Press release for The Hour of the Wolf (Role Reversal Book 1)

It should have been a straight-forward mining exploration to a asteroid a few light years away by a mixture of miners and prisoners wishing for a early release from their prison sentences.

It should have been a straight-forward in and out of a carefully scouted out mine over in under a year which had enough coal and gold to save a dying race for generations.

But then the Wolf came , slaughtering everybody it encountered turning order to chaos, turning brother against brother and survival into a deadly, murderous game.

Told in tense, horror micro poems, The Hour of the Wolf is the first book in a new series 'Role Reversal' by acclaimed poet, Andy N (Author of 'Return to Kemptown' and 'The End of Summer) redefining horror and poetry in a very different way.

** COMING MID OCTOBER 2017 **

DIH and friends - Christmas 2017 - tracks wanted

Back again for its 16th anniversary (Barring a few gaps off course), DIH and friends at Christmas are now after experimental and music tracks on the theme of Christmas.

Back now in it’s 16th year, as can be seen on www.digitalvomit.com/dih-and-friends, DIH and friends have since 2002 been producing a annual series of anti Christmas songs for people who really don’t like Christmas or have a very alternative viewpoint of the season in question.

The history of the project from digital vomit state ‘The origin behind the infamous series of DIH with friends at Christmas began back in 2002 when for a one off joke as a side project from his more official work in DIH, Andy N one year decided with the help of one or two friends decided to do in his words ‘ A Christmas album for those people who don’t really like Christmas’ where in the space of half an hour (as was the original plan) – Andy and a few friends would murder, cripple and take the piss out of as many songs as they could.

However, as is the nature of the beast with this sort of thing things snowballed and by the time the second album came along, It had become officially a DIH project where they would between the three of them alongside with an ever-increasing cast play around with the myth of the Christmas, which will often be funny and sad sometimes within the same breath.

The music contained within this series of albums are varied and can vary from spoken word (sometimes with musical backing or experimental backing), acoustic singer songwriter stuff to music that could appeal to fans of Aphex Twin, hardcore, breakbeats, dubstep, fans of the spoken word,

re-imagining of carols and classic songs, faithful versions of Christmas carols and songs and generally people who like their music to challenge and make them think.

For reasons too long winded and boring to go into here, DIH took a break from the Christmas albums in 2012. 

Following on from their 2015 comeback, we are now expecting submissions for our 2017 album, our third album since starting up again. 

Anything is welcome by email to either myself aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk. (Andy N)

Me and Keith can also be contacted viva facebook for further questions 

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011783198151 (Andy)

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=627682972 (Keith)

The complete archive can be sampled here - http://www.digitalvomit.com/dih-and-friends

Closing date is 10th December 2017 and will be released viva bandcamp as a free download just before Xmas.

Scrumping Arundel (New Poem)

Scrumping Arundel

Tangling over tunnel walls

His call still rings over the gate

Next door to the castle

Clinching with rage

Across the chiffon like mist

Skating across the ground

Spiked with a half asleep stubble

With his braces barely on

Rubbing the essence of sleep

From his eyes in shock

‘Oi’ He shouted out

blanch white in shock

stumbling through the trees

skipping heartbeats

in a glib eyed silence

stalled across the orchard

with at least ten different crimes

in each of our pockets

before you eventually shouted

‘Oh fuck, run’

Snaking through memories

Curved in regret

We both said we didn’t realise

It was a private orchard

Let alone had a gamekeeper

Leaping over plaited gates

Escaping across the bridge

On the other side of the orchard

Until his swearing

Eventually faded into the distance

Disembodied into a sanctum

Over the edge of a nearby quay,

Our apples laid out a trial out for us

Even if it was a accident

Barely into our teens

Pulling us into adulthood

Like a accidental travelogue

Roaming in future tenses

Distilled in changes over time

Across adventures almost out of reach. 

From the Diabetic Ward on hold for now.. and forthcoming books due in 2017 (Autumn / Winter)

A few of may have noticed I haven’t talked about what was scheduled to be my third full length book ‘From the Diabetic Ward’ for quite some time.

This doesn’t mean that the book is abandoned. This is far from the case. It just more likely to surface in either 2018 or 2019 and will be closer to the vision that is closer to the way it should have been.

This doesn’t mean either I have stopped writing. Personal problems creeped into my life in April to June shortly after withdrawing from the deal to work with Goya Press (which I could write a lot about but that is not the place or the time and also caused the withdrawal of the reissue of the End of Summer) in April and then finishing Ghost Story IV.

Thankfully now things are somewhat calmer, I have been very busy writing a few novellas and my autobiography (which I will talk about over Autumn and Winter of 2017 and 2018 in more depth). Before all of that however, I am currently writing the first books (both of which are poetry but very different poetry) of two series – Werewolf Moon and The Barbarians of the Wall. Both have been coming for quite time and will be out over Autumn / early Winter of this year. (Extracts to follow).

I am proud of both of these and in 2018 and 2019, will certainly be carrying them both into Books 2 and who knows maybe beyond and other projects.

I have been working hard on my writing and can't wait to show you all the fruits from this. 

Sister in a Box (New Poem)

Stood there on the left outside the kitchen
Crying out my eyes
While you were sat in a box
Our emotions carry across camera shots
From another lifetime ago.

Now we are both deep into our 40s
I am still stood there even now in amazement
Every-time I pass our first house
Remembering our mother
With that battered old camera

Swiping at the leaves on the footpath
In her broken slippers
Directing the four of us
Like a flag to a pole
For that one shot

Fusing emotions into moments
When I wouldn’t stop crying
After she directed you and Maria
Into two battered old cardboard boxes
Leaving me and Stuart on the verges

Facilitating that picture like a film director
Into a improvised melodrama realising after
Once we had completed your art statement
I had been crying my eyes out
Wanting to be in one of those boxes.

Almost 40 years later
I am still startled with wet eyes
With your words reaching out
Like hands to comfort you
Scaling those memories again.

Each tear imprinting itself
In the shadows of the alleyway
At the back of where we once lived
Brimming with our childhoods even now
Reprinting pictures in my memories.

(NB. Picture is from 1976 with me, my sister and two cousins)

Ocean in a Bottle - new single and Interview with Girl with a suitcase @ Spoken Label

Ocean in a Bottle - From Choirs to Dischoirs - Part 1 Tears from Heaven

Pure emotions is what a friend who heard the early mixes of the new Ocean in a Bottle or actual tears falling back from the heavens themselves. 

But what is emotion? Is emotion a sound itself or a feeling that comes somewhere in-between tapping on the edge of your conscious until it provides a different feeling altogether that may start off as sadness but becoming something else altogether. 

The new Ocean in a Bottle EP ‘From Choirs to Dischoirs’ actually began off as a experiment with choir like sounds, starting off as something else altogether and building up with layer after layer until the emotion it began off ended up in a different place altogether staying in the genre of Ambient but building upon it until it became as much about memory and sadness as well as music itself.

Free download from https://oceaninabottle.bandcamp.com/album/from-choirs-to-dischoirs-part-1-tears-from-heaven

Girl with a suitcase - Spoken Label Podcast June 2017


The latest podcast from Spoken Label is with performance artist Jenny aka Girl with a suitcase. 

Borrowing directly from Jenny's website her work is described as 'These days my work can be defined best as 'performance art' and can be subversive, hilarious, painful... or none of the above. 
​ 
My passion is to create work around mental health, challenging the silence and stigma that surrounds the issue. Humor is at the centre of my practice and I want to create work that is accessible to everyone.' 

More about her work can be read at her website -www.girlwithasuitcase.co.uk 

The podcast be streamed or downloaded for free from https://spokenlabel.bandcamp.com/album/girl-with-a-suitcase-spoken-label-podcast-june-2017

Ghost Story 4 (NaPoWriMo) questions answered

Over the past few weeks, I have received a few questions about Ghost Story IV after my blog from April for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) concluded. I won’t name the people in question but firstly they asked when Ghost Story is completed would I try writing in another short burst like this say for example a Western or a love story under the rules of NaPoWriMo.

I must admit, I have had a go at writing in a love story some years back and the first two parts of it got published in a little zine Unsung. Writing it at the time, if I am honest in hindsight, I simply wasn’t ready to do a longer sequence of poems like I did and I did maybe half a book of it over a few months. Doing The End of Summer and my Edge of the Flames sequences, both from my last book The End of Summer proved a learning curve how to start doing a slightly longer curve, and certainly when I did Ghost Story, I really started to learn how to write sequences and quicker also.

In short, it’s something I would consider in the future certainly but Ghost Story has at least another two parts to go, and outside of that over the rest of the year, I’m currently working on another huge sequence called Role Reversal which all I will say at the moment is I am onto Part 31 of this sequence and each piece will have 6 lines and has a bit yet to go I think (Not quite sure if it is a poetry sequence or something different altogether) on it as well as a fantasy novella (which I originally wrote when I was 17 and recently re-found and am up to Page 81 on it and am really pleased with it) and my epic poetic series The Wall. (Part 2 is halfway now Surivors of the Wall) and my my third (and likely last full length poetry book) From the Diabetic Ward book is still pending possibly for next year or 2019.

Secondly, Why did you decide to set Ghost Story in Manchester? 

A lot of this simply comes from something that grabs my attention really and the fact I wanted to use Manchester as a backdrop to the full story as I hadn’t seen anything tackle this before. There is a very old horror film from the 1970’s called the Living Dead of Manchester Morgue (also released as Let Sleeping Corpses) knocking around which was filmed in Rochdale actually, but I wanted to write something that was set straight in the heart of modern day Manchester.

While Part One and Two were reaction pieces, Part Three and Four in contrast have been completely different as my brother got me a book called Below Manchester for Christmas between the writing of Part Two and Three which went on about the tunnels and secret bunkers below the centre of Manchester which led by chance to where I was going to next, and is referenced about four times in the sequence.

This year’s Part 4 really is set in a gig venue on Oxford Road which of course I won’t name and of course, it is not a dig at that wonderful venue as I have seen countless excellent gigs there, but the research really came into through Pendle Witches came by accident again, and will be mentioning again in Part 5 next year which will go in a direction hopefully nobody will be expecting, and who knows over Part 6 in 2019.

Lastly, why wasn’t Andy in Part 4? What has happened to him?

That’s coming in Part 5 I can promise and with a few other mysteries answered of course

Or maybe not….  (: