The Oken Stone Podcast

Kroovan Wings is a homage to trees. In Gaelic craobh (pronounced kroov) means 'tree'. It is a celebration of two magnificent trees, an Ash and a Sycamore, that stand at the gateway to the Galloway Forest Park and at a meeting point on the Southern Upland Way below Culmark Hill. Both trees produce seeds that have wings to fly out across the landscape.
This is part of a show that I am making with Oceanallover and a small sample of the music seems to have grown into the story, with the voices of Joey Sanderson and Breezy Lee, clarinet from Freya Rae.

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This is a new piece of work that I am developing with Nomoss, a dance and music collaboration based in Edinburgh. In this instance the sound is some reworked recordings that I made whilst on holiday in East Wittering some while back.

The text was originally written for presentation in The Arches in Glasgow in 2008. It is a narrative given from the point of view of a drawing, a very particular drawing from a book of medical dissections published in 1672.

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This is a short story about getting lost in the dark. Part of the problem is that you can only get lost if you knew where you were in the first place, and the problem with darkness is knowing whether or not you have your eyes open.

This story may be metaphorical, in which case it is an abstract moment, an existential crisis. Or it may be true, which could make it into a variety of horror story. But then, there is that mid point at which it could be either.

Sound for the story was constructed live in The Arches, Glasgow in 2011 with Jamie Hall and Callum Mcaskill for my show called The Treadmill Poets. As with almost all live work, it was a brief moment in history. The Arches themselves were closed and Glasgow lost one of its best venues.

I have heard it said that melancholy is a desirable state of mind in some Northern lattitudes, possibly as a coping mechanism for longer winter nights. This story could certainly be described as such.

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.....and even as the eagle soared above the rocky slopes, the tortoise encaged in its talons, the petals encaged in the jaws of the reptile, so a young naturalist ran forwards - last of his kind, taxidermy on his mind.............. The stricken eagle fell amongst a drift of feathers and petals, releasing the scaled misile from its grasp and joining all four together in death upon the shoulder of the mountain.

Man
Cracked my head, in single strike
as I ran forward in earnest haste
to collect my prized, beloved bird
shot clean through and through
to find its ordered home amongst
museum draws and taxiderma
tologists contortioning
your dark and burning eyes become
vitrified and shattered
my cranium in blow un seen
as from the sky a lilac flower
fell, my leaden body sliding
to the ground in avalanche
of crushed ambitions here, upon
a scree slope inverted hopes
discovery and erudition
science through observation keen,
the bullet of my eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

https://oceanallover.bandcamp.com/album/orographic

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The Orographic album was recorded, mixed & mastered by Stuart Hamilton
(Castlesound Studios, 12th-14th September 2018)
Produced by Guy Veale
© Oceanallover 2018
Lead vocals - Joel Sanderson, Breezy Elthalion & Catherine Carter
Bass & cello - Joel Sanderson
Trumpet, helicon & backing vocals - Richard Merchant
Trombone & backing vocals - Roger Marsh
Bass trombone & backing vocals - Ross McCrae
Percussion & backing vocals - Anders Rigg
Spoken word - Alex Rigg
Electronics & keys - Guy Veale
Lyrics & album design - Alex Rigg

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Thanks very much for listening. Art is an act of generosity and as such is made to be shared.

These are a few poems written over the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure if they are about anything, except perhaps my reaction to the passage of thoughts and emotions within myself and a reaction to the places in which I find myself.
The duality of internal and external worlds seems very relevant at this time in our culture and at this moment of big global change.

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Thanks very much for listening. Art is an act of generosity and as such is made to be shared.