The Hills Sing Again: Father-Son Duo Unearth the Music of Cumbria’s Stones
“Language For Stone” – Matt Howden / Keith Howden
With the album “Language For Stone” the composer and violinist Matt Howden (aka Sieben) and the poet Keith Howden (Matt’s father) return to collaborate to sing once again the most enchanted and mysterious corners of England.
This time they went to Cumbria, and more precisely to Keswick and Skiddaw, to follow in the footsteps of Peter Crosthwaite and his musical stones.
“Language For Stone” is in fact the first album that AR dedicates to musical stone. In the curator’s intentions, the research into the musical potential of the musical stones of the Lake District should have been entrusted to an artist coming more or less from the same region. We were looking for someone who was intimately linked to those views.
Walking partly on the same paths along which forty years ago Keith ventured with his young son on long walks, Matt found himself retracing the path that Crosthwaite traced, following the Greta river backwards, in search of the point where the musical stones emerged.
Once the stones were located, waiting for the rare pauses between one rain shower and another, Matt managed to sample their voice, recording those sounds which (together with those of the stones of Crosthwaite’s original lithophone preserved at the local museum) are the inspiration and material of the 9 songs that make up “Language For Stone”.
The music was composed starting from the impressions of this sound research expedition on Mount Skiddaw, but also and above all from the lyrics written by Keith Howden who has known and travelled (and listened) to those areas for over seventy years.
Keith Howden’s poetic style, appreciated for its balance between epic evocation and minimalism, immediately proved to be the most effective approach to describing these stones and their voices. The resulting compositions seem to have the ability to dilate space (an effect similar to the vertigo one can feel on mountain paths), and to be able to reconcile abstract thought and song form.
“Language For Stone” is the first album in a series dedicated to the musical stones of the world, and expeditions to Viet Nam, Spain and France are underway to continue giving voice to the stones.
ALBUM LENGTH: 34′:38″
TRACKS NUMBER : 9
TRACKS:
- Hidden Anthems 2′:23″
- A Language For Stones 4′:06″
- Innate Symphonies Of Land 9′:02″
- Before Speech 3′:28″
- Eolith 3′:58″
- The Music Of Stone 3′:39″
- Wadwo 5′:04″
- Stone 2′:54″
- Peter’s Pebbles 1′:24″
Both the vinyl and CD editions are available for sale ONLY at the author’s and the label’s shops:
BANDCAMP: https://archaeologicalrecords.bandcamp.com/merch
https://matthowden.bandcamp.com/merch / matthowden.com
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