Drew Huddart

The Haunted Generation is also a regular column in Fortean Times magazine, rounding up new releases and forthcoming events. From Issue 447, dated August 2024…

THE HAUNTED GENERATION

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

“It’s summer hauntology,” says Adam S. Leslie. “It’s sun-faded Lyons Maid lolly menus, old road maps that seem to change whenever you look at them, a brass band on the green. And an ice cream van that you can never quite glimpse, chiming out creepy old folk songs on the other side of the village…”

We’re discussing his superlative new novel, Lost in the Garden. Not so much a road trip as a nightmarish amble through tangled country lanes with a melting Fab lolly dripping down your sleeve, it’s set in a perpetually sun-drenched England populated by the reawakened corpses of much-missed relatives. “I wanted to evoke those endless summers of childhood,” continues Adam. “The days spent roaming fields and woodland, and the woozy, oppressive, slightly hallucinatory heat – but told through a Folk Horror lens. Here, summer is literally endless: due to some unseen catastrophe, the world has been stuck in mid-July for the last six years. Geography is no longer a fixed constant, and the ghosts of the dead roam disconsolately.”

The book follows the quest of young protagonist Heather. Her boyfriend Steven has gone missing in the abandoned village of Almanby, and – as Heather sets out to find him – his delirious voice can be heard drifting fleetingly across shortwave radio broadcasts. Beautifully written, it’s a supremely atmospheric page-turner that should delight fans of John Wyndham and Alan Garner. Published by Dead Ink Books, it’s available now from all good bookshops – “and I’ve always wanted to say that,” smiles Adam.

Similarly up to no good behind the hedgerows are Emlyn Bainbridge and Josh Day-Jones, a Gloucestershire duo recording as Orbury Common. Their new album Sylvan Chute is a sticky, wet-browed nightmare of hip-hop beats, traditional folk trappings and arcane chants, summed up perfectly by ‘Jaundice and the Pipermen’, an evocative song inspired by Josh’s fevered daydream about a troupe of sickly bagpipe players marching across some weird, parallel universe village green. A youthful double act who profess a laudably unhealthy interest in vintage 1970s strangeness, they have created a beguiling and beautiful world. Follow the weatherbeaten waymakers to orburycommon.bandcamp.com.

And what’s that? Strange, fuzzy signals coming from your wireless on the way? Don’t worry, it’s probably just a stray emission from Shropshire Number Stations. Eric Loveland Heath is the man behind this fascinating project, creating his own versions of the mysterious real-life broadcasts that have baffled devoted radio hams for decades. Are these woozy electronic melodies and solemnly-intoned number sequences really coded instructions to spies hidden (literally) in the field? Eric has no idea, but his album Shropshire & Mid Wales is an immaculate homage to their disquieting charms, and it emanates from plentywenlockrecords.bandcamp.com.

Meanwhile, does the name Drew Huddart ring a bell? It certainly should. Recording as Scholars of the Peak, Drew is a Peak District campanologist whose ear-splitting hobby is now influencing a series of charming electronic releases. His debut EP, The Peak, combines the sounds of his local church chimes with crisply contemporary beats, and follow-up Lost Lions is an homage to the giant feline stone guardians built to guard the Britannia Bridge in Anglesey, but now largely hidden after two hapless local schoolboys started a devastating fire in May 1970. Give Drew a ring, he’s at thescholarsofthepeak.bandcamp.com.

Also catching my ear recently: Shoreline Ritual is an unsettling, atmospheric waft along haunted coastlines in the company of Grey Malkin and Jörg ‘Fogroom’ Follert, available from thehareandthemoon.bandcamp.com. Iniquitous is the latest joyous collection of spoof TV themes from Phil ‘British Stereo Collective’ Heeks, bringing the long-forgotten title music from ‘The Sandon Village Tales’ to castlesinspace.bandcamp.com. And I’m very grateful to John Parkes, who politely accosted me at this year’s Weird Weekend North (FT446:16-17) and gave me a CD by his psychedelic pop outfit The Electric Flea Show. Titled Art Club Of Paintings, it boasts delightful hints of Caravan, Syd Barrett and early Genesis, and is available from theelectricfleashow.bandcamp.com.

And for a truly immersive experience, why not lose yourself in The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow? I’ve barely played a computer game since the heyday of Jet Set Willy, but even I’ve been unable to resist adopting the persona of Thomasina Bateman, a Victorian antiquarian invited to the rain-soaked moorland hamlet of Bewley to excavate an ancient burial mound. An interactive Folk Horror game with an atmosphere of creeping dread, it’s the perfect summertime getaway for anyone whose ideal holiday involves a drunken yokel slurring “nowt for you here, lass” in an unwelcoming village tavern. Grab your shovel and dig up a download from hobsbarrow.com, and keep an eye open for the vomiting vicar. He’s probably had too many Fab lollies after evensong.