The Haunted Generation In The Fortean Times (Issue 439)

The Haunted Generation is also a regular column in Fortean Times magazine, rounding up new releases and forthcoming events. From Issue 439, dated Christmas 2023…

THE HAUNTED GENERATION

Bob Fischer rounds up the latest news from the parallel worlds of popular hauntology

“I was a little late seeing The Stone Tape for the first time,” admits Rob Glover. “It was something myself and a close knit group of friends had read about online, mentioned in whispers on internet forums. We had to hunt it down…”

Safe to say he’s caught up now. Inspired by the 50th anniversary of Nigel Kneale’s still-disturbing 1972 TV play, Rob has launched a spanking new record label – Hidden Britain Tapes – by commissioning an impressive compilation album, the evocatively-titled Analysing A Ghost By Electronic Means. Here, the likes of Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan, The Night Monitor and The Soulless Party contribute an eclectic array of original electronic music, all influenced by the brickwork-based hauntings that once got Jane Asher in such a terrible tizz.

“It was the blending of the technological and the supernatural that really floored me,” says Rob. “It lingered long after the chilling climax.” The album is available from hiddenbritain.bandcamp.com.

Up in North-east England, it seems, similarly hair-rasing psychic echoes abound. Here, Dr Peter Falconer has been profoundly affected by the lingering traces of a coastal community that – he claims – vanished in curious circumstances. “Even amongst the people of Hartlepool, there was a bit of distrust about Seaton Snook,” he says. “There were rumours of strange moonlight rituals and supernatural goings on. When I did a bit of digging, I realised I’d played on those same sand dunes as a child without realising that there had once been a thriving community there. I always felt I could still hear the voices of this forgotten town, drifting over the sound of the waves…”

Peter’s explorations paddle mischievously through the shallow waters separating fact from fiction. Did Mrs Agatha Pilkington really use her Grundig Stenorette dictaphone to record the aftermath of an appalling incident at the local Zinc Works? Did 19th century bigamist John ‘Timon Of The Tees’ Wills reinvent himself as rural occultist ‘Black Willie’? And what about the book of Northumbrian smallpipe tunes collated by amateur actor and pirate radio pioneer Robson Booth? The answer to this latter question, at least, is relatively straightforward. Peter – an accomplished smallpipe-player himself – has recorded them for posterity on his pragmatically-named new album, The Seaton Snook Smallpipes Tunes. The album is beautifully played, and the whole project is an extraordinary feat of either meticulous research or fevered invention… or, more likely, a bit of both. Head to seatonsnook.com, and be sure to take your wellies.

Equally fascinated by the urban vanished is D. Rothon, whose new release Lonesome Echoes is not – as you might expect – a lament for all things solitary. Rather, it’s a musical homage to a short-lived South London village with a curious name: Lonesome. Once located amid the 19th century swamplands between Streatham Vale and Mitcham Common, this tiny community lasted barely 100 years before its downfall was precipitated by “a rough reputation and the combined fragrances of piggeries and chemical factories”. This beautiful EP is a woozy, melancholy collection for mellotron and pedal steel guitar and is available from claypipemusic.co.uk.

And, while you’re there, maybe check out The Beacons. A stunning new album by Vic Mars, it takes an atmospheric ramble around the unforgiving landscapes and strange folklore of the Welsh mountains. Listeners particularly keen to tally with the Fae should head directly to ‘Cwm Llwch’. According to local legend, this small Powys lake is the home of an invisible island populated by the Tylwyth Teg fairies, and – on May Day every year – a mystical doorway appears on the shoreline, whisking curious visitors through a secret tunnel to the island’s enchanted garden. Vic evokes this curious tale with lilting guitars and shimmering synths, but elsewhere there are darker tones: ‘The Obelisk’ marks the tragic 1900 fate of Tommy Jones, a wandering infant whose body was inexplicably found 686m above sea level after a tip-off from a local woman who claimed to have foreseen this remote location in a dream.

Meanwhile, Bob Plant – recording in his guise as Portland Vows – has been revisiting curious incidents from his Staffordshire childhood. The Witches Of Hopwas Woods is a charming record inspired by a 1984 news report (in the Tamworth Herald, fact fans) about the arrest of a coven of local witches, found dancing naked in this beloved local beauty spot. “It prompted me and a few friends to visit the woods a couple of days later,” recalls Bob. “We found remnants of fires and what looked to us like occult symbols fashioned from branches, twigs and grass”. The album is available from thirdkindrecords.bandcamp.com. Feeling similarly ceremonial, Steve Netting has summoned up Between Shadows And Lore, a splendidly melodic homage to the esoteric practices of his native Devonshire. Steve has previously recorded as Town and County, but – for this project – has adopted Pennycross Coven as his moniker of choice, and tracks like ‘Casting The Circle’ and ‘Cone Of Power’ suggest an intimate familiarity with the Wiccan traditions of Plymouth. And, indeed, the 1980s soundtracks of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It’s available from woodfordhalse.bandcamp.com.

Speaking of the inestimable Workshop, this month saw the release of an extraordinary collection from one of its most notable luminaries. Throughout 1963 and ’64, Delia Derbyshire collaborated with playwright Barry Bermange on Inventions For Radio, a series of four longform sound collages for the BBC’s Third Programme. Keen to canvas the thoughts of everyday punters on matters metaphysical, Bermange decamped to Hornsey Old People’s Welfare Council and asked its users to recount memories of their latest dreams, their relationships with God and the numerous drawbacks of their encroaching mortality. ‘Dreams’ in particular forms a disturbing narrative: one of malevolent beasties, bottomless voids, alien planets and the fragmented memories of wartime bereavement. Its most heartbreaking moment? The woman who finds her deceased little brother deep underwater, still showing twitching signs of life. “I must tell my mother…”

Derbyshire assembles a hugely affecting backdrop of throbbing drones and manipulated choral sounds, segueing effortlessly from melancholic disquiet to ecclesiastic rapture, and the whole collection is available from silvascreen.com. I also recommend Future Perfect, a collection of unreleased private recordings from the woman Delia considered her spiritual heir. Elizabeth Parker joined the Radiophonic Workshop in 1978, creating music and sound effects for Doctor Who, Blake’s 7 and Day of the Triffid. But, in her own time, she was amassing an equally impressive home archive of synth experiments and sound manipulations, and the album is an immaculately-compiled showcase for these often disquieting recordings. Visit trunkrecords.com .

Even more unsettling? The earliest memories of Elizabeth Bernholz, whose childhood was marred by a malevolent presence at her bedside. “There’s a memory of a ghost,” she explains. “The black dog in my parent’s room, in my first childhood home. A black shadow. Blacker than black. Or in my bedroom, eyes on my spine, as I slept…” Recording under the name Gazelle Twin, Elizabeth has poured these disturbing memories into her appropriately-titled new album, Black Dog. Here, foreboding slabs of ambience are punctured by her own haunting, piercing vocals as she attempts to expunge these alarming experiences. “Through a dark, dark house / Up the dark, dark stairs / Was a dark, dark room…” she chants, as the throbbing rhythms of the title track explode into a squall of electronic noise. It’s the cornerstone of an album steeped in anxious beauty, available from gazelletwin.bandcamp.com.

On a lighter note, anyone remember the 1970s film output of (Associated) British Ligoncuss? No? Not surprising really, but that hasn’t stopped Stephen Stannard of The Rowan Amber Mill launching a multi-media tribute to this underappreciated producer of low-budget horror flicks. Debut single ‘Ghosts On Mopeds’ is the splendidly proggy 1976 title song that once soundtracked a spectral scooter gang’s one-way mission down the A303, and it’s included on a folk-tinged compilation, The Haunted Future Silence Bequeathed. Further releases are promised from rowanambermill.bandcamp.com. Meanwhile, Folk Horror fans might be similarly interested in a real-life contemporary film from director Graham Vasey. The Black Tor is a haunting, five-minute tale of ritual menace set amid the isolated moorland of Teesdale. Shot on authentic monochrome 16mm film stock, and hand-processed by Graham himself, it boasts an air of suitably analogue dread. If you’re looking to work off a few festive over-indulgences, take a steep climb up to youtube.com/@GrahamVasey81.

But, if you prefer your merry-making to be a little more sedentary, I recommend curling up with a wonderful brace of books by Stephen Prince. For almost a decade, Stephen has been exploring all manner of rural strangeness through his constantly evolving project, A Year In The Country. He has a virtually unparalleled enthusiasm for TV, film and music from the more overgrown corners of the pastoral realm, and this passion is evident in both Lost Transmissions and Threshold Tales. The books – available from ayearinthecountry.co.uk – follow the “brambled pathways” from Ghost Box Records to Alan Garner, from the “spectral hip-hop” of Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog to the darker side of Disney’s 1980s output. In short, they’re the perfect accompaniment to a glass of brandy, a slice of fruity cake and whichever arcane ritual makes you happiest during these dark, sepulchral, winter evenings. Happy Christmas, everyone.