From the Mourning of the World to Happy Mondays

This year I'm co-curating one of the stages at the Uncivilisation Festival. All manner of poetry, prose and performance will take place on the Woodland Stage, as well as workshops in the woods (programme to appear soon!) When night falls and the fires are lit, the musicians will take over. Amongst them will be singer Marmaduke Dando, who this year has compiled an album of some of wild and uncivilised music associated with the Dark Mountain Project.

From the Mourning of the World features an alternate version of Caesar, recorded specially for the album by Chris Wood, as well as celebrated artists such as Jon Boden, Chris T-T and Bethia Beadman (whose track is a duet with REM’s Mike Mills). 

Like many creative grassroot projects, Dark Mountain funds its annual anthology by crowdsourcing - a kind of community-supported publishing. You order a book (or in this case an LP) by pre-ording a copy, and this in turn pays for the production. Following the trend and in the spirit of celebrating the beautiful and the physicial, From the Mourning of the World will be a 12” double-gatefold vinyl album, with a cover by the wonderful Rima Staines. Check out the crowdfunding page here:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/from-the-mourning-of-the-world.

I'm planning to give a workshop on Earth Dreaming at Unciv this year, and there will be more about this and other creative Transition projects during 2013, from Playing for Time to the new Arts, Culture and Wellbeing group. But right now I've got to proof the upcoming second issue of Transition Free Press and go make nettle pesto and beetroot risotto for our April Happy Mondays at the Community Kitchen. Stay tuned!