Courtyard Books

Of all the little pleasures in life, browsing in a secondhand bookshop is second to none, especially when the shop is well stocked with esoterica and other unexpected treasures. Glastonbury's Courtyard Books is just such a shop.

I dropped in on my way to Bath, and while the shop has always been good, I think it may have got better, for Ben Tweddell, ex-guitarist of the much missed psych-folk band Thistletown, is now working there. He's brought with him a bibliophile's love of rare and obscure titles, and an extensive knowledge of magic and psychedelic literature. The shop is positively brimming with good stuff and if he hasn't got what you want, he'll know where you can find it.

I came away with a copy of The Hermetica - thanks Ben! - and sound advice on which translation  to read. Now that's the kind of service you want from a bookshop.

Not only that, while you're there you also get the benefit of Ben's excellent psych and folk record collection playing in the background, making this one of the best browsing experiences I've had in a long time. When every other shop in Glastonbury sticks to the tried and tested cosmic-didge-bhajan-drone music, it's refreshing to hear something different.

But I've got a book to read, so I'll leave you with some trouser-widening, laid-back psych grooves from Ben's latest musical project, Twelve Hides. 

Animal Magic

I was invited to play at Ludlow Medieval Fair this weekend, always a good gig and a chance to catch up with friends and musical sparring partners from back in the day. This time we shared the stage with a group of energetic lads from Ireland: the Armagh Rhymers.

I'd not heard of them before, but what's so striking about their show is that they perform much of it wearing beautifully crafted wicker masks.

Minstrels in animal heads make an arresting image and I was reminded of those medieval pictures of mummers, maskers and guisers.

I was also reminded of the animal masks in The Wicker Man - obviously nabbed from the local party shop but chilling nonetheless.

There's an old, not-quite-dead tradition of mask making in Ireland, and the Rhymers were lucky enough to get some of theirs from a master of the art before he retired. He's in his nineties now and never found anyone to train as an apprentice, though others are trying to revive the skill.

The masks are light and strong, sit perfectly on the shoulders and are, yes, rather scary: exactly as they ought to be.

The use of masks and of ritual theriomorphy - transformation into animals - is no longer a central part of English folk customs (Mari Lwyds and the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance notwithstanding, though with the latter it's doubtful that theriomorphy was ever the goal). 

That's a pity because both invoke an odd, almost indescribable atavistic feeling. It seems to me extremely important that we all should know that feeling first hand, that we should experience it at key moments in our lives and in the yearly round of winter, spring, summer, fall. For whatever else the feeling is, it's the sense of being brought up sharply against something Other, and you never know, that might just save us from ourselves.

The Folk Music of Krk

The Croatian island of Krk has some of the oddest folk music in the world. I first heard it on a collection of field recordings made by Alan Lomax in the 50s and I thought it must be some kind of joke. The good people of Krk harmonise their jaunty tunes - played on a type of shawm or oboe - with abrasive parallel lines. Take a listen and you'll see what I mean. It's like a bunch of bemushroomed pixies getting the keys to the music cupboard.

Give it some time, however, and the strange becomes a little bit more familiar. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a pleasant listen, but then, hand on heart, who can say that of Serialism or Free Jazz? But the music does have a kind of otherworldly intensity that I find oddly beguiling. I might not want to listen to it every day but I'm very glad it exists.