Wednesday, 22 October 2025

Quatermass II

Wyrd Britain reviews the BBC TV serial 'Quatermass II' written by Nigel Kneale
The first Quatermass BBC TV serial, 'The Quatermass Experiment', shown in 1953, was a phenomenon with five million people tuning in to watch the final episode.  This second series ran for six half-hour(ish) episodes in the prime 8pm Saturday slot from 22 October to 26 November and benefitted from the wider availability of televisions with some 9 million people watching the sixth episode.

Professor Bernard Quatermass (John Robinson), head of The British Experimental Rocket Group, reeling from the failure of his latest rocket tests becomes embroiled in an investigation into the  appearance of meteorites falling near to where the town of Winnerden Flats has been bulldozed and replaced with a heavily guarded chemical plant.

Like the later Hammer movie version 'Quatermass II' has long been considered the poor relation amongst the various productions, but its impact far outweighs the respect it's given especially in regard to how often shows like Doctor Who ('Spearhead From Space') mined it for ideas.  Bernard Quatermass has always been Nigel Kneale's avatar and in his layered allegorical script Kneale comments on post war (re)development, short sighted greed, the inexorable rise of technology, the dehumanising impact of industry and intractable bureaucracy.  

Broadcast live, with extra pre-filmed scenes edited in, it suffers from the problems you'd expect - stumbled over lines (especially from Robinson, a last minute replacement as the Professor following the death of Reginald Tate), and lots of emoting while staring enigmatically off camera and it's always funny watching the actors freeze in place at the end of each episode as the credits roll, but it's a glorious achievement that's often surprisingly brutal but shot through with Kneale's dark optimism for the power of science to save us whether we want it to or not.

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Tuesday, 21 October 2025

Volcanic Tongue

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Volcanic Tongue' by  David Keenan and published by White Rabbit Books.
David Keenan
White Rabbit

For a decade or two from the end of the 90s through the 2010s I was an avid subscriber to The Wire magazine, eagerly pouring each month over descriptions of beautifully obtuse and brilliantly obscure music.  That magazine - which I became besotted with after spotting Lydia Lunch staring at me from the cover of issue 173 on the shelves of a small provincial newsagent - cost me a fortune in CDs but my god I got to hear some tunes and one of their writers most responsible for syphoning my bank acount was David Keenan.

'Volcanic Tongue', named after the record shop he ran with his partner, pedal steel guitarist and sound artist Heather Leigh, in Glasgow from 2005-2015, is a collection of articles, interviews, primers and portraits mostly taken from The Wire, that provide an extended snapshot of outsider music of the '90s, '00s & '10s and of it's heritage.  Through it's pages we catch Coil in '98 at the release of 'Time Machines', Einstürzende Neubauten in '04 in the wake of 'Perpetuum Mobile', the Klangbad Faust contingent in '03, Shirley Collins on the release of 'Lodestar' in 16, Carter-Tutti in '15 with a new name and with Cosey about to find a whole new audience with her autobiography and there are two very funny interviews with The Dead C on tour in Europe in '13 and with Marshall Allen waxing about the cosmic centrality of Sun Ra in '15.  These are paired with a trio of 'Invisible Jukebox' sessions - always my favourite section in the magazine - where songs are played, sight unseen, to a musician, in these instances to Eugene Chadbourne, Glenn Jones and Kevin Shields along with some 'Primers' on Noise Music, Sonic Youth, John Fahey, and Kosmische Musik.

I've been dipping in and out of this book for a few months now and truthfully there are still some chapters I've yet to read - there's even more in there that I haven't mentioned - but I'm at the point where I needed to share this with you all.  Keenan was always a very personable and engaging writer that seemed to get the best out of his interviewees and could cut to the core of his subjects and as such anyone with even a vague interest in the outer fringes of music will find much of interest here and an interesting companion piece to his essential exploration of the post industrial underground, 'England's Hidden Reverse'.

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Monday, 20 October 2025

NEWS: Eerie Eryri - 50th Anniversary Screening of First Welsh Language Horror Film

For those of you in or around Bangor, North Wales, this Saturday 25th October, the folks behind the beautifully named Abertoir Horror Festival (it's based in Aberystwyth) are hosting an event at Pontio, Bangor University’s arts and innovation centre, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the first Welsh language horror film 'Gwaed ar y Sêr' (Blood on the Stars).

From the website:
"To celebrate 50 years since Shadrach and the youngsters of Gruglon caused chaos in rural Wales, Storiel, in partnership with Pontio and Abertoir Horror Festival, presents a special evening with filmmaker Wil Aaron, a key figure in launching the Welsh Film Board."

The talk will be in Welsh with English translation provided.

Following the talk there will be a showing of 'Gwaed ar y Sêr' along with Aaron's later film 'O’r Ddaear Hen' (From the Old Earth).

More details and tickets can be found here... 

https://www.pontio.co.uk/cy/digwyddiadur/eryri-arswydus-eerie-eryri

And info on this year's Abertoir festival which is happening from the 12th to the 16th of November can be found here...

https://abertoir.co.uk/

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Friday, 17 October 2025

Psychedelic Britannia

Wyrd Britain reviews the BBC4 documentary, 'Psychedelic Britannia'.
Presented by Nigel Planer - who also did the Prog and Metal episodes of this series - Psychedelic Britannia tells the story of the years 1965 to 1970 as a group of bohemians led the charge to slowly psychedelicise Britain.  

Obviously, it's the musicians that are prioritised here and there's some great old footage of, and new and archive interviews with members of Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Small Faces, Procol HarumSoft Machine, The Incredible String Band, Vashti Bunyan, Arthur Brown and a host of others.  The story tells of the move from R&B into more expansive territory, in part, due to the arrival of LSD and, in part due to a break from the rigid strictures of post-war Britain where the return to normality had begun to feel decidely restrictive and many were looking for new ways of life.

Beyond the musicians there's some fabulous old footage here of the likes of Granny Take a Trip, International Times, the UFO Club and the Alexandra Palace 14 Hour Technicolour Dream with commentary by those who were behind them and patronising them.  It makes for a rather lovely glimpse of a unique and brief moment in British life before the optimism tarnished and the colours faded.

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Wednesday, 15 October 2025

Fellstones

Ramsey Campbell
Flame Tree Press

Fellstones takes its name from seven objects on the village green. It’s where Paul Dunstan was adopted by the Staveleys after his parents died in an accident, for which he blames himself. The way the Staveleys tried to control him made him move away and change his name. Why were they obsessed with a strange song he seemed to have made up as a child?
Now, their daughter Adele has found him. By the time he discovers the cosmic truth about the stones, he may be trapped. There are other dark secrets he’ll discover and memories to confront. The Fellstones dream, but they’re about to waken.

Beyond a couple of short stories, Ramsey Campbell has been notably absent from my bookshelves for far too long.  Strangely for someone who writes the type of blog I do I'm not much of a reader of modern horror and the ones I do read tend to be those channelling the early 20th century heyday like, Mark Valentine or John Howard but, when I saw this on the shelf at the day job a little while back I fancied giving it a go as it seemed rooted in the more rural strangeness that I favour. 

Paul Dunstan has escaped the clutches and the plans of his adopted family in the village of Fellstones, so named after the stone circle that sits on the village green.  Unfortunately, he's too important to their schemes to be left alone for long, and the villagers are soon going all out to pull him back.  I have to say here that Paul is a very different type of person to me as faced with people as controlling and manipulative as his adopted family I'd have categorically told them where to go but he seems to almost want to be manipulated which I found rather frustrating.  

The story unfolds nicely to reveal not the 'folk horror' that the prominence of the stones had led me to expect but an entirely more cosmic scheme and the story builds to a transcendent but ultimately downbeat ending that leaves our protagonist in a very different place from where he began.  My love of the gothic meant that I would have dearly loved for much more of the back story to have been featured, but we get tantalising glimpses.  

As a first - book length - visit to one of Campbell's worlds it was an enjoyable one.  Beyond my little obsessions I'm very much a whim reader and I'm looking forward to reading the next one of his that catches my eye.

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Saturday, 11 October 2025

The Good Unknown and Other Ghost Stories

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Good Unknown and Other Ghost Stories', written by Stephen Volk and published by Tartarus Press.
Stephen Volk
Tartarus Press

In this new collection of eleven stories, Stephen Volk explores the wide span of possibilities of the ghost story in its various manifestations — from hauntings set in the quotidian modern world, to ones that hark back to traditional, but no less chilling, tales of the past.
When battle-scarred army veterans are recruited for an archaeological dig in Wiltshire, more than bones are unearthed, in ‘Unrecovered’. A pleasure park becomes anything but pleasurable in ‘Three Fingers, One Thumb’. In ‘31/10’ a notorious, fateful BBC TV studio is revisited, while in ‘The Waiting Room’ a supernatural encounter makes Charles Dickens himself come to question both his creative inspiration and his fundamental beliefs.
Three brand new stories are included here: ‘The Crossing’, ‘Baby on Board’, and ‘Lost Loved Ones’ — the latter novella being a sequel to Volk’s television series Afterlife and a welcome return for him to the much-loved character of Alison Mundy, the troubled psychic medium, in a world post-Covid.

Novelist and screenwriter Stephen Volk has an impressive pedigree of dark delights to his name but is perhaps best remembered for scripting the BBC 'documentary', 'Ghostwatch', although in the pages of Wyrd Britain he's praised for penning the very excellent 'I'll Be Watching You' for the BBC anthology series 'Ghosts'.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'The Good Unknown and Other Ghost Stories', written by Stephen Volk and published by Tartarus Press.
This collection from Tartarus Press presents eleven stories that deal, for the most part, with aftermaths; of death, of loss, of pride, of violence, of betrayal.  Along with two visits to previous work - the aforementioned 'Ghostwatch' and his ITV series 'Afterlife', Volk provides a delicately balanced selection of stories. They are at their best when most grounded - the title story, the Jamesian 'Cold Aston', the poignant 'Baby on Board', or the book's opening story 'Uncovered' - but Volk is a dab hand at his screenwriting game and knows the joy of a good pulpy romp with his return to old haunts 'Lost Loved Ones' resurrecting 'Afterlife' some 20 years after the show apeared on TV, would be a welcome addendum for fans, and an enjoyably energetic read for those of us who missed out through not having a TV at that time..

One can always rely on the good folks at Tartarus to provide an unusual and entertaining read and this definitely proved to be so. Going into this I only knew Volk for his TV work and so was hoping for good things but not really knowing whether his screenwriting skills would translate into prose, but I shouldn't have worried as he has a striking imagination and a prepossessing style and as I've since discovered he has a number of books to his name, I'm retroactively unsurprised at how much I enjoyed this collection. ..........................................................................................

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Thursday, 9 October 2025

Stewart Lee on Ithell Colquhoun

Stewart Lee on Ithell Colquhoun
Artist, author, and occultist Ithell Colquhoun, having established her own Parisian studio in the early 1930s, met many of the key artists and became a devotee of the Surrealist Movement later, briefly, joining the British Surrealist Group before leaving due to it's restrictions on her occult research.  

It was this melding of her lifelong fascination with the esoteric and her surrealist practices that were to be her defining influences, remaining with her throughout her life becoming increasingly entwined with her paintings, and her writings showing a psychogeographical fascination with the interweaving of folklore, landscape and sexuality.

Stewart Lee on Ithell Colquhoun
In her lifetime, Colquhoun published two unorthodox travel books, 'The Crying of the Wind' about Ireland - Richly visual and full of sly wit, this is an account of Ireland as only Colquhoun could see it, a land where myth and magic meet wind and rain, and the song of the secret kingdom is heard on city streets - and her Cornish book 'Living Stones' - Sacred and beautiful, wild and weird, Colquhoun’s Cornwall is a living landscape, where every tree, standing stone and holy well is a palimpsest of folklore, and a place where everyday reality speaks to the world beyond - and an alchemical novel, "The Goose of Hermogenes' - Lushly visual, rife with symbols and cries from the unconscious, Colquhoun’s first novel is a surreal feminist fable, and a supreme artistic vision.  Her books have recently been returned to publication by Pushkin Press (which is from where those italicised quotes were taken).

The video below features Colquhoun fan Stewart Lee in discussion with Mariella Frostrup about his love for the travel books and includes a reading from 'The Crying of the Wind'.

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Wednesday, 8 October 2025

Nemesis the Warlock Vol.1: 2000AD Definitive Edition

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Nemesis the Warlock Vol.1: 2000AD Definitive Edition' by Pat Mills, Kevin O'Neill & Jesus Redondo published by Rebellion.
Pat Mills (writer)
Kevin O'Neill (artist)
Jesus Redondo (artist)
Rebellion

Long regarded as one of the crown-jewel epics from the pages of 2000 AD, at long last Nemesis the Warlock is back in print and better than ever in a brand-new series of definitive editions.
Termight is the ruling planet of a cruel galactic empire led by the diabolical Torquemada, a twisted human despot intent on purging all alien life from the galaxy and punishing the deviants. His motto: Be pure! Be vigilant! Behave! Against his tyrannical rule, resistance rises in the form of devilish-looking alien warlock Nemesis, who represents everything that Torquemada hates and fears. Together, Nemesis and Torquemada are locked in a duel which will affect their fate and the fate of humanity itself as their conflict spans time and space!

Limited pocket money meant I was a pretty occasional 2000AD reader back when these stories were first published and beyond admiring the art, I never really read Nemesis but when Rebellion announced these large-format editions of the full story, the chance to add some more Kev O'Neill to my shelves was too good an opportunity to miss.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Nemesis the Warlock Vol.1: 2000 AD Definitive Edition' by Pat Mills, Kevin O'Neill & Jesus Redondo.
Now, the problem I've found with a lot of these older strips is that those telling a longer story can often feel a tad over-stretched.  The peril of publishing a story 5 pages a week means it can become an exhausting barrage of cliffhangers when read en masse.  I grew up loving comics - I worked for years in the late 80s and early 90s in a comic shop in Cardiff - but was never much of a fan of serialised storytelling and immediately stopped buying individual issues when trade paperbacks / graphic novels arrived on the scene and I could read the whole story in one sitting.  Some old strips work better than others in the collected format, and this one - plot wise - suffers a little as it feels stuttery.  Don't get me wrong, I love the ideas, the dark humour, the satire and I'm well aware that this is book one and Mills is taking his first steps with his new creation but, that formatting issue that I mentioned does become tiring and the story-telling is at it's strongest on the self-contained tales where his vision is at its keenest.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Nemesis the Warlock Vol.1: 2000 AD Definitive Edition' by Pat Mills, Kevin O'Neill & Jesus Redondo.
Now, onto the art.  This is perhaps O'Neill's defining work here in the UK, and it's a thing of absolute beauty, maniacal, anarchic, and utterly wonderful.  There's a lot of debate over the quintessential 2000AD artist and whether you were to name Brian Bolland, Carlos Ezquerra, Dave Gibbons, Alan Davis, Mike McMahon, Ian Gibson - I could go on - you'll get no push back from me, and I'll join in singing their praises but for me, it's always been O'Neill.  

Backing up O'Neill here is Spanish artist Jesus Redondo whose art I've always had a soft spot for from reading 'Mind Wars' in Starlord and 'The Mind of Wolfie Smith' in 2000AD, and here he doesn't disappoint, but his issues lack the manic brilliance of O'Neill's.

Rebellion have done a beautiful job here and the book is a thing of real joy.  Volumes 2 & 3 are already out and on my shelves - there'll be five in total - and I'm very much looking forward to watching how Mills masters his story and, of course, getting more Kev O'Neill eye-candy.

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Thursday, 2 October 2025

NEWS: Buried Treasure release 'They Came From Beyond Space' OST

On Friday 3rd October, Buried Treasure Records will be releasing the James Stevens score to the 1967 Amicus science fiction movie, 'They Came From Beyond Space', on 10' vinyl.

The soundtrack will be available via the label's Bandcsmp page at...

https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/music

For those unfamiliar 'They Came From Beyond Space' was Amicus boss Milton Subotsky's attempt to resurrect the alien invasion movies of the 1950s.  Made using sets left over from the Doctor Who movie 'Dalek's Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.it tells the story of mind controlling moon rocks come to Earth to recruit slaves to help them rebuild their crashed rocket.  It's a gloriously terrible movie - read the Wyrd Britain review here - with little to recommend it beyond it's awfulness and it's music.

Buried Treasure are doing the Wyrd God's work recently, having only last month released the soundtrack to 'Sky'  and still have the soundtrack of 'The Shout' to come.

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Tuesday, 30 September 2025

T. Lobsang Rampa And Other Characters of Questionable Faith

Wyrd Britain reviews 'T. Lobsang Rampa And Other Characters of Questionable Faith' by R.B. Russell and Tartarus Press
R.B. Russell
Tartarus Press 

R.B. Russell has written the first definitive biography of Rampa (also known as Cyril Henry Hoskin). The identity of Rampa may have been conclusively debunked by anybody who knew anything about Tibet, Buddhism, or basic scientific principles, but he would always claim that everything he wrote was true, and until his death in 1980 he doesn’t ever seem to have come out of character.

Russell’s biography of Rampa is accompanied in this volume by three further studies of alternative belief systems that have fascinated him over the years.

In the big, wide, wonderful, wacky world of books few things bring me as much joy as the cover art to one of those entertainingly ridiculous pseudoscience / occult / UFO paperbacks of the 60s and 70s and I cannot resist a book adorned with the likes of a drawing of a UFO hovering over a stone circle or an astronaut teleporting onto a pyramid.  Amongst the stacks I've acquired for the Wyrd Britain bookshop over the years there are two names that stand out, king of the ancient astronauts, Erich von Däniken and reincarnated Tibetan Lama, T. Lobsang Rampa.

In his newest book, R.B. (Ray) Russell presents four essays on various "Characters of Questionable Faith" that includes the aforementioned Lama; the immortal (but now deceased) leader the Nigerian millenarian church, the 'Brotherhood of the Cross and Star'; the pulp sci-fi hokum peddlers of the Scientology cult and the - initially - ironic, pseudo-cult of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'T. Lobsang Rampa And Other Characters of Questionable Faith' by R.B. Russell and Tartarus Press
The bulk of the book is taken up by Ray's biography of Rampa, born Cyril Henry Hoskin, a former surgical fitter from Plympton in Devon, who, in a 1956  "autobiography"called, 'The Third Eye', claimed to be, or perhaps to be home to, a reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist Lama named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa.  Despite being outed as  fraudulent pretty much immediately 'The Third Eye' proved to be a sensation and over the next quarter decade, until his death in 1981, Rampa would go on to write and have published another 19 books detailing the increasingly unlikely adventures of the Lama as he travelled in UFOs and explored the hollow Earth, met Yetis and fulfilled his cat's literary ambitions.

Focussing primarily on the publication of 'The Third Eye' and it's subsequent controversies, Ray takes an enjoyably frivolous but never judgemental tone and provides an engaging and fascinating overview of the life of a cultural enigma.

Ray's investigation of the 'Brotherhood of the Cross and Star' is an altogether more personal affair prompted by a friends involvement with the group and the outlandish claims of immortality, divinity and devastation made by it's founder 'Olumba Olumba Obu'.  The story Ray relates of the 'Brotherhood' and of it's leader's failed prophecies will be depressingly familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of the sociology of millenarian movements but for me what was more interesting was the sudden realisation that Ray had previously used his friends conversion as the catalyst for his novel, 'Waiting for the End of the World'.

Again, the impetus for Ray's short chapter on Scientology is based in personal experience, this time of being caught up in one of their bogus personality tests as a young man.  Here he takes the opportunity to discuss the personality cult behind Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard and his willingness to take, or be assigned, credit for everything, which brings us nicely around to Genesis P-Orridge.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'T. Lobsang Rampa And Other Characters of Questionable Faith' by R.B. Russell and Tartarus Press
Formed from the ashes of pioneering industrial group, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV was, initially a multimedia project for P-Orridge, fellow ex-TG and future Coil member Peter Christopherson and Alex Fergusson formerly of Alternative TV from which grew the associated fanclub / magickal self-help network / pseudo-cult, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY).  

Originally aping the trappings of a religious cult, as various founding members began to move away and distance themselves from the PTV / TOPY, P-Orridge's egomaniacal tendencies and fascination with the likes of Charles Manson and Jim Jones became ever more prominent as (s)he moulded it into a cult of personality based around themself that came to an acrimonious end in the early 90s.

Ray is careful throughout this fascinating book to try, whenever possible, not to belittle the experiences of the various adherents, but he is less kind to those wielding the adhesive; with the exception of Rampa who appears no more than an imaginative eccentric who, beyond his books, seemed to have had little interest in profiting from or manipulating any followers.

The three chapters on the Brotherhood, the Scientologists and TOPY offer compelling glimpses into the lives of both the manipulators and the manipulated, exploring some of the ways some folks allow themselves to be subsumed inside another's ego, but, it's the Rampa biography that is the gem here.  Ray avoids any attempt at psychoanalysing his subject or forming any definitive conclusions on whether he was devious or deluded instead providing a superbly readable glimpse into the life of a man who must surely be considered alongside the greatest of British eccentrics.

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Wednesday, 17 September 2025

Crisis

Wyrd Britain discusses the British comic, Crisis.
Launched on 17th September 1988 by the folks behind 2000AD as an attempt on the newly flourishing "mature" comics market, 'Crisis' was a bold new step in British comics publishing.  Partially eschewing the traditional anthology approach of 4 or 5 short strips, Crisis initially opted to feature just two longer and more involved storylines, the heavily politicised 'Third World War' by Pat Mills and Carlos Ezquerra - you can read my reviews of the two recent reprints here and here - and the revisionist superheroes of 'New Statesmen' by John Smith and Jim Baikie

Despite managing a two year run 'Crisis' never really found its rhythm.  An impressive array of talent appeared, often for the first time, in it's pages, folks like, Garth Ennis, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Al Davidson, Glenn Fabry, Rhian Hughes, Milo Manara, Steve Parkhouse, David Lloyd, Steve Yeowell, all contributed but the comic struggled to find an audience moving from a fortnightly release schedule to monthly until it folded in October 1991 with only Mills' repurposing of his 'TWW' character, 'Finn', into a 2000AD strip to mark it's passing.

There's a nice little interview with Mills on 'Crisis' here and the video below features several alumni talking about the comic.

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Tuesday, 16 September 2025

UFO

Wyrd Britain reviews 'UFO'.
After spending most of the 1960s dangling their various cast members from bits of string, Gerry & Sylvia Anderson along with producer Reg Hill entered the 1970s with their first live action TV series, 'UFO'.

Over the course of one series we follow the trials and tribulations of SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation), a covert agency under the control of Commander Edward Straker (Ed Bishop) that is the planet's primary source of defence against organ harvesting aliens.  

Wyrd Britain reviews 'UFO'.
Behind Barry Gray's killer theme tune is the Anderson's deliberate attempt to move away from the kid focussed television that they were known for by incorporating more mature topics into the episodes that often feel like a cumbersome distraction from the whole alien invasion thing but, beyond that, we get lots of fabulously retro-futurist design, typically implausible vehicles and a moonbase populated by silver suited ladies wearing purple wigs for no, easily discernable reason.

It's all a bit of a mess, albeit an occasionally entertaining one, but 'UFO' is perhaps most keenly remembered for being the catalyst - via an abandoned second series - for the Anderson's next series, 'Space 1999', oh, and for the wigs.

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Thursday, 14 August 2025

Hawkwind (1970)

Wyrd Britain celebrates Hawkind's self titled debut album.

'Hawkwind Space Rock... a new album'

Released on the 14th August 1970 with adverts trumpeting the above statement, Hawkwind's debut album is perhaps their most egalitarian sounding release; the one that feels most in line with the spirit of the age ..  

Bookended with two acoustic songs - 'Hurry on Sundown' & 'Mirror of Illusion' - that hark back to singer / guitarist Dave Brock's busking days, the former of which, a perennial Hawk fan favourite, opens the proceedings with a deceptively sunny demeanour before we are cast into an avant garde soundworld that only relents with the arrival of the lumpen album closer.

The sonic attack that makes up the majority of the album is a darkly discordant, mostly instrumental, jam sesssion that finds the band - Brock, Nik Turner (saxophone, vocals), Huw Lloyd Langton (lead guitar), John Harrison (bass), Terry Ollis (drums), Dik Mik (electronics) & Dick Taylor (guitar) - firing off each other in a manner honed over a year of gigging but still maybe slightly tentative; studio nerves perhaps?  What they are doing, though, is developing the sound, that, following a line-up reshuffle (Hawkwind's truly defining characteristic), would explode from the following year's 'In Search of Space',  the album that would perfectly encapsulate the truth of the statement at the top of this post.

It has it's champions but 'Hawkwind' has long been regarded, perhaps at best, as a curio within the bands catalogue, a tentative first step, but you know the cliché about adventures and first steps, and this one started a whole series of adventures that have lasted 55 years with no sign of stopping.

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Tuesday, 12 August 2025

Orlam

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Orlam' by P.J. Harvey.
P.J. Harvey
Picador Poetry

Nine-year-old Ira-Abel Rawles lives on Hook Farm in the village of UNDERWHELEM. Next to the farm is Gore Woods, Ira’s sanctuary, overseen by Orlam, the all-seeing lamb’s eyeball who is Ira-Abel’s guardian and protector. Here, drawing on the rituals, children’s songs, chants and superstitions of the rural West Country of England, Ira-Abel creates the twin realm through which she can make sense of an increasingly confusing and frightening world.

Orlam tells of a year in the life of Ira-Abel Rawles and her home of Hook Farm in the village of Underwhelem.  In the nearby Gore Woods Ira meets her own personal deity, the bleeding ghost of a soldier callled Wyman-Elvis, and finds sanctuary in her own ritual world.

Written in Harvey's native Dorset dialect - crucially with each poem also presented alongside it's modern English translation - this is a bold and bedevilling journey through a deliciously dark melange of the magical logic of chidhood and its associated rituals along with the often dark realities of growing up, of life on the cusp of adulthood, all fed through the filter of an early post-modern  1970s rural childhood where the familiar, the exotic, the profane and the perverse all come together into a dark and delirious masterpiece of rural horror.

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Thursday, 7 August 2025

Wild Folk: Tales from the Stones

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Wild Folk: Tales from the Stones' by Jackie Morris & Tamsin Abbott.
Jackie Morris (words)
Tamsin Abbott (images)
Unbound

Wild Folk comprises seven richly illustrated fables of transformation and power, summoned from the ancient stones beneath our feet and transformed by word and image into portals between past and future.

Jackie  Morris has produced a series of beautiful books over the years, many of which grace the bookshelves here at Wyrd Manor but beyond sharing a few of her paintings on the Wyrd Britain facebook page she's been conspicuously absent from the blog.  We're rectifying that right now with this lovely new book written in collaboration with stained glass artist Tamsin Abbott.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Wild Folk: Tales from the Stones' by Jackie Morris & Tamsin Abbott.

'Wild Folk' contains seven folklorish tales inspired by such diverse influences as classic folktales, the label of a cider bottle, a castle, W.B. Yeats and an island but what they have in common is their themes of a deep abiding love of the natural world and the mysteries it holds and a need to protect both.  Here she tells stories of hares, foxes, selkies, owls, trouts, swans, and ravens in a poetic prose, words often tumbling down the page in an almost race to present themselves.

Like all the best illustrators Abbott's art reflects these themes, encapsulating and reinterpreting the stories using her chosen medium to bring an additional vibrancy to the  stories, an expressiveness gained in no small part to the literal illumination that animates the art.

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Wild Folk: Tales from the Stones' by Jackie Morris & Tamsin Abbott.

Not all the stories work as well as one would wish, 'The Owl's Tale' has a jarring shift mid story and 'The White Hare's Tale' is a tad heavy handed but generally this is a delicately wistful and rather beautiful book that I devoured over the course of an evening.

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Wednesday, 6 August 2025

Master of Reality

Recorded in early 1971 and released on the 6th of August, Black Sabbath's third album, 'Master of Reality', saw the band release another genre defining record developing further on the two previous albums, 'Black Sabbath' & 'Paranoid'.  Having recorded and released two albums and toured around the world during 1970 the band were on top of their game and with more studio time to play with the band downtuned their instruments, smoked an unfeasible amount of hash and headed off into the void. 

Eight tracks over a thirty four minute run time including four songs - 'Sweat Leaf', 'After Forever', 'Children of the Grave' & 'Into the Void' - that would come to be considered amongst their greatest, the band forged the heavy, groove laden sound and lyrical themes that would later come to define Grunge, Doom Metal and Stoner Rock.   

Like it's predecessors the album was poorly reviewed by critics but embraced by the public charting high on both sides of the Atlantic and, to date, selling in excess of 4.8 million copies worldwide.  

Writing this two weeks after the Ozzy's passing I know it'll always be their peerless debut that lives at the centre of my affections, but some 40 odd years on from when my Uncle Mike introduced me to them - thanks man - and at a point in my life when I listen to almost no rock music, that album and 'Master of Reality' number among a very few that are still rarely far from my record player.

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Saturday, 2 August 2025

Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group" by Rebecca Gransden from The Tangerine Press.
Rebecca Gransden
The Tangerine Press

A pilgrimage. An England in delirium.

In the midst of an apocalyptic event of unknown provenance – a mass of red spreading north from the southern counties – a young girl sets out on a journey. Along the way she encounters a series of eccentric characters, the few left behind in the wake of a widespread evacuation. Some of these individuals are ravaged and on the edge of death, while others are immersed in their own hermetic practices, be they solipsistic, nihilistic, or otherwise. None wish to engage for more than the brief time necessary to offer their meagre assistance

Rebecca contacted me recently with regard to her book and a read of the synopsis alongside a glowing review from Iain Sinclair -  ‘Linguistically inventive, alert in every sense, and propelled with such narrative force that hairs burn on the unsuspecting reader's neck.'  - was all I needed to avail myself of a copy.

A post-apocalyptic novella that accompanies 'Flo' on her journey across an emptied land, its inhabitants having fled the unknown apocalypse spreading from the south.  It's effects on those who've remained are as profound as they are bizarre but it's most obvious impact is the altering of the written word, reducing it to single syllables, a deconstruction of language that gives the book the deeply lyrical character of Beat or Jazz poetry as the words fracture and tangle, tumbling over each other to create a delerious, occasionally nightmarish, vision of a land stripped of cohesion, slowly degenerating, reducing itself to a primordial state.

At first look, this broken narrative felt daunting, an obstacle placed directly in the reader's path, but by the third page, it became the novellas' strongest feature, one that immerses rather than repels, giving Flo's journey the character of her name.  There were moments that didn't necessarily work for me  - the chapter titled 'Public Information Dreams' seemed purposeless - and the enigma of the ending will,  I suspect, frustrate as many people as it enthralls but, and I say this unreservedly, I adored this book to the point that I'm certain I'll revisit this decaying world again soon.

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Wednesday, 30 July 2025

NEWS: Swan River Press publish Brian Catling collection, 'A Mystery of Remnant and Other Absences'.

NEWS: Swan River Press publish Brian Catling collection, 'A Mystery of Remnant and Other Absences'.
Following warm on the heels of their 2020 publication of the very excellent Brian Catling  novella, 'Munky', Swan River Press, have just announced the publication of a collection of Catling's short stories.

Limited to 500 copies and selling fast this is an unexpected chance to revisit, perhaps for the last time, the imagination of this singular and sadly missed artist and author.

From the website...

“The death itself was not a bodily thing.”

A ghost is an absence defined by its presence, or else a presence defined by its absence. The work of Brian Catling is filled with such visions, intrusions on the threshold of our world and the next. The stories collected within are fragments of a singular imagination, portals into worlds populated by dog-headed giants and reanimated bog bodies, spirits both beastly and mundane. These are tales about visionaries and mystics, about the need to venture into blurry territories of sight in which angels, ghosts and memories merge and reform. Together they showcase the distinctive voice underlying the very best of Catling’s work.

Includes three postcards with photos by Iain Sinclair and texts by Alan Moore.

Order details can be found here - 

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Monday, 28 July 2025

Lost in the Garden

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Lost in the Garden' by Adam S Leslie.
Adam S Leslie
Dead Ink Books

Heather, Rachel and Antonia are going to Almanby. Heather needs to find her boyfriend who, like so many, went and never came back. Rachel has a mysterious package to deliver, and her life depends on it. And Antonia - poor, lovestruck Antonia just wants the chance to spend the day with Heather. So off they set through the idyllic yet perilous English countryside, in which nature thrives in abundance and summer lasts forever. And as they travel through ever-shifting geography and encounter strange voices in the fizz of shortwave radio, the harder it becomes to tell friend from foe. Creepy, dreamlike, unsettling and unforgettable - you are about to join the privileged few who come to understand exactly why we don't go to Almanby.

If you'd have asked me at any point during the first half of this book what I thought of it, actually if you'd even stood near me for long enough, I'd have raved at you about how good it is. Unfortunately, if you'd asked the same question during the second half, I'd have repled with a wistful, "Hmmm."

Initially, this is a strange and vaguely cosmic road trip overflowing with fun dialogue and inventive narrative.  Leslie's writing is witty, his world-building is captivating, his characters are engaging and his pacing is perfect.  As the three girls travel to the forbidden town of Almanby we are treated  to a slightly surreal road trip until they arrive at their destination and from that point I couldn't shake the feeling that Leslie was in dire need of an editor.

Once in Almanby the purposeful drive becomes an indulgent meander that soon overstays it's welcome.  At no point did I stop enjoying Leslie's prose but he lost all momentum and the book became bogged down in a succession of fairly uninteresting surreal set pieces, most of which could have been ejected and replaced with a single stronger final act.

Regular Wyrd Britain readers will know how much I dislike writing negative reviews and I want to stress that this isn't one.  There is so very much to love here and I've spoken to people who felt the exact opposite about the book and that it found it's feet in that second half but for me, it wasn't what it could have been or perhaps what I wanted it to be.  What it absolutely was though was a bold and intriguing debut and I'm very interested to see what Leslie does next.

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Thursday, 24 July 2025

NEWS: Tartarus Press to publish 'T. Lobsang Rampa And Other Characters of Questionable Faith' by R.B. Russell

NEWS: Tartarus Press to publish "T. Lobsang Rampa And Other Characters of Questionable Faith' by R.B. Russell
The ever wonderful Tartarus Press have just announced the publication of a new set of essays by publisher Ray Russell on the topics of Cyril Henry Hoskin, a surgical fitter from Devon who claimed to be a reincarnated Buddhist monk named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, Millenarian church, the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, the Scientology cult and Genesis P-Orridge and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.

From the website...

T. Lobsang Rampa’s autobiography, The Third Eye was an international bestseller in 1956, but the author had to face some awkward questions from critics. There were two possibilities; either he really was a Tibetan lama whose third eye had been physically opened (and who could reveal secrets of levitation, invisibility, gilded extraterrestrials, giant temple cats, etc), or he was really the eccentric son of a plumber from Plympton in Devon.

Rampa would explain himself by discussing transmigration, and over the next quarter of a century (and in another eighteen books) he would reveal the secrets of the human aura, astral travel, UFOs, life on Venus, and the hollow Earth (and hollow Moon), among many other alternative, New Age ideas. For Rampa, there was no wild, left-field belief that was not true.

R.B. Russell has written the first definitive biography of Rampa (also known as Cyril Henry Hoskin). The identity of Rampa may have been conclusively debunked by anybody who knew anything about Tibet, Buddhism, or basic scientific principles, but he would always claim that everything he wrote was true, and until his death in 1980 he doesn’t ever seem to have come out of character.

Russell’s biography of Rampa is accompanied in this volume by three further studies of alternative belief systems that have fascinated him over the years.

Following the biography of Rampa, Russell writes about the Millenarian church, the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, who believed their leader was Christ and immortal, and that the world would end in 2000. (Spoiler alert: we are still here, and nobody has seen the leader for several years.)

A further essay is a brief look at one of the Church of Scientology’s techniques for recruiting members, the Oxford Capacity Analysis test. Russell argues that the test is based on a series of small, apparently innocuous lies, but he shows that they are indicative of Scientology’s complete disregard for honesty or integrity.

The final essay looks at the Temple of Psychic Youth, the knowing attempt by Genesis P-Orridge to create a modern cult. Was it exploitative and manipulative, or simply an ironic experiment? And how did it backfire when the 1980s tabloids created the Satanic Panic?

You can order the book from the website here - http://tartaruspress.com/russell-rampa.html

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Wednesday, 23 July 2025

Return of the Ancients: Unruly Tales of the Mythological Weird

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Return of the Ancients: Unruly Tales of the Mythological Weird' from the British Library Tales of the Weird.
Katy Soar (ed)
British Library Tales of the Weird

From the sun-seared shores of the Aegean to the misty bogs of ancient England, the dark tendrils of mythological gods and monsters have remained embedded in the minds of those who once believed, and throughout the past two centuries have inspired a haunting sub-genre of uncanny fiction.  

Collecting up strange tales of legendary Greco-Roman figures, pagan deities of Old Britain and godlings and abominations from the world’s pantheons returning to wreak havoc on modern civilization, this new anthology presents a thrilling array of weird fiction touched by the otherworldly and eternal mystique of myth, lore and legends. 

It's been a long while since I've dived into one of these British Library Tales of the Weird anthologies and even longer since I've enjoyed one as much.  There is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a real pulp fiction character to the stories although I will note not as much as I was suspecting as the title had me anticipating various Lovecrafty 'Old Ones' rising from assorted 'deeps'.  Here though things are of a more historical bent, with a couple of exceptions.  

I'm certain I'm not the ony one who often finds anthologies to be a bit of  pick and mix in terms of quality but rather wonderfully there was nothing here that made me want to skip past although I did wonder if opening story, 'Dionea' by Vernon Lee, would get the better of me as I've struggled with her writing in the past, but this time perseverence paid off and the story unfolded nicely, if slowly.

Thomas Graham Jackson's 'The Ring' bears an acknowledged debt to M.R. James whilst R. Ellis Roberts' 'The Great Mother' has a Machenean feel, although one stripped of the Masters' more folkloric or evangelical characteristics.  

John Buchan, no stranger to a strange story, begins a run of pulp romps with tale filled with wind and fire, whilst F.A.M. Webster conjures Aztec magic in 'The Owl', Flavia Richardson evokes ancient cats in 'Pussy' and Eugene de Rezske tells a story of hidden cults and ancient relics in 'The Veil of Tanit'. 

Wyrd Britain reviews 'Return of the Ancients: Unruly Tales of the Mythological Weird' from the British Library Tales of the Weird.
'The Face in the Wind' by Carl Jacobi has the distinction of being one of the most popular stories ever published in the venerable 'Weird Tales' and I can see why, its a fun tale of ancient creatures and a big old wall.  Edmond Hamilton's 'Serpent Princess' treads into Lovecraftian territory with the re-awakening of an ancient goddess whereas John Wyndham plays for laughs in 'More Spinned Against'.

Evangeline Walton, who some will know from her retellings of Welsh mythology - most notably published as part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series - here focusses her attention towards France and the legend of Y's in 'Above Ker-Is'.  Ken Alden tells a tale of paganism and politics in Justice Tresillian in the Tower' before the book ends strongly with two fairly modern tales from Stephen Baxter, with a story of obligations in 'Family History', and John Cooling's Carnacki-esque viking wolf tale 'The House of Fenris'.

Soar has assembled a thoroughly enjoyable selection that dipped into a pleasingly varied selection of mythologies avoiding over-familiar choices and my reintroduction to this fun series proved to be one of the stronger and more cohesive entrants.

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