Dystopic Visions, Alternate Realities, Paranormal Quests and Exploratory Electronica
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Paperback and Ebook available from Amazon UK, Amazon US and their various other worldwide sites and also from Lulu.com
They should also be available to order from other online and bricks and mortar shops; please contact them directly for more information.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Author, artwork and design: Stephen Prince. 237 pages. Paperback and Ebook.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
A Year In The Country: Lost Transmissions weaves amongst brambled pathways to take in the haunted soundscapes of electronica, the rise of the occult in the 1970s, cinema and television’s dystopian dreamscapes and hauntological work which creates and gives a glimpse into parallel worlds. It is a recording of a personal journey that delves amongst both the esoteric fringes and mainstream of culture, and which at times holds a shadowed scrying mirror up to the modern world and some of its ills, while also reflecting visions of a hopeful future in its depths.
Alongside other experimenters in electronic sound the book explores Boards of Canada’s invoking of “the past inside the present”; Paul Weller’s visiting of Ghost Box Records’ elsewhere universe; work by Cosey Fanni Tutti, Hannah Peel and the reformed Radiophonic Workshop, and their collaborations across time with electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire; Dominik Scherrer and Natasha Khan’s summoning of “pastoral spook” via a hidden language of angels; and takes a trip in the company of fairground and rural ghosts conjured up on records released by Castles in Space.
Alongside these it examines the paranormal and “worlds beyond” via the semi-lost supernatural-orientated television series Leap in the Dark which included work by Alan Garner and David Rudkin, Sharron Kraus’ contemporary investigations into the preternatural and the conjuring of modern-day phantasms in Luciana Haill’s artwork.
The book also includes an intertwined consideration of the “deluxe dystopias” that can be found in films such as Rollerball and Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca and prescient views of the future’s past and media collusion in film and television including Nigel Kneale’s work and the overlooked corners of science fiction.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The full chapter list is below:
Preface: A Definition of Hauntology, its Recurring Themes and Intertwining with Otherly Folk and the Creation of a Rural and Urban Wyrd Cultural Landscape
1. Leap in the Dark, Alan Garner, David Rudkin, Fay Weldon and Russell Hoban: The Rise of the Paranormal
2. 77 Posters/77 Plakatow, Quest for Love and The Man Who Haunted Himself: The Phantasmagoric World of Polish Film Posters and Other Celluloid Alternate Realities
3. Boards of Canada: The Past Inside the Present
4. Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca, In Time and Anon: Striving for the Stars and Tales of Near Tomorrows
5. Andy Votel’s Styles of the Unexpected and Bridge and Tunnel: Revisiting Hauntological Precursors
6. Rollerball, Three Days of the Condor and The Anderson Tapes: Deluxe Dystopias and the Cinema of Paranoia
7. Paul Weller’s In Another Room and Broadcast: Psychedelic Reimaginings and Signposts Towards Ghost Box Records’ Elsewhere Universe
8. Luciana Haill’s Apparitions: A Modern-Day Conjuring of Dreamlands
9. Burial: Spectres of Spectres Awash in a Landscape of Static
10. Death Watch, The Vision, The Year of the Sex Olympics and Network: Prescient Views of the Future’s Past
11. The Heartwood Institute’s Tomorrow’s People: Exploring Far Off Utopian Flipsides
12. Delia Derbyshire, Caroline Katz, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Hannah Peel, The Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society, The Radiophonic Workshop and Drew Mulholland: Forging Bridges Across Time
13. Michael Radford’s 1984: Searching for a Last Inch of Space
14. Castles in Space, Nick Taylor, Pulselovers, Keith Seatman and Dave Clarkson: Otherly Geometries and Ghosts of the Seaside
15. Dominik Scherrer and Natasha Khan’s Soundtrack for Requiem: The Unexpected Appearance of the Language of Angels
16. Sharron Kraus’ Preternatural Investigations, Simon Reynolds’ “Haunted Audio" and Oliver Assayas’ Personal Shopper: Journeys on the Edge of Knowing
Appendix: Songs for A Year In The Country
* * * * * * * * * * * *
As with the A Year In The Country project as a whole the structure of the book is inspired by the cycle of the year and the passing of time: as with the seasons in a year, the book is centred around four main themes: dystopic visions, alternate realities, paranormal quests and exploratory electronica.
The A Year In The Country: Threshold Tales book - AVAILABLE AT AMAZON, LULU ETC
Sold Out
The A Year In The Country: Cathode Ray and Celluloid Hinterlands book - OUT OF STOCK HERE, AVAILABLE AT AMAZON, LULU ETC
Sold Out
The A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields book - OUT OF STOCK HERE, AVAILABLE AT AMAZON ETC
Sold Out
The A Year In The Country: Straying From The Pathways book - OUT OF STOCK HERE - AVAILABLE AT AMAZON, LULU ETC
Sold Out
The Shildam Hall Tapes novella - OUT OF STOCK HERE - AVAILABLE AT AMAZON, LULU ETC
Sold Out
The Corn Mother novella - OUT OF STOCK HERE - AVAILABLE AT AMAZON, LULU ETC
Sold Out
The Marks Upon The Land art book - OUT OF STOCK HERE - AVAILABLE AT AMAZON
Sold Out
The Shildam Hall Tapes: The Falling Reverse –
Dawn Light edition in fold-out sleeve.
A Year In The Country / Stephen Prince
Sold Out
The Layering – Dawn Light edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
The Quietened Dream Palace – Dawn Light edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
The Corn Mother: Night Wraiths –
Dawn Light edition in fold-out sleeve
A Year In The Country / Stephen Prince
Sold Out
The Corn Mother: Night Wraiths –
Nightfall edition boxset
A Year In The Country / Stephen Prince
Sold Out
The Quietened Journey – Dawn Light Edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
The Quietened Journey – Nightfall Edition boxset
Sold Out
Echoes And Reverberations – Dawn Rising edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
The Watchers – Dawn Light Edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
The Watchers – Nightfall edition boxset
Sold Out
The Quietened Village – Dawn Light Edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
The Quietened Village – Nightfall Edition Boxset
Sold Out
The Corn Mother – Dawn Rising edition - Gatefold CD
Sold Out
The Quietened Mechanisms – Dawn Light edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
The Quietened Mechanisms – Nightfall edition box set
Sold Out
The Shildam Hall Tapes – Dawn Light edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
The Shildam Hall Tapes – Nightfall Edition boxset
Sold Out
Audio Albion – Nightfall Edition box set
Sold Out
Audio Albion – Dawn Light Edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
All The Merry Year Round – Dawn edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
All The Merry Year Round – Night edition box set
Sold Out
The Quietened Cosmologists – Dawn Edition in fold-out sleeve
Sold Out
The Quietened Cosmologists – Night Edition box set
Sold Out
The Quietened Village - Duskfall Edition in fold-out bound sleeve. 2016 edition.
Sold Out
Undercurrents –
Dawn edition in fold-out sleeve
A Year In The Country / Stephen Prince
Sold Out
A Year In The Country UK
The A Year In The Country project is a set of year-long journeys through spectral fields - explorations of an otherly
pastoralism, the outer reaches of folk culture & the spectres of hauntology.
As a project it has included a website featuring writing, artwork & music which stems from that otherly pastoral/spectral hauntological intertwining, alongside a growing number of book & album releases.
... more
