When recording the album “Sad Old Tatty Bunting”, I decided it needed a spoken word track. I wanted to mix this in the style of The Velvet Underground track, 'The Gift', with the vocals hard panned to the left and music to the right. I approached singer/songwriter Douglas E Powell and asked him if he would be interested in writing a short story for this purpose. Doug came back to me sometime later with a 13/14 minute tale about ancient giant crabs and a burial at a place called 'Bevill’s Leam'.
I loved the story, however it was too long, way too long. There was only about 7 minutes spare for the last track on the album. So Doug went back to work on it and presented me with a shortened version. The voice was recorded and mixed, hard panning left and right.
“Sad Old Tatty Bunting” was released on Castles in Space in Feb 2022.
In the Spring of 2022 I started thinking about the full version of 'Bevill’s Leam', and started to think that we should revisit the track in order to record and release the long version using Doug’s full text as originally planned.
I told my label, Castles in Space that I wanted to do the 12” in the style of a DIY white label. We agreed on no cover artwork and only a white sleeve with an A5 paper insert. Taking inspiration from Public Image’s “Metal Box” a red typewriter font was chosen for all the text. Morrison at CiS proposed a red vinyl pressing because he’s like that.
So, with all the label details worked out, the last remaining problem we had was that Doug no longer had the original full story! So in double quick time he set to work and re-wrote and re-recorded the whole thing. It turned out Longer, darker and better.
Myself and long time friend and producer Jack Packer set to work remixing the new version of 'Bevill’s Leam'. Some new tracks were laid down with additional sounds and effects and then Doug’s new extended vocal (sounding amazing) was sewn into the mix.
This new version of the track is very different from the album version, having a fuller sound and sharper clarity. Doug’s vocal was perfect, and the new musical additions created a more balanced and atmospheric feel. The B side instrumental version was slightly extended, and again some new sounds and effects added.
So there you have it…the full story of Burial at Bevill’s Leam in glorious hand numbered, red 12" 45rpm format.
credits
released January 27, 2023
Music and Instruments
Keith Seatman
Words and Voice
Douglas E Powell
Produced by
Jack Packer
Vocal recording by Mark Aubry at Recordmixmaster Studios, Devon, England
This entire album is staggeringly good, but my favourite is Slowly Coming Together, which does indeed seem to slowly distill all that is Jilk into one track. Amazing work, and wonderful to come across through the subscription library. swansither
Fascinating chat with Mr. Concretism. Great to hear about his synths and software and the track by track analysis of The Concretism Archive vol.1 adds to the listening experience - more of that sort of thing please! Infinite Tapes
For his debut album as Tunes of Negation, electronic producer Sam Shackleton pivots from apocalyptic dub to mystical psych. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 23, 2019
Great album, love the dreamy nostalgic spacey-ness. The old educational samples transport me back to early school days in the TV room and when all we had to worry about was if we were wearing the right trainers or swapping Panini football stickers. vsep13