MAY
THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN
AN INTERVIEW WITH
MARK COYLE
SL: It is obvious from the various projects that you are involved in (more of which, later) that you have a great love of folk music, tradition and the land itself, could you tell us how it all started, was there a defining moment for you?
MC: It took me a long time to come towards folk music and there wasn’t a defining moment, more a sort of prolonged drift. I had my teens in the 80s when it was seen as a redundant form of music, so folk music wasn’t seem as contemporary but as the music of the generation before.
I had always been interested in strangeness, horror films, supernatural fiction and so on alongside an ever-growing interest in experimental music. It was a friend from Austria, Dietmar Petschel who started sending my strange folk tracks by email. These were bands like Stone Angel, Midwinter, Trees, Mellow Candle, Leonard Cohen and Stone Breath. I found the music unbearably creepy, I couldn’t say I enjoyed it but it connected deeply. I kept returning to it and eventually made the connection back to the music of The Wicker Man, a film I knew from my youth but was at the time very obscure and unavailable. From there I started exploring and finding the music. I tend to be fairly obsessive in music collecting so developed a strong interest very quickly. Dee Dee introduced me to the Bruton Town email group where I was encouraged and supported, particularly by artists Tim Renner, B’eirth and Prydwyn alongside a host of wonderfully strange people who emerge from the shadows now and again by email.
I came to realise that the strange or ‘wyrd folk’ as it became known (long before the current ‘new weird America’ thing) had traces of the attraction at the root of the old horror films I liked (especially the 50s-70s British) and that was the best of them contained traces of the past and community. Overtime this developed an interest in folklore and communal festivals, customs and traditions which led me more towards ‘proper’ folk music itself.
I’m now 36 but the eighteen-year old version of me would understand the constant search for great obscure music, even if they didn’t like the music. Back then I was into electronic pop, early Chicago house, northern soul dance music and ambient. By 1988 it would have been something else. Now I’m driven beyond just the weird end of the music into the broad area of ‘folk’ music and complementary forms (like USA mountain song which I adore).
Folk music for me does embody something continuing and honest that we can use as something to connect back to our past with and develop into the future. It’s become core to an emerging creative concept that others and I have in seeking to develop something positive across creative arts that inspires and connects us moving forward.
I know that “The Wicker Man” is an important film for you. What is it about the film that caught your imagination?
There were two phases to my appreciation, first the kid who used to sneak on the TV whilst my parents slept watching late night horror films who loved the film as a particularly esoteric and strange film.
However my real love of the film came much later in the early 1990s. I then had the time and energy as a young adult to collect horror films and became a strong collector. I still have about 3000 in my attic on video that I never watch. Anyway I hunted down the then mythical ‘long’ version of the film that I quietly used to share around and it came to be a king of touchstone amongst us.
Later when I connected the film with my emerging interest in strange folk, it was a revelatory moment. At that time, the film wasn’t on DVD and the soundtrack CDs hadn’t been issued, I had to dub the songs off it by hand. At that time I used to circulate home made compilations of strange folk music on tape with odd titles like ‘Songs of Decaying Cities’. I would always start each one with some music from The Wicker Man.
More importantly, is that it was only then I began to actually see the film – beyond the story of sacrifice – and into the incorporation of folklore, ancient symbology, paganism, customs, folk music and community. It’s this that I now see as the greatest qualities of the film. Even though many aspects of the folklore are not strictly accurate, it doesn’t matter; it explores things that no other film I’ve ever found does (other than the much darker ‘Blood On Satan’s Claw’ from the same era). The film presents these thoughts and approaches sympathetically. I’m not a pagan (I don’t follow any defined path) but I’m pleased to see other ideas explored in this way in a creative setting that can help liberate people’s thinking.
I do get concerned that the film is adopted incorrectly as a sort of teenage pagan guidebook, but repeated viewing undermines this. It’s clear the paganism of the film is a modern re-introduction, that it didn’t start out of faith but of economic motives and that their faith at the end is not rooted in any reality more than any other belief system. The forthcoming remake fills me with dread though.
Recently I started the new ‘Woven Wheat Whispers’ download service (of which more later I imagine). The film was being rerun soon after and I was astounded to see a lingering shot of a corn dolly in the film I had never noticed. This imagery is used as the foundation and theme of the service as a curious evolution of traditional creative arts (which we seek in our small way to help develop from a musical perspective).
At Present you are actively engaged in running Theunbrokencircle website, an endeavour that is rapidly becoming the most useful resource on the net for those interested in all aspects of folk tradition, with a special emphasis on music. Could you tell us how the site started, its aims and how you see it developing in the future.
As you develop an interest these days, the first thing you do is look for web sites that cover the area. I did this and couldn’t find one; it wasn’t until much later that Gerald’s wonderful site came along, Digitalis Industries etc. I also wanted to explore the music connected with the land I’m from and growing outwards from there, but there was nothing, no compilations, no books, no web sites.
Not having a clue about how to develop a web site, I thought – I’ll do it and slowly I did. It probably took a year to get going, as I literally had never done a web site in my life. But I knew what I wanted it to be; this is an enduring place of reference, as definitive as I could make it, having a quality that sustains beyond trends and fashions with a distinct imagery. I also wanted it to have a ‘voice’ and to treat people intelligently – so I never score my reviews and try to review albums properly, if an artist has recorded fifteen songs, I’ll write about fifteen songs not just a few lines.
One of the early benefits of the Internet, which now is taken for, granted is the wonderful possibility for cross-referring and exploration through hyperlinks, so this has always been a deliberate feature. Reading at TheUnbrokenCircle you’ll be reading an article that refers to someone who is hyperlinked and you click it to go to another article and end up spending hours.
I also wanted it to be a place of refuge outside the worst aspects of popular consumer culture, which was how the colours and design came about, the use of arcane imagery and my attempts at a growing concept to underpin the site. It was designed to feel like more than just a web site, but a place of respite, enjoyment and community. People who find it often email and say ‘I get it, I really wanted to find this place’ and that’s why I do it.
The site fundamentally documents my own explorations and journey into the music (and now folklore, art, literature etc). Until very recently I did everything there myself, every word, page or picture. This is still almost entirely true, it was imperative that anyone getting involved had to understand the vision and share it to some extent otherwise it would be diluted. During 2005 I did a redesign that made the site cleaner, simpler, and able to support the growth I have planned.
2006 will see the site grow further with lots more analysis, extended features exploring artists and subject areas. We also have lots of artist and label support so will be bringing interviews from a new person on board. These interviews will be very different to many, more of a two-way exploration of key topics. I’m pleased to have done the promotion of new artists this year with the ‘Pages in a book only now being written’ project which has bought together streaming music and a radio from over 250 contemporary artists (all with permission). Soon I have a long feature looking at the three big recent box sets (Invisible Pyramid, Gold Leaf Branches and Looking For Europe Neo-Folk). There will also be many more artist features, classic album studies, excavations. I’m constantly bursting with new concepts and ideas, time is the only constraint.
The site will be drawn further towards folk music in all its forms, by this I mean that some of the more extraneous areas of coverage in the blog will be reduced to give more time to concentrate on esoteric folk – things like early medieval music, arcane traditional song, USA medicine shows, English rural song, folk based classical, landscape ambience and other largely undiscovered areas. I’m keen to constantly bring new connections and expand the concepts in a careful way. As my own knowledge grows then so do the possibilities. Behind the site are lots of people who only get in touch now and again – magical Morris troupes, folklore researchers, folk artists, writers, modern cunning folk and the like. These all want to remain invisible, the kind of ‘hidden brethren’ I’ve often mentioned at the site, but it’s those people who inspire and educate me. Who knows what they will come up with next year?
One of the great things about Theunbrokencircle is that it makes no distinction between new/experimental folk and the more traditional sounds. Do you feel that it is important to avoid segregating artist and their work?
Starting from a more ‘wyrd folk’, which is synonymous with ‘acid folk’ ‘psych folk’ ‘strange folk’ and ‘experimental folk’ to me, for a long time folk to me wasn’t the traditional music. I’ve had a process of reconciliation back to the bands I ignored and disliked when young. Folk music being such a defined and narrow form of inherently conservative music, it’s particularly excited to me to see what can be done when an artist transgresses. The best artists such as Martyn Bates and In Gowan Ring remove the need for any definition between experimental and traditional anyway.
As I have come to understand more, I have been driven to reconcile traditional folk music with the experimental. I feel there is a sort of folk elite who sees preservation as more important than the music’s endurance; I feel it’s too important for that. I believe that through education and hopefully places like the site, the two sides can come to understand each other better and start a dialogue.
I try not to define ‘wyrd folk’ as a genre, it’s not. It’s a modern construct of record dealers, journalists and people like me looking back at the splitting of folk in the late 60s as the social changes of the period influenced some of the artists and some stayed in the original style. It’s always important to remember that folk music itself is artificial, it was the ‘pop music’ form of traditional song. In Britain acoustic guitars weren’t used in folk music almost exclusively until hire purchase came in during the fifties and visiting blues singers, rock and roll and skiffle made them popular. Traditional singer, Harry Cox said affectionately of Shirley Collins that she hadn’t stayed with traditional music and had chosen pop and we think of her as one of the most wonderfully traditional singers there is (which underestimates how much experimentation Shirley did).
During the next couple of years I see the need for the term ‘wyrd folk’ or any other derivative disappearing, you’ll notice its gone from the banners at the site now. We need to worry less about definitions and more about connections and what the music tells us.
We’re also quietly involved in developing the music by facilitating artistic exchange with a number of people. I can’t say much about this but it goes off in the background, The Unbroken Circle is a conceptual hub as much as a site.
I’m absolutely passionate about new music, discovering new artists and helping them. This will continue and grow further… it’s pivotal, the messages of folk, or more accurately the themes, are too important to lay dormant in a complex world full of future challenge.
Could you tell us a bit about the “Lammas Night Laments” series of CD-Rs, why they started and why they have now stopped? Does the large selection of songs that are available to listen to on the site replace them or is that a different concept?
They started as the natural evolution on from the tapes I did originally. They capture my own explorations and provide the first (and at the time only) compilations across the genres. It was intended to act as a gateway to exploring further, buying the artist’s albums properly and creating a kind of immersive audio environment. The song choices, sequencing, moods etc are all very deliberate. They are intended to set and alter mood in the listener and evoke a musical experience in a way that isn’t done with folk music. I suppose it’s part of this emerging concept that underpins my efforts, I don’t always understand it myself at the time but the compilations were intended to be a trigger for people, from which they would be in someway changed.
They haven’t stopped; I just run out of material after every one and then within a few months find enough to do another. I work very hard on which artists to cover, holding some back until later, putting them into context and so on. I can’t force it, a mood just comes where I need to complete it and then within a week it is done. Oddly that’s happened to me very recently and apart from one track I’m waiting for, volume 14 is done and should be available from early December. I now know there will be two more volumes as there are two areas of music I need to ensure are covered, then we might be done, but who knows? A label sent me four CDs this morning that I had never heard of from the sixties (very obscure stuff) which contain more jewels then off we go again.
The ‘Lammas Night Laments’ series only covers 1959 to 1980 and so complements the huge audio section at the site I developed this year, which covers 1980 to now. I would love to do the same (with label backing) for the new period, which is effectively what, I’ve done at the site. However it would be hard to organise and I’m not sure it could ever be done. Good on Brad at Digitalis Industries on pulling together the Gold Leaf Branches, which is excellent and complementary to this.
I think Woven Wheat Whispers (of which more in a minute) will become the vehicle, that allows us to do so much more and on a proper footing now.
Your latest project is “Woven Wheat Whispers”, a project that sells albums by download (although people with no broadband will be sent a CD-R) and gives the artists 50% of the profits without holding onto the rights to the music, all of which is a far cry from the traditional record company. Please tell us more about the project, including the musicians involved.
I’m a great believer in the possibilities of technology (amongst other things I was an strong advocate of 80s cyberpunk) – especially when placed in the hands of those with a genuine artistic inspiration. There is a generation growing up now for whom the medium of the music delivery is less important, all the music I get I just burn to my media players and I never listen to the CD. However the mainstream download services are dreadful, they treat the buyer like a criminal, offer no added value, don’t create any creative culture and are geared towards major music artists. So there was clearly a gap and a growing possibility to reflect the choices of a new generation. It seems many folk musicians had quietly been ruminating on the same thing, so they got the idea really quickly, which was wonderful.
I felt we could bring the same spirit of musical community to a service that would really give folk music visibility and support. This is the widest definition of folk and Ian Southworth of Broad Tradition is an equal partner in this with me. We range from the most traditional music to the most experimental but want them all to come along with us – and amazingly they are. The idea is to bring buyers and artists much closer, to give the artists an added level of support and passion that the buyers would respond to. We both love the music and have added help from people like Richard Moult (the artist and composer) who is bringing in early music and other areas.
We just want to be fair, build confidence and deliver the music in a cost effective way. There are already a myriad of great CDr labels (which I considered doing but Simon Allen’s sublime ‘Barl Fire’ did first) but often they struggle to keep great albums on catalogue, that’s a shame so we wanted to help keep items available and revive older works, to commission new albums and create a diverse and interesting body of work. There was no point doing a CD label, so the download was something genuinely new and different, a challenge with possibilities we couldn’t foresee.
We couldn’t care less about profit in our hearts, it’s about helping this wonderful music grow and develop its place. It’s that same feeling of ‘coming home’ that we want for people when they arrive at the Woven Wheat Whispers site.
We’re not a music label, indeed long term the whole concept of music label has to evolve, I’m not sure what they are for. As an example the pop-soul band Simply Red now do everything themselves, selling through their site and setting up a distribution arm to stores etc. Their last album sold 2.5M and made them more money than they had seen in ages. Mick Hucknall said labels gave marketing and distribution and he can do both himself now.
We provide a distribution service for artists or labels, get the music to the audience as quickly, simply and cheaply as possible, build their trust and give them great choices. We also make the music available at far higher rates than download stores and do reviews, write ups, audio samples, web links and more to enhance their presence. They effectively get a full web site for free as part of the distribution.
The interest has been incredible – by the end of the week we will have distributed 60 albums, all of which will stay on catalogue as long as the artist wants them to. They are never charged for anything so this encourages their participation. We have about another 40 releases coming up and new artists getting in touch all the time in genres I never knew existed. We’ve got traditional fans buying ‘Eleanor’s Visceral Tomb’ and experimental fans buying traditional folk, which has to be a result.
Having said all this we’ve only been going for five weeks although it seems like years. But it’s great to be doing something tangible and positive which will grow hugely next year.
Finally, please list some of your favourite and most inspirational folk albums, both ancient and modern.
I’m often asked this and it tortures me, I find it hard to narrow down into lists. If I could I wouldn’t need to be so verbose at the site!
I’ll try to avoid the obvious big-name choices so…
From the pre -1980 era. Shirley Collins ‘Anthems In Eden, Mr Fox, Forest, Anne Briggs ‘Time Has Come’, Donovan ‘For The Little Ones’, Dulcimer ‘And I Turned As I Had Turned As A Boy’, Pearls Before Swine ‘Balaklava’, Leonard Cohen ‘Songs From A Room’, Perry Leopold ‘Christian Lucife’, Dando Shaft, Mark Fry ‘Dreaming With Alice’ and everything coming on Lammas Night Laments 14 (which has some amazing and very strange music on it).
Currently, this year I’ve loved albums by Sieben – Ogham Inside The Night, Daniel Patrick Quinn – Ridin’ The Stang, (which I’m reissuing), Hush Arbors, Alasdair Roberts – No Earthly Man, anything by 12000 Days and Martyn Bates, Grayfield Recordings, Charlotte Grieg, Matthew De Genaro, Kiss The Anus of a Black Cat, Soft Hearted Scientists and loads of more even more recent releases I’ve got reviews done for and coming in the next few weeks. The Big Huge new Secret Eye release is stunning, short but genuinely life enhancing. The Story and Whysp split release bridges the eras.
Also I have to mention a few of my musical friends too Sedayne, English Heretic, Xenis Emputae Travelling Band, The Triple Tree, David Michael, Tim Renner, B’eirth, Prydwyn, Dorset Paeans, Martyn Bates, The Story, The Phoenix Cube, The Kitchen Cynics, Andrew King, everyone in Deserted Village, Keith Wood, Brad, Rameses III, all at First Person and Richard Moult.
You can trust these people: do go and hear them, their hearts are buried deep in the land but still beat.
Mark Coyle was interviewed for Terrascope Online by Simon Lewis in December 2005 © terrascope online
Artwork prepared for this interview by Mark Coyle. Thanks also to Antonello, Tony Wakeford and Ian Southworth.
Website: http://www.theunbrokencircle.co.uk/index_Menu.htm