Caught by the River

Thankful Villages Vol. 3 #7

Darren Hayman | 20th March 2019

On to the third volume of songs resulting from Darren Hayman’s Thankful Villages project. The seventh village in this new volume is East Carlton.

East Carlton from Darren Hayman on Vimeo.

We take disposable film cameras and Fisher Price cassette players to East Carlton.

Me and Abigail have designed a game. We have a map of the village and have drawn a grid over it. We split up and wander round the village for the length of one side of a C90 cassette.

The lines on the grid on the Y axis denote pitch and the lines on the X axis denote tonality. The idea is that the shape of our walk around the village will dictate a tune. What we see and hear would inform the words. We say what we see into our cheap plastic recorders. We try to speak and take pictures without thinking. We let memories and observations collide.

We let the village create its own song. We chase the light.

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Thankful Villages Vols. 1 & 2 are out now on Rivertones. You can buy physical copies here, or listen on Spotify. Thankful Villages Volume 3 is also now available here.

Darren is currently raffling a hand-painted vinyl test pressing of Thankful Villages Volume 1 in benefit of the Save The Social fundraiser. Tickets cost £5 and are available until this Friday. See more/enter here.