All Hold Hands and Off We Go

Keith Seatman
K.S. Audio
CD

We at Wyrd Britain are long time fans of the work of the estimable Mr Seatman.  Over on our old music blog - Wonderful Wooden Reasons - and here on WB we've sung his praises on several occasions with his last album, 'A Rest Before the Walk', being a real favourite around here that still gets brought out to play pretty regularly.

Keith's music, particularly of late, offers a twisted pastoral and darkly bucolic melding of electronic music and english folk, the latter in collaboration with North Devon Singer/Songwriter Douglas E Powell.

This is music that is redolent of place and time and like all good hauntological music the exact location of each is fluid and never entirely specific.  It's music of a lost Albion, a windswept land of steel skies and old ways, of dark, satanic mills built upon psilocybin drenched earth fertilised by the endlessly copulating ghosts of generations of cunning folk. Through it's hands runs a stream of British outsider music from Coil to Bowie at his most enigmatic and it feels like it's redefining the boundaries of what constitutes a truly British music.

The British Space Group

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." 

Leonardo da Vinci 

(attributed)

Available now on the Quiet World label is the debut album from my new music project The British Space Group called 'Eyes Turned Skyward'.

For the last 12 or so years I've been releasing music under my given name and also using several aliases.  My music is generally of the slow, low and atmospheric variety mixing deep dark drones with field recordings and spatterings of electronics.

You can hear a selection of music in this post from the end of 2014.

This new project is something slightly different for me.  It was sparked by a desire to create music on a theme.  Namely my love of British science fiction of the 50s, 60s and 70s, hence the, I hope, suitably old fashioned band name.  This urge follows on from two EPs  I released around 5 years ago - Phantasms I & II - which consisted of a couple of sets of radiophonic style miniatures - you can hear these at that link above - that spoke of my adoration of the work of a certain Workshop.

There's a follow on album to the two Phantasms EPs coming in early 2016 but in the meantime I would like to point your attention to the first The British Space Group album, 'Eyes Turned Skyward'.  It's title comes from the quote that tops this post as I thought in conjunction with the band name it most ably summed up what I was trying to achieve with this music.

Some nice folks have been kind enough to say some pretty lovely things about it.

'I cannot recommend this album highly enough. For fans of electronica, hauntology, soundtracks, minimalism and experiential music; there is something here that will touch something in all of you. Watch the skies, listen ...and wait.' - Grey Malkin, The Active Listener

'With this album, The British Space Group, have created something that is a must-buy for those into the more thought provoking side of music. It manages to bridge the gap between 70’s sci-fi soundtracks and modern ambient/drone. It’s an album that plays like a short movie with each component vital to the story. It’s an album that must be listened to from beginning to end as each song represents a chapter in this most enjoyable story.'  - Simon Tucker, Louder Than War

You can buy and / or listen via the player below.  I hope you enjoy.

Peace
ian