Thursday 13 October 2011

Psychogeography on holiday


We’ve had some nice weather in Essex lately; I requested it for my ‘Summer holiday’; and no-one says no to this face! I’ve been using the lovely weather to explore local landscapes in new ways.

London and Love Lane

Psychogeography has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with England’s capital city; I have long enjoyed merely walking round  a part of London, with no cause but interest.

During some temp work in London I have been engaged in some urban wandering and it has got me seeing London from a completely different angle. Leather Lane, for example, is hidden just off Holborn Circus and is profuse with leather and lots of wonderful little coffee shops. Little Essex Road is in the middle of the law quarter; I’ve never seen a road that shared so little with Essex!
 Love Lane was a road I discovered by accident wandering towards East London. When I walked it, it seemed one of the least ‘Love’ filled roads in all of London; there are no front facing businesses on the road and there were very few people using the road. The only thing that seemed vaguely love related was Shakespeare’s Garden at the end of the lane. Traditionally  road names reflected usage; you can find examples of this all over London; you would have found chickens on Poultry, pork at Swinegate and so maybe traditionally people found love, of a kind on ‘Love Lane’. A little research suggested that historically ‘Love Lane’ was a hotbed of prostitution ; today the road plays host to a City of London HIV and Chlamydia clinic. Maybe I was looking for the wrong kind of love down ‘Love Lane’?

Cambridge, Maldon, St Andrews, Ely.

In the last few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to get out and about in the local (and not so local) area. I have been really indulging my early Medievalist; getting my hands on modern day settlements that retain their three-road Medieval structure. 

Cambridge, Maldon and St Andrews all qualify as ‘quaint little English towns’ and are based around three main streets. Such a simple settlement pattern not only makes it easy to get home if you are a drunken fresher; but also makes it much easier to direct tourists to the church/ river/ ice cream shop (delete as appropriate). It never ceases to amaze me, that a settlement system introduced over a thousand years ago can still provide the essentials for a modern town; even if we are no longer trying to hide our swine in the back streets (or are we?).  On the subject of settlements has anyone else realised that even though Ely has a Cathedral and Cambridge does not; Ely is in Cambridgeshire, why is that?

One day I drove the car out and around north Essex. I stopped off for some proper East Saxon jam in Maldon. Maldon is the scene of a semi-famous Saxon epic poem, the Battle of Maldon (that’s the one where Byrtnoth showed some fatal ofermod – whatever that turned out to be!); its got the three-street structure and some pretty, old buildings. I later enjoyed my East Saxon roots with another Essex girl in Cambridge; but I also drove through many other evocative Saxon settlements; Essex is full of them – Tillingham, Dengie (after the Dæningas, awesome name), Althorne, Osea Island.  Driving around rural Essex you could almost be forgiven for believing no one had arrived since those vicious Vikings of 991 (who arrived during the Battle of Maldon); its thoroughly unspoilt with lots of wiggly-roads and old field boundaries.

Essex is home to one of the best places in the world; Bradwell on Sea. It has been a Roman fort, a Saxon monastic community and now a nature reserve and hamlet on the shores of the Blackwater Estuary, where it meets the North Sea. This space has been a special place for me since before I can remember. Just to sit on the beach (in snow or sunshine) and watch the Thames barges/ windmills/ birds tumble in the breeze (delete as appropriate) is magical. It is a place I feel automatically more peaceful, able to notice even the drifting bird flying on the air current and the barge passing silently past.
What is it about this landscape that is so capable of making me stop and notice passing birds, to be peaceful? Which places are special to you? What is it about that space or landscapes that makes it special? Why don’t you share your special place with someone?!

Southend; walls, barges and berries.

One of the aims of the psychogeographer is to get people (including themselves) to see familiar places in a new light. Armed with only a camera, and with a whole afternoon to spare, I set out for Old Leigh; another special coastal place. I tried to essentialise the landscape in a few key images which took my eye; the images that epitomised ‘Leigh’. I tried to frame the images naturally and resist the urge to edit my photos; instead I wanted to focus on taking good photos, first time round, like we used to before digital. You can see how I got on here.



Leigh: sea wall, coast and blackberries

Looking for images made my other senses somewhat heightened; to the sounds of spinnakers flapping in the wind and the water lapping the shore; the crunch of sand in my trainers and of salt on my lips. Experiencing the environment holistically got me thinking not only about the beauty of the environment but, as ever, different perspectives on space and ideas.  I’ve never really seen myself as an arty-creative before, but looking at textures in my environment even got me thinking about bigger ideas; looking at a bench being engulfed by a hedge I started to think about what we let engulf us; and more to the point, why? 

Bench on the seafront, Leigh


What environments do you live in or pass through every day? How do you feel about them? How might you engage with your environment in ways that help you perceive it differently? And what about your special places? What connects meaning to space to make it place? Would you share that space with someone you care about? Would you share it with the internet?

Enjoy getting out into your communities this weekend and take great photos!

Monday 3 October 2011

Luke Leighfield and Jose Vanders: Live at The Borderline


The astute amongst you will notice that I haven’t got any better at blogging weekly. I am really sorry. All I can say is that London is full of lots of bright lights and I am easily distracted...oh look shiny thing! One of the wonderful distractions of the big smoke is gig venues. Last Tuesday I went to The Borderline to watch Luke Leighfield and Jose Vanders; here’s what I thought.

I first saw Jose play at Jesus College May Ball in Summer 2008. My feet had been really hurting from wearing stupidly high heels for an all-night party; and come midnight I was resting my feet in the bar. In the bar a petite singer with a much larger voice was playing her original tunes about waiting at railway stations and going to the fair with a boy she loved. The combination of beautiful melody and silly lyrics about ordinary events reminded me of the songs my best friend Lizzie used to write when we were teenagers. Although the most memorable part of Jose's gig was her begging for a pint before the end of her set, I enjoyed it enough to buy her EP (Transactional Language) several days later.

So three years later she offered her fans cheap tickets to see her at a London venue, on a day I could do and I was there! The Borderline is a basement venue in Soho that is well suited to bands with few performers (the stage is quite small) and for intimate gigs (I reckon there were 150 -200 of us there). Playing a small venue was actually really beneficial for the audience as we could see all the facial expressions and the little details Leighfield and Vanders throw in. It provided quite a different atmosphere to other gigs that I've attended.

I actually went to this gig on my own but it really wasn’t a problem. They’re a nice crowd at The Borderline and Vanders’ voice quickly picks you up and wheels you away far beyond the venue. She played a great set with a combination of the old greats, ‘Puppets’ and ‘Faces Going Places’; the latter, where she played piano and provided the ‘clap’ percussion simultaneously, being very impressive. She also played the playlist from her Blue Notes EP and ‘Man on Wire’. It was really interesting to see how Vanders’ music has developed; she still writes about break ups, romance and other frivolity, but she’s also developing a more mature edge to her lyrics which deal with big issues; I liked that. The poetic language is still there too, ‘I’m like the sun without the shine, a long road without any signs’ (Me Without a You) and you know how I enjoy unusual similes! (cf my post on Mornings in Jenin). She also owned the night really well; the personal touch of understanding the context of her lyrics gave them a new depth of meaning.

Jose was the reason I went to the gig but she was well complemented by both Luke Leighfield and Marcel Legan. Jose and Luke have just released a split EP which is the basis for their tour. I’ll admit I had not researched either of the other artists before I went; but Luke’s music was really uplifting. He played the set preceding Jose’s which I caught almost by accident. He sounds a bit like Get Cape Wear Cape Fly crossed with the Rend Collective (make up your own mind here) both in his love for brass to complement more traditional instruments and big chorus lines; all used to address everything from romance to loneliness, hope and despair.

I bought Luke's latest album and the EP of Marcel Legan. On the night Marcel provided backing vocals and guitar for both artists but he is also an artist in his own right. I bought his EP because his vocal on the other artists’ tracks (such as Metal Detector) was sensational. His voice sent shivers down my spine; and I was unsurprised to find that several of my friends, of both genders, had serious crushes on him; that voice is magic! Real Gone reviewed his EP and said ‘those great moments only really present themselves after two or three listens’. I agree that the EP is not ‘instant gratification’ but as it has played on my MP3 this last week it has grown exponentially on me.

All three artists write about lying in bed, amongst other things, anyone would think they were students (!). They also do a good line in quirky videos (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slBDsoQH9kM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USUhT1sDvJs for reference). Their coming together for the split EP has definitely been good for the UK music scene. If you remain unconvinced can I encourage you to check out their cover of Bon Iver, Blindsided. It is hauntingly beautiful, and has a gorgeous backdrop of London at night; a very fitting tribute to another great band. Jose and Luke are currently touring Europe with their split EP but you can still check ‘em out online!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCN5yxFI7wc