This past month Psychogeographic Review has been reading:

Nan Shepherd – ‘In the Cairngorms’ (1934)

Newly republished and with an introduction by Robert Macfarlane, this is the sole collection of poems by Scottish modernist writer, Nan Shepherd.  Shepherd walked in the Cairngorms whenever she had time off from her job as a teacher and this collection is an expression of her love for those hills:

And Muich Dhui’s summit,
Rock defiant against frost and the old grinding of ice,
Wet with the cold fury of blinding cloud

John Williams – ‘Stoner’(1965)

William Stoner is raised on a dirt-poor mid-Western farm. He goes to college to study agriculture, falls in love with books, transfers to major in English and ends up as a lecturer in English Literature at the same college.  He marries and has a daughter.  His life and career are largely unremarkable and, when he dies, few remember him.  Yet, by drawing significance out the most ordinary of individual lives, John Williams tells a powerful story of universal value.

Kirmen Uribe – ‘Bilbao – New York – Bilbao’ (2008)

Translated from the Basque language and now available in English through the Welsh publisher, Seren,  Bilbao – New York – Bilbao is a first novel by the poet Kirmen Uribe.  The writer makes a journey from Bilbao to New York.  As he travels he weaves together a mosaic of family stories, diaries, emails, poems, paintings and dictionaries to tell the history of his family and that of the fishing industry of his home village.  But underlying everything, the crack in the fabric of all their lives, is the  memory of the Civil War.

Meanwhile, we were listening to:

The Specials – ‘The Specials’ (1979)

There are some albums you buy, play and enjoy for a while,  then you put it to one side for years, decades even.  Too much new stuff to pay listen to, perhaps.  For me, this is one of those albums and, listening to it again, I’m amazed at the strength of the songs, the quality of the musicianship and the sheer, crackling energy of the whole record.  Get up and dance – this is the second coming of Ska!

Richard Dawson – ‘Nothing Important’ (2014)

This is a dark, brave, uncompromising album by singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Dawson.  It was recommended to me by a friend and I had no idea what to expect.  What you get is four tracks, two of them instrumental, which suggests Dawson is not aiming his sights at the mainstream market.  What you hear is collection of unsettling lyrics and a joyful melange of folk, raga and blues-tinged guitar playing.

Jo Johnson – ‘Weaving’ (2014)

Jo Johnson has a background in punk and techno music and this is her first solo album.  It’s quite a departure from her previous work – five slices of ambient sounds and minimalist repetitions.  But it’s the attention to detail and the technical accomplishment of these ethereal soundscapes that really appeals.  That and track titles like In the Shadow of the Workhouse, which somehow puts me in mind of the opening of George Gissing’s novel The Nether World.

And watching:

‘The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner’ – Tony Richardson (1962)

Visually beautiful, moving and life-affirming – why don’t British studios make films like this any more?  Because early-sixties Britain was another world, one we don’t live in any more: a time of borstal, conscription, corporal punishment, class deference, racism, wife beating and the imprisonment of gay men.  And those are just the better bits.

‘A Very Peculiar Practice’ (Complete BBC Series) – Andrew Davies (1986)

A Very Peculiar Practice is a BBC comedy from the mid-1980s that ran to two series.  This DVD collection includes both series as well as a follow-up TV film set in Poland.  Written by Andrew Davies,  the show was relegated to a late-night weekday slot.  Perhaps this was because Davies’s black, surreal comedy was not mainstream enough, but more likely because the whole thing was an excoriating indictment of Thatcher’s attack on higher education.  It was also very funny.

‘Pandaemonium’ – Julien Temple (2002)

In Pandaemonium Julien Temple explores the relationship between the young William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  We get a visceral sense of a Britain that is being swallowed up by the march of industry and a wider Europe simmering on the brink of revolution.  Against this background the two collaborate on Lyrical Ballads and Coleridge, in between consuming a lot of opium, produces The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.