More From The Forest

Little sweetheart, we found out today that there's going to be another iteration of that super cool UK experimental radio broadcast event The Dark Outside. This one will be in September in Galloway Forest. 

It was for years an annual event, little sweetheart. The curator assembles recordings from artists all over the world and broadcasts them in a 24-hour event from this remote location. All of the recordings must be previously unreleased, never before heard, streamed or broadcast. They are premieres, usually composed specifically for the event. 

Further, it had been tradition that you could only hear the broadcast if you were in range of the transmitter itself, always outside, usually in Galloway or Epping Forest. During the pandemic, because it couldn't been done in-person, they broadcast the event online, but without archive or back announcements. You just had to tune in and hear whatever you might hear. 

Our first piece for The Dark Outside was in 2019, pre-pandemic and we've composed, recorded and participated in several more subsequently. Two of them - The Dark Outside, The Light Within and eleven:eleven we released on our Bandcamp page after. I think later this year we will release an album of them all. 

You, little sweetheart, as ever, figure prominently! 

More on all this in the days ahead. With all my love forever.

Fredric Westin's "Lärjungarna på väg till Emaus"

Little sweetheart, I'm often on the prowl for artwork both for the album covers and their booklets. We've done booklets now for three of the nine albums. The one for Deux Anges was 48 pages (!) and a collection of black and white photos nearly as old as the medium itself, all taken at the turn of the 19th-into-20th century in pastoral Middle England. 

I saw something yesterday, also in the public domain, that very much intrigued me. I don't know if we'll use it somewhere or not but it's quite lovely. 

It's detail from Fredric Westin's "Lärjungarna på väg till Emaus" and it's here below. The larger work is darker, a night scene of shepherds. This is at the top of the painting, the light breaking through the night and an angel on watch. 

My thoughts flew to you immediately. How you brought such light and love into my own life! 

With all my love forever. 

 

Watching and Listening... Together!

Little sweetheart, there’s seemingly an endless parade of new Beatles-related documentaries and features - an entirely new six hour cut of unused footage from the Let It Be sessions is coming out this fall - but the most recent one is really remarkable. I watched it all last night and thought so very much of you. 

It’s quite straightforward, just Paul McCartney and Rick Rubin in a room set up as a studio out in Amagansett, a mixing desk, a Fender Rhodes keyboard and a couple of guitars sitting around the periphery. Incredibly, they’d had the master tapes sent over from London - they never leave Abbey Road, so that’s something of a first - and Rubin just plays back about three dozen Beatles and early McCartney solo tracks over the studio monitors, often isolating vocal or bass or guitar parts, as they discuss the songs, how they were written and recorded and the stories that surround them. Discuss, or rather often shout over the playback because they’re listening to it all LOUDLY! As did I! 

I ran the sound through our studio monitors. I think you would love this so much, little sweetheart. It’s very musician-centric and although I know it often made you nervous, I always LOVED being in the studio with you! 

You still are with me here, of course, because whenever I work on something new, invariably, I bring in your own isolated vocals, first hearing them just on their own fill up the room and then as they float above the tracks joining the other instruments. 

I remember, too, how one of the first things you gave me, just a week or two after we met and were beginning to fall for one another was your entire box set of The Beatles Anthology on DVD. It was so sweet and generous and your way of saying you wanted to share something special with and get to know me better. 

How grateful I am to and for you. Always! With all my love, my gorgeous girl.
 

Under The Blankets Dream

Little sweetheart, I so often dream of you. Of course. And I’m so blessed when you come to me in dreams. 

Sometimes, the dreams are bittersweet. The best are when we are simply together and everything is okay, as it was before and even better. Other times, things are more complicated and worrisome. 

Last night I had a dream that was a bit of both. It began in that bittersweet vein - you were on earth, had been laying low away from all the drama, but healthy and fine. It was an enormous relief to know of it but somehow I thought that you didn’t want me anymore. I was so heartbroken I just lay down asking God to take me home. There was nothing more for me. 

But then I heard you in another room. I got up and followed the sound of your voice, heard your laughter, too. It seemed to be coming from under the covers of a big bed. Two figures seemed to be there. I think you were with your friend Danya. You both were giggling and then you spoke in a strange, an unusual and somewhat comic accent. Then in your normal voice you called to me telling me to hurry and come to you. 

You were recording a performance of some kind and my parts to read were next. You lifted the covers to show me. There were pages of a script and a tape recorder and you were smiling beautifully, inviting me to join you. And when I did, you kissed me so very deeply I could still remember the sensation when I woke. 

Everything was okay. Everything was okay again.

Rescue

Little sweetheart, it’s been a wonderful year for birds reappearing in the city. Maybe some of the lack of travel during the pandemic accounts for it but regardless it’s been so lovely seeing so many different little avian friends and hearing their songs. It always takes me to you instantly. 

What I’d been sad not to see much of yet, and we’re well into the season, is butterflies. At the top of the Serpentine in Riverside Park there used to be a tree there at the very northern edge of the garden where monarchs in particular seemed to love to alight. They cut it back, pruning its branches, quite a bit last winter and I wonder if that’s why I still haven’t seen even one yet. There have been some pretty white satin moths but I’d hardly seen even one butterfly until yesterday when I spotted a little black swallowtail on the sidewalk near Dewitt Clinton Park. 

He was just laying there, alive but somehow injured or stunned. I carefully picked him up and placed  him in the bushes above, reaching through the railing there. 

We all need taking care of, don’t we, little sweetheart? 

I hope our little friend recovers and is okay. And my thoughts, as ever, fly to you. With all my love…

In Oregon on the 4th

Just a few weeks after my mom unexpectedly passed away and you got me on a plane back from London, then flew yourself across the country to help me in the difficult time, little sweetheart, your dad took us all on a lovely, healing vacation for the 4th of July weekend up to the Oregon Coast. 

I’ve so many wonderful memories of that time, even though I was hurting so, because you did so much to rescue me with the great power of you love. I so treasure this wonderful picture of the four of us taken the last morning of our stay. 

Thinking of you today and always and with all my love forever.