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….  (:

From 1996 to 2017 (An emotional history off tragedies in Manchester looking at things from the outside)

In 1996 when the IRA blew up the Arndale
I was barely able to leave my house
After getting mugged the night before
Which left me with a major limp
For the next 18 months or so
And forced me to ring around friends
That I knew would normally be there
Praying they would be at home.

In 2007 I got led out of my works
Viva an underground tunnel
I hadn’t known about previously
After it was deemed unsafe outside
To walk around the corner as normal
When a hurricane dragged a bollard
Through the Chief Exectuive’s car
And other cars onto the next street.

In 2010 I ended up leading three women
I worked alongside at the Co-operative
To Manchester Piccadilly Train Station
Like James Bond mixed with the Pier Piper
Avoiding all of the bars laced with drunk fans
Just before Ranger’s Europa Cup final
At Manchester City’s Ethiad Stadium
Just before it exploded into chaos.

In 2011, I was getting drove back home
By a kindly Ambulance Crew
Hours after getting registered with Diabetes
When we drove into a gang of youths
And barely reversed out alive
Looting a shop I used to go in for
A sandwich nearly every morning
On the way into my work.

In 2017, I walked past
Manchester Victoria Train Station
About a half a hour before
A terrorist took the lives off
22 people including children
And left me barely able
To sleep for two days afterwards
Laid in complete shock.

Each tragedy or event
Staining emotions
No matter how close
I was to the action

Cherry-picking memories
Into frozen images
Across feelings
Stuck in time

Reprinting each day
Over and over
Into a compressed version
Of Groundhog Day

Shooting grief from my heart
No matter how close to the front I was
Or whispered in braille rain
Tapping in shadow like tears

Brining my eyes
Pushing my grief aside
And carrying on
Like so so many others.