WEEKENDS IN FIELDS ABANDONED BARNHOUSES & IT ENDLESSLY RAINING IN HORIZONTAL DELUGE FOR DAYS & NIGHTS UNENDING (est 2009, 2010; COWPAT ETERNITY DIADEM). MIDWAY THROUGH MY EDUCATION IN SADDLEWORTH -- I HAD LONG DIRTY HAIR, I WOULD SOCIALISE & DRINK CHEAP EXPERIMENTAL ALCOHOL WITH FRIENDS, ACQUAINTANCES & STRANGERS THERE, BY CANAL TOWPATHS, IN THE WOODS BEYOND RESERVOIRS, LEFT-BEHIND QUARRIES WITH BMX BASTARDS, SURLY DISAPPROVING DOG WALKERS . . . WITH NED O’ TH’ WHITE STANGS, WE TRIED TO MAKE THE ANSWER “YES”, WE SAID TO HIM “COME WITH US” BUT HE FELT IT STUPID, OR PERHAPS HE WAS AFRAID, I WON’T KNOW NOW. RETURNING HOME FROM A PISSUP ONE NIGHT WE SAW THE BOGGART OF HELLEN-POT WALKING HIS DOGS UP A BRACKENY INCLINE

Max said to me once that he had not understood the music of Burial until he moved to a city and witnessed for himself the empty stillness of flats and offices from the night bus, & that humming and sustained afterglow of the urban working day. Before he had not understood because in the rural north there is no ‘afterglow’ as such, it is just all day and night permanent ghosts and the rain and manifest void

→ → →