Fourth in a series of recordings made by Autumn Richardson & Richard Skelton for the Furness Fells of south-west Cumbria, UK:
'Diagrams for the Summoning of Wolves' marks a stark shift in their response to environmental degradation. Their previous works ('Wolf Notes', 2011; 'Succession', 2013) have expressed profound sadness at the ecological losses of the upland landscape of south-west Cumbria, where they have lived since 2011. They have observed the absence of deer, fell fox and wolf, whose names survive only in place-names. They have found the ghost forests of Furness in the buried pollen drifts of alder, birch and oak.
The music, words and art they have created in response to these discoveries are forms of elegy, but they also offer glimmers of hope for a return - an acknowledgement that the last 2,000 years of 'culture' are insignificant when set against the deep time by which the land itself keeps clock.
As its title suggests, 'Diagrams' is a departure from their previous work because, in its conception, it represents a move from simply bearing witness to direct intervention. It is a series of instructions for the return itself. It is the musical encoding of a ritual: 'hand gestures, scents, markings' translated into melody, tone, rhythm.
To play this music is to participate in its summoning - to become a node in a lattice of light.
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The full series comprises:
i. Wolf Notes (2010)
ii. Succession (2013)
iii. Echoless (2013)
iv. Diagrams for the Summoning of Wolves (2015)
v. Memorious Earth (2015)
All five digital albums are available in one 'Retrospective' collection, together with a book of texts made over a period of nearly half a decade:
www.corbelstonepress.com/product-page/memorious-earth-new-edition
released February 2, 2015
Music by Autumn Richardson & Richard Skelton