This is a short poem written looking across at Kapiti Island north of Wellington in New Zealand. Heavily influenced by jet-lag and what has been a very curious year for me.

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This is a studio recording of the story and music from my 2024 project Kroovan Wings. Thos recording will be released as an album for streaming on the 6th of December 2024 and is available now on Bandcamp:

https://oceanallover.bandcamp.com/

If you want to support our project so that it can be performed in 2025 then please buy a copy of the album from Bandcamp.

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, the music has grown into the story, with the voices of Joey Sanderson and Breezy Lee, clarinet from Freya Rae and trumpet from Richard Merchant.

Joey Sanderson - Vocals and JelloBass
Breezy Lee - Vocals
Richard Merchant - Trumpet
Freya Rae - Clarinet
Alex Rigg - Vocals and Lyrics

Mastering - Andrea Gobbi
Recorded at Gloworm Studios, Glasgow

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

Body Memory Mapping

During this period in our lives of altered behaviours and patterns many of us will change the way we are living, even if the changes are momentary. These changes may be large or small, physical or psychological. The changes will be recorded by our memories and by our bodies. The changes may be minor and temporary or transfiguring and permanent…… or anywhere between those extremes. A person who had never bothered with growing things before may have become an avid gardener, developing callouses on their hands in the process. Someone used to a hard physical life may have become overweight. Someone obese may have become slim. A person with arthritis may have discovered that new daily routines have made their joints more pliable. Perhaps someone lost an eye running through the woods, or gained a new understanding of their own body. A person may have survived a major physical trauma on their own, or been rescued from a dangerous situation. You may have lost a limb, a tooth or a wart. Your back may have recovered after years of manual labour or be wonky after lifting a heavy wheelbarrow. Someone may have been burned moving the barbecue or developed a stutter through loneliness or the weight of family responsibilities. They may have damaged lungs or liver as a direct result of Covid-19. In all cases there will be a body memory that links these recent histories to a specific time and place in their lives. In retelling the story of these memories they will be referring to a map held within their bodies.

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This is a poem from 2002. It was a very colurful year amongst many such years. Hindsight - does that mean looking at the deer's tail? The monster in question here is my libido I supose, or the hidden clockwork mechanism that drives one.

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

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

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

Buy our music on Bandcamp and help us to bring you more stories and music.

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

Support the show

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