New song: Unspecified Incident at Sea

Here’s a new song for today’s Atheist Advent, about some troubling incident at sea. I don’t know where, if anywhere, this plot line will go.

Atheist Advent 2011

I’ve started this year’s Atheist Advent! Two songs up so far, and a third currently in my head and about to be recorded. The third one is not exactly the po-faced nu-folk that I normally prefer to write. I’m not going to do much writing on this blog this year: please check out

http://www.atheistadvent.com/

and you can subscribe on iTunes off that page too. I’m podcasting more than filming this year. I don’t know why I got so fixed on film when music is so unarguably about sound.

for songs, chat and discussion. But I’ll come back here from time to time, certainly.

Happy Atheist Advent.

27 December: Atheist Advent 2010 is over!

Thank you so much for tuning in to Atheist Advent 2010. A final song is now up: Lord of Misrule, along with some blurb about that song and the whole project generally.

I am not sure where I will go with this next. Reckon I’ll sit on it for a while and see what comes to mind. In the new year I’ve got a non-musical political project planned: I need to get my brain back in gear about the games playing out around the world. Hopefully I’ll play some more concerts with the amazing Atheist Advent bank which played on 7th December, though I’m not yet sure how we’ll pitch ourselves when it’s not Advent.

I hope you’re well, wherever you are in the world; and I really do think that this is a good year to cause trouble. Whatever you care about it, press your cause. The only rule is: make sure someone knows you’re doing it. No point addressing god or the higher powers. That line is dead.

Things are happening. 2011 could be remembered like 1968; only this time, it might not all run into the sand. The media is not leading this; politicians are not leading. As Robert Foster says, it’s up to us.

24 December: Santa Claus’ Curse pt. 3

Today’s song is a new episode of last years’ retelling of the legend of Santa Claus. Click here www.atheistadvent.com to hear the song, and for some stuff I’ve written about it.

Happy New Year! The solar new year — for the Northern Hemisphere — starts today!

Thanks for tuning in.

December 22: Beadnell Bay video

December 22: On Beadnell Bay

Two new MP3s over at the Atheist Advent main site.

There’s a stupid pigeon eating the bird seed we put out for the pretty little wild birds on the window sill. Stupid pigeons! Still, I do like Istanbul pigeons.

December 21: But to Mourn version 2

Here’s a better version of the song I tried to play at 8AM on Clifford’s Tower, York, with freeze-dried hands and a face full of frost; having missed the moon, which snuck behind the buildings with its face full of blood, so.

December 21: But to Mourn (Solstice 2010)

I meant to record this with the eclipse in the background, but I came up to the tower too late.

Please stay tuned, gentle viewer, for a better version of this song, and the last few songs of Atheist Advent 2010. This is the grim time of year, oh viewers in the North; the year is dead; but it will rise again on the third day. An unspectacular rise, to be sure, with just a shade less darkness, but another opportunity nonetheless (Australian viewers, please insert the antonyms of all the relevant terms in all this — or go to Juice Media for something less leadenly Northern hemisphere, and basically a lot better musically and political than anything I have done).

Solstice Eclipse

Astronomical coincidences full of beauty, and laden with portent for the sublunary realm. There’s a total lunar eclipse on the morning of the Winter Solstice. The Moon begins to pass through the cone of Earth’s shadow at 6.32am; the eclipse becomes total at 7.40am. The further north you are, the greater the opportunity to see the full eclipse before the moon sets. It may also be possible to see the rising sun and the eclipsed moon setting, both in the sky at once. You may need to be on Arthur’s Seat, or another handy mountain, to do so.

December 19 and 20: Where the Cities Are, and For Leuce

Over on www.atheistadvent.com we’ve got yesterday’s tune and today’s. Today’s one is faltering and lo-fi. In fact, I came up with it a while ago, but it was a one-off recording and until I manage to work out the fingering and how to stay relaxed while playing, it will have to stay like this. Maybe I should have waited until I figured it out properly; but that might be never. And I think it’s worth taking the risk.

Hope everyone is keeping cool (e.g. in Australia), warm (e.g. Europe), and otherwise (elsewhere).

Ben