Strangers On The Shore

In the 2010s gentrification pushed Michael Smith, his partner and their infant son out of London and down to the south coast, the family settling in St. Leonards- on- Sea, a down at heel town next to Hastings. Smith is an author and flaneur* who wrote The Giro Playboy and Unreal City. When he moved to St. Leonards they decided to open a wine shop/ bar and the local community of artists and characters adopted this as the place to be. Michael found himself with a very young son, in a town he didn't know, staring out at the English Channel and sometimes wondering what on earth he'd done. Then came Covid and lockdown. 

In time he turned this part of his life into a book, Strangers On The Shore, published last month by White Rabbit. It's not a novel, it's not exactly a memoir, it's informal in tone and traces his life in St. Leonards and much more besides. The strangers on the shore are often himself and the young Raf, killing the days, making a few pounds go as far as they will. The book heads from the decision to move to St. Leonards and the early days in the town into all sorts of areas- Aleister Crowley, Michael's disgust with end stage capitalism, gentrification, mobile phones, excursions into philosophy via Diogones and quantum physics (light particles and sausage dogs), owls, items that appear before him falling out of the cliff face, his realisation that there are things cannot be explained rationally, 'perfidious Albion on speed', signs and symbols, Raf's early life and how he sees the world, fatherhood... hopping from one vignette to another, all linked by Michael's distinctive voice and life in St. Leonards. A psychic flight of fancy grounded in the very real and every day aspects of life interrupted by a global and national emergency.

There are encounters with Andrew Weatherall, a dream encounter some months after Andrew died and some real ones too. In one of them Michael talks to Andrew in Weatherall's East London studio bunker, telling him how much the song Shine Like Stars means to him, Andrew tells Michael that he really should hear the unreleased remix of Shine Like Stars (released by Primal Scream after Andrew's death). 

Shine Like Stars (Andrew Weatherall Instrumental Remix)

Copies of Strangers On The Shore bought from Gnostic Sonics came with an exclusive print and a pamphlet which describes teenage Michael's life in the north east of England, his discovery of acid house (and acid) and his first meeting with Andrew. In the pamphlet Michael writes about Andrew, his craft and talent, and his abilities as a 'weather controller' (which comes from a Weatherall story in the early 90s about him being atop Silbury Hill, out of his mind on psychedelics and trying to control the weather). Michael books Andrew to play his bar in St. Leonards and the young Raf is introduced to the alchemy of a Weatherall DJ set and the power of dub. It's a evocative and very moving addition to the book, one of the best pieces of writing about Mr. Weatherall I've read. 

Back to Strangers On The Shore- Michael writes at one point that 'it's not easy trying to write your way out of a mid- life crisis'. I'll say no more but it's a highly affecting book, tender and funny, scabrous and rooted in very real life. St. Leonards becomes not just a 'rundown drinking town with a fishing problem' but the psychic motherlode. It's a book that stays with you after you've finished it, a book infused with 'magick with a K' (as Weatherall put it) a very human and readable memoir. 

In 2013 when Andrew Weatherall was Faber's artist in residence the company published Unreal City, Michael's second book. Andrew introduced himself to Michael and said he'd like to work with him. Together with Nina Walsh, Andrew created an ambient soundscape soundtrack for Michael to read Unreal City over, a spoken word/ ambient Weatherall album (which came in a beautiful special edition with annotated margins, a CD and a 10" single). 

In 2021 I strung all the different tracks together and uploaded them to Mixcloud. You can find it at Mixcloud here (with a comment from Michael himself and a link to more of his writings about the making of the album).  

Michael more recently recorded an EP with Ride bassist Steve Queralt, spoken word ruminations on modern life, mushrooms and Chaldean oracles with shimmering ambient backdrops. It's highly recommended as is the subsequent remix EP. Both are at Bandcamp. 

Michael's disgust with modern cities and 21st century lifestyles/ gentrification bleeds through on the track Glitches where he is flaneuring away in London and finds himself in a new part of the city, a re-developed hyper- capitalist shopping centre (Westfield in Stratford I think) surrounded by shops, flats and skyscrapers, glass and steel, cardboard cut out policemen in shop windows to ward off shoplifters, permanent bright lights and twenty four hour advertising selling a lifestyle that is for most people utterly unobtainable. Michael sees the city mutating in front of his/ our eyes into a megacity, people become permanent consumers, where the windows of shops selling suits promise that you are 'living the dream of a beautiful tomorrow'. As the track builds, Michael cuts to the chase, asking in his Hartlepudlian tones, 'What kind of a cunt's dream is this?'.

Indeed. 

* Flaneur- one who wanders aimlessly through city streets observing the surroundings and people with no specific direction or goal. I can quite easily slip into it myself.

Forty Five Minutes of Speaking Voices

I had the misfortune recently to see an advert on TV with the voice of Alan Watts is being used to sell cruises for the Cunard shipping company. Watts was a writer, speaker and philosopher who did much in the 1950s and 60s to popularise Eastern philosophies in the west. His lectures and speeches have been widely available for a long time, not least since the rise of Youtube. His son tries to control the use of them through an Alan Watts website where they can be downloaded when paid for, so presumably Cunard paid for the use of Alan's voice rather than just ripping it from Youtube. The advert chops up Watts' speech and misses the end section entirely, not surprisingly, (knowingly) misrepresenting the message of the original, selling a luxury cruise on the high seas as the dream Watts speaks of. I'm not here to complain about advertising, it's a bit late in the day for that. Watts' voice and speeches are instantly recognisable and catnip for use in media where his message, accent and speaking voice and rhythms are striking and attention grabbing. 

I came across this clip this week too, writer Paul Bowles interviewed in 1970 about a trance dance and self mutilation he witnessed while resident in Morocco. Bowles left the USA in 1947 and settled in Tangier, recording local musicians and writing. His novel The Sheltering Sky came out in 1949, turned into an epic film by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1990 (I read the book and saw the film at the time and enjoyed both but don't remember much about either now so need to revisit). Bowles' speaking voice, like Alan Watts, very much lends itself to being set to music, not just the content but the tone and timbre and patterns of speech. Which led to think that speaking voices set to music would make a good longform mix.

The mix below is forty five minutes of speaking voices set to music, sometimes where voice and music have been specifically made for and recorded with each other and sometimes where the voice has been taken from earlier recordings and sampled. I could probably find enough to make a second at some point in the future. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Speaking Voices

• Jon Hopkins, Ram Dass and East Forest: Sit Around The Fire
• 10:40: The First Step
• Coyote: The Outsider
• David Holmes and Jon Hopkins ft. Stephen Rea: Elsewhere Anchises
• Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright: Be Love
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Chaldean Oracle
• Steve Queralt and Michael Smith: Glitches (Flug 8 Remix)
• Fireflies and Joe Duggan: Leonard Cohen Knows

Sit Around The Fire is the closing track on Jon Hopkins 2022 Music For Psychedelic Therapy, the voice of guru and writer Ram Dass talking about spiritual discovery through sitting round the fire and staring at the flames, while Hopkins' slow piano chords and sound of wood burning and crackling drift by. 

The First Step came out on Higher Love Vol. 2 last year, a 10:40 track that borrows a Bertrand Russell interview and layers a slow burning groove and wash around it, growing in emotion with nods to Elvis and Spiritualized. Russell speaks of acting and of doing in spite of doubt and in the absence of religion.  Magical stuff. 

Coyote are masters of sampling voices and building beautiful Balearic songs around them. This one takes Alan Watts talking about artists, work, states of evolution and sane and insane societies, adds some lovely acoustic guitar, and pays tribute to Andrew Weatherall (who styled himself as The Outsider when writing for Boy's Own back in the late 80s). The Outsider is the last song on their 2021 album The Mystery Light, a highly recommended record. 

Elsewhere Anchises is from David Holmes' Late Night Tales, a stunning 2016 compilation album that pulled together nineteen songs of life and loss, spanning Buddy Holly and David Crosby to Eat Light Become Light and songs David made for the album. On Elsewhere Anchises actor Stephen Rea speaks the words of Seamus Heaney over David's ambient backdrop, the sound of something quite special taking place. 

Rude Audio and Dan Wainwright have released one of this year's best dub/ dub techno/ psychedelia albums, Psychedelic Science. Be Love opens the album with the voice of Ram Dass making his second appearance on this mix. 

Steve Queralt and Michael Smith released the four track EP Sun Moon Town last year, Ride bassist Steve writing and recording four very different pieces of music and Hartlepool born writer and flaneur Michael narrating his own tales of adventures and wanderings in the 21st century, a place and time that seems quite bewildering to him. The Flug 8 remix comes from this year's remix package, a dissection of late stage capitalism and advertising agency dreams you can dance to.  

Fireflies is one of Nina Walsh's musical outlets, a South London based collective. The voice is that of Joe Duggan, Derry born and resident of Crystal Palace. 'If anyone knows', Joe says, 'Leonard Cohen knows'. 

The Seagull

Today's boarded up pub is The Seagull, Crimdon Dene, on the outskirts of Hartlepool. We had a few days in a caravan up there in April- the pub sits at the entrance of the caravan site. When I posted this on a social media platform a friend (of a friend) commented that it was the pub he and his friends used to drink in when they were teenagers. There were a few pubs in the area that were open but The Seagull was by no means the only abandoned one. 

Author and film- maker Michael Smith is a son of Hartlepool. His books The Giro Playboy and Unreal City are highly recommended. In 2013 he recorded sections of Unreal City with Andrew Weatherall, his East Yorkshire tones perfect over Andrew and Nina Walsh's ambient backdrops. More recently he recorded an EP with Steve Queralt, bassist from Ride. The EP, Sun Moon Town, had four tracks, Steve's music ranging from swelling post rock to glitchy electronics to psychedelic dub. In July Steve and Michael released a further version of Sun Moon Town, eight new takes on the songs with remixes from GLOK, Nina Walsh, Flug 8 and Nandele together with four instrumentals. Sun Moon Town Versions is at Bandcamp.

Much of Michael's writing and spoken word material deals with a resigned bewilderment at the nature of 21st century capitalism and the effect it has on our cities. Michael is a flaneur, one who wanders the city observing, a stroller who meanders, something the tracks on Sun Moon Town demonstrate brilliantly. 

The Flug 8 remix of Glitches is a throbbing, pulsing electronic monster, nine minutes long with Michael talking about finding himself in a a new part of the city, a re-developed hyper- capitalist shopping centre (Westfield) surrounded by shops, flats and skyscrapers, glass and steel, cardboard cut out policemen in shop windows to ward off shoplifters. As the drums kick away and synths swell, Michael sees the city mutating into a megacity with million pound customers, where the windows of shops selling suits promise that you are 'living the dream of a beautiful tomorrow', leading Michael to ask, 'What kind of a cunt's dream is this?' before speculating about the end of the world, the euphoric techno coupled with/ playing against Michael's prose. Dance while the world ends. 

On In A Wonderland he describes a return to London and his memories of his old life there. Nina Walsh takes the original and fills it out for twelve minutes, a wash of ambient sound, strings and synths. Unfolding gradually the Wonk On The Gnosis Mix, Michaels' voice wanders flaneur style, ending up with the tale of mushroom picking with a chef as Nina's soundscape rising and falling. 

Steve's bandmate Andy Bell records as GLOK and contributes a remix. The GLOK remix of Chaldean Oracle is chiming, propulsive cosmische, synths and drum machines gliding away into an infinite distance, bassline pumping and as a child/ robot voice intones in German. 

On the Nandele remix of Vespertine warm synths and keys and pattering electronic drums form a glittering backdrop to Michael's ever compelling words, prose describing a moment of blissed out contentment and some 'strange magic'.