Widdershins now available.

A Magical trip around the Glasgow Underground

This recording documents the inner circle of the Glasgow Subway system which travels in an anticlockwise direction (widdershins), a constant banishing ritual performed daily upon the whole of the west side of Glasgow. The Subway first opened on 14 Dec 1896, but was soon closed after an ‘accident’ resulting in wheels painted in blood being traced around a circuit of the track (a blood sacrifice to energise the protection). The line didn’t reopen until well after the Winter Solstice (19th Jan 1897) allowing further rituals to take place. Central to this circular containment field is Cranston Hill, (formerly Drumother Hill from the Gaelic - druim odhar meaning Grey Ridge), which was prophesized in the 1600’s to become the future 'Cross of Glasgow' by the masked Covenanter Alexander ‘Prophet’ Peden. At that time, the hill stood in open countryside outside the Burgh of Glasgow, but during the western expansion of the City in the early 1880s, a series of railway tunnels were built in the area. No record can be found of what was discovered/experienced during the excavations, but a consultation process started shortly after between the Glasgow Town Council and members of the Societas Rosicruciana in Scotia (SRIS) (whose teachings were the foundation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn). The Glasgow Subway was commissioned in 1890.

We had planned to record the outer (clockwise) line then replay it on the inner to negate the effect of the banishing, but then decided we'd subtly change its phase to glimpse behind the protection without dropping the shield altogether. Beginning and ending at Hillhead Station, we recorded over the period of totality on the winter solstice eclipse 2010, the first time a total eclipse has fallen on a winter solstice since the days of Prophet Peden (1638). This recording was then soundscaped and played back on the inner circle late one evening at beginning of Feb 2011. Because of differences in passenger numbers, platform delays and speed between morning and night trips our recording soon fell out of sync with the passing stations as intended. A notable increase in the train’s vibration was then felt; four people in the carriage fell asleep and needed to be roused in order to prevent them missing their stops and those used to taking audio cues from the train were standing in sync with the music and moving towards the doors only to find the train not slowing down. Confusion soon turned to aggression giving us a glimpse at what lay inside the protection field and we curtailed our experiment and ran, allowing the banishment to return.

The polymath Alasdair Gray wrote in Lanark: A Life in Four Books, of a vision concerning a mouth opening in a stone face within the Glasgow Necropolis which transported Lanark to Unthank, an altogether different, darker, Glasgow. We believe the portal is to the west of that, and within a few years, as the city moves slowly into alignment, they should coexist upon the Grey Ridge, the centre of the Subway ritual.



Total time: 24Mins

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Patient Zero Review from musiquemachine.com

The rather excellent review of Patient Zero by Josh Landry of musiquemachine.com (http://www.musiquemachine.com/reviews/reviews_template.php?id=3165)




The Psychogeographical Commission - Patient Zero [Acrobiotic Records - 2010]


For their second release, The Psychogeographical Commission, an esoterically preoccupied and shamelessly philosophical English pagan electronic and folk duo, have unleashed "Patient Zero", something of an intense and ambitious semi-dystopian narrative concept album, a crystalline astrological tapestry in which the placement and content of every scene has been carefully considered and reconsidered in order to best reflect a distinct moment in the cosmic cycles.
It's an easy album to enjoy straight away.  The vocalist, conceptualist and instrumentalist, identified only as 'S.' in the album jacket, has a simply perfect baritone voice for music like this, equal parts Death In June's Douglas Pierce and Coil's Jhonn Balance...  and dare I say he has more of a head for melodious, clever songwriting than either?  The glittering, mesmerizingly simple droning strums of neofolk are augmented with lush beds of very musical electronic harmony and orchestration, for a vibrant diversity of tone.  Sing-song nursery rhyme phrasing applied with graceful restraint, resulting in many catchy and hypnotic verses.


His dense lyrics are marvellous and reveal their clever meanings over repeated listening. In "(Time Sigil)", he speaks of mankind as a whole and makes truly profound utterances: "Throughout this all, the hairless ape struggles to adapt / to the rate of the evolution he carved out for himself / surfing larval seas of tarmac, he dances around the carpark / his tears merge with raindrops, water cycling through man."


'S.' has also got an intense depressive streak, and it's not the momentary 'bad trip' feeling that seemed to whimsically and suddenly overtake the aforementioned hallucinogenically enhanced groups, rather his soul is presenting a fully developed and soberly worded existential objection - a despair ridden narrative ode to the inarguable wrongness of the status quo.  Melodramatic, yes, but almost heartbreakingly sincere.  "Patient Zero" is the document of a person who cannot help but feel.  "It feels like winter but it's not even a cold day...  the sky just seems so heavy on the buildings", he muses on "Can You Feel It?".  Elsewhere he talks longingly of "breaking the spell of modern life", and of having "opened up to God, but at the mercy of the voices."  These are the words of the chronically overwhelmed by the woes of he world.


There are barren, forlorn soundscape soujourns between the folkier songs, equally masterful in construction but not as initially noticeable as the vocal tracks.  The opener "Antenocriticus Reawakens" is a rising cinematic orchestral drone, sounding convincingly organic despite evidences of low production budget elsewhere in the production of the album.  The multi-movement "EARTH + Alphaville 2 / ARTHE / RTHEA / THEAR / HEART" is one my favorite parts of the journey that is "Patient Zero".  First, chorused and minimal bass playing echoes out over a suffocating and claustrophobic ghostly plane, accompanied by monologues from 'S.', then warped hallucinatory female singing rises and falls in arrhythmic swells, sounding quite similar to parts of Coil's soundtrack to Derek Jarman's "The Angelic Conversation".


At times it seems they are retracing Coil's steps, though even their ability to keep pace with relentlessly creative and unstable madmen of that ilk is itself impressive and rare.  As this band is likely lacking in equipment, the electronics on "Patient Zero" do not have the vivid, clean hyperreality of Coil's transcendent productions, but they maintain a marvellously three dimensional and deeply surreal spacialization, possibly most evident on "Enochian on the Wall", a track that makes direct homage to Coil's oddly downbeat fractalized acid trance styles.


With both members of Coil dead, it's wonderful to see the legacy of English pagan music is being continued with such convincing style, creativity and intensity.  Every moment of music on this album indicates great passion and effort, and "Patient Zero" has become one of my favorite albums of recent years.  In my mind, all that 'S.' and The Psychogeographical Commission need do to reach the heights of their influences and predecessors is to continue to create music of this sophistication and depth.