introduction to this type of music.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/autofish.net\/images\/web_log\/0328_advisory_circle_280.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>A couple samples (Youtube links):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=v3kFN05-N7U\">Everyday Hazards<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EUZvuU1xoAE\">Wildspot<\/a> (a Belbury Poly cover)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A heavy influence on hauntology music is library music of the type produced by <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/BBC_Radiophonic_Workshop\">BBC Radiophonic Workshop<\/a>. One example of their work that I like a lot is <i>Fourth Dimension<\/i> by Paddy Kingsland.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/autofish.net\/images\/web_log\/0328_fourth_dimension_280.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>A couple samples (Youtube links):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nWn89GSfy9o\">Tamariu<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=e2FSqFxXeTY\">One-Eighty-One<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I happened to discover Kingsland&#8217;s music through a independent game called <i>Space Funeral<\/i>. It&#8217;s quite an interesting game, and I recommend trying it if you think a very short, very unusual RPG sounds like fun. You can get it for free <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/gamejolt.com\/games\/rpg\/space-funeral\/3492\/\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/autofish.net\/images\/web_log\/0328_space_funeral.png\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wasn&#8217;t aware of &#8220;hauntology&#8221; as a musical term (or any other sort of term) until I came across Belbury Poly. Philosopher Jacques Derrida coined the term to describe the relationship between the past and the present. The music that falls under the label is a mixture of old and new electronic sounds. It&#8217;s generally [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[12,26,33,32],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2HXOd-5i","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":574,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autofish.net\/web_log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}