Red Alerts were sirening off all over the west of the country as Storm Darragh battered the bruised country into further submission. Luckily humans are hardy and the first event for our new organisation east Devon Soul went off. It was great to see such a lovely eclectic bunch of people enjoying Grammy nominated Acantha Lang at the Marine Theatre, a last minute change from the embattled Seaton Gateway. It was a beautiful night and we at East Devon Soul will be running many more events over the next few years. We see soul music as all music that comes from the soul. So it will be hip hop, funk, latin, jazz, pop, rock, jungle, electronic dance and of course soul. We are also planning a big event in July 2026 so news will be passed around when details have been defined through the first part of next year.
We are really looking forward to developing music in and around East Devon, providing high quality music for all.
Standing in space. Wide open away from any barrier, wall, manmade or natural object. Humans have a strange desire to be next to or under something. Taking a pee by a lonely tree. Creating an arch for your wedding, framing the lovely couple within the view. Grounding them. Why not have the wide expanse of the Arizona Desert rolling out before you, untethered, unleashed. But you take a picture by the only cactus within 20 miles. There needs to be a prop. Something to contextualise your presence on earth. Which makes it all the more bizarre that we seem so obsessed with travel into space. Space Twitter or X as it is now called. Putting the first people on the moon in 1968 then just waiting around until 2030 until we do it again. Apollo disasters halting any idea of mass migration to outer space. Elon Musk and Trump hoping to control the planet by regulating the space all around. They will charge us to breathe air before you know it. There is a fascination to searching the solar system, looking for likeminded inhabitants. So far though no one has turned up, except perhaps the clangers, trumpeting around with almost discernible presence. A fascination to look on where we all reside from a vantage point, from above, all trying to be gods, what an unbelievable waste of time and money. Fools fantasy. The planet is dying, yes, but rather than rush for the escape pod then surely it needs some TLC. People need help. Not some hair brained multi trillion dollar experiment. Imagine what you could do with the money. Applying for some small creative arts funds takes weeks of your life, jumping through ever decreasing hoops until you are squeezed by a Boa Constrictor. Review after review then your bid is deemed worthy of submission. Weeks of waiting, heart beating faster when any email pings into your inbox with the message “the quality of applications was very high…..”. And then, oh sorry you haven’t been successful this time. Please resubmit though, changing all your budget forecasts and being more realistic with your project aims. Be more realistic. Blimey. Fortunes are being spent propelling people into other orbits. You want me to be more realistic and less arty? Space travel is the ultimate rich persons folly. Pure art. Pointless. An inevitable outcome of greed and power searching. Can’t we just be happy in our communities rather than trying to form a space station on the boiling mess that is Mars. I mean a Mars a day helps you work, rest and dream of flying into the great beyond. Refugees, fleeing war torn nations battle across lands, rejected and looked down upon before reaching waters edge, crammed into flimsy life or death rafts, desperate for a life on earth. Do their kids wonder about life on mars, do they look at the moon and wish they could set foot on it or do they just wish for a safe place. Home. Not under siege. A place where they can exist. Not heading to some otherworldly final frontier but to real end points. Spaces to live within. A tree.
On 1st December 2016 I took the train from Bristol Temple Meads to London Paddington. It was one of those beautiful rare clear cold sunny vibrant winter days, one where the trains ran on time, everyone had a seat and enough room to spread out. I was very excited. At 11.47 precisely I was transported to the ornate iron and glass door of a mews house in Ladbrook Grove. Just about to knock on the pane I see a figure furtively rustling around the colourful and bright studio space. Picking up objects, transferring them, bustling around with what seemed like an ever enlarging grin on his face. A medium set bald guy with a kind of beard. Ah Brian, there you are. I was transfixed. I wanted to keep just watching. I did for about 11 minutes before I walked away a few stops and came back to the door to knock. Brian was welcoming and lovely, making me a large cup of his wizards tea.
During our session, artist musician Brian Eno demonstrated Chaos Theory with his 2 handed pendulum, where simple motion on the first one creates infinite non repeated movements on the second. So, a little nudge one way can send all kinds of confusion across the next, thereby subordinating populations. Collective consciousness came through in punk, hip hop, techno, jungle etc.. through commonalities of fashion, style, music, art, taste, lifestyle, place, rhythm, dance. There are instigators, those key people who lead the collective in a certain direction. We are all swayed in some way, which can be a positive in cultural scenes but have global destroying effects in political spheres.
Brian Eno hanging out with the German electronic musicians of Kluster, provided the time and space for creative exploration by dropping out and living in their Kommune for a while. London squats were the beating heart of the emerging punk scene, and within Western Europe.
Our connections to our lands, our ancestors, spaces and places, kneeling in the soil, digging the garden, the new rock and roll as Cosey Fanni Tutti and Kim Wilde continue to show. I’m sure Brian Eno potters around hot tomato plants, winding them carefully up their strings, reaching to the sky. Little glowing red orbs gradually appearing. The Farmers Boys and Girls in their Norfolk greenhouses. Sets of allotments are the socio-cultural space for the new creatives, or the old creatives who need to be in touch with their land, the city dweller who yearns for the countryside, everyone effected by global cost of living crises, where pulling up your evening meal from the ground can offset ever rising food prices.
Roxy Music keyboard knob twiddler Brian Eno learnt about the power of humour through his art school adventures with tutor Roy Ascott. His first lessons at art school included devising personality tests, where students had to enact the opposite traits they normally displayed. For chatterbox Eno, he had to remain silent for the sessions and let other people lead projects. When becoming a record producer, Eno introduced concepts relating to getting artists out of their normal comfort zone so that they would maximise their self in performances and composition ideas, without the usual routines or trappings. The Oblique Strategy cards he created with artist Peter Schmidt contains humorous, tasks such as play with your non dominant hand, do something boring or emphasise the flaws, whilst also suggesting role play ideas to bands including pretending to be an alien funk band from the year 2055.
Brian and I had a good chat. He showed me 2 floor standing safes, saturated with notebooks, relaying pictures and concepts from years of doodling and thinking. A time bandit. Brian got on his fold up bike and scooted off for a meeting with George Monbiot. See you again Brian.
Everyone recognises their epoch as the modern world. We live in a modern world. We have always done so, back to JC (not Jeremy Corbyn) himself, announcing wow what a modern world I have created (sic). What constitutes modern? AI or AC? We seem to be constantly moving towards Tomorrow’s World, futuristic presenters Raymond Baxter or Judith Hann pronouncing new inventions which will change our lives on the BBC programme. Kraftwerk robotically striking synthesised drum pads. The computer, that most modern world invention. Everything is controlled by them, from cavernous rooms filled with metal boxes and spooled tape to small passages of text on the first desktop computer, really the IBM personal or ZX Spectrum. These devices seem even more futuristic now, more modern than when they arrived in the world. We are looking towards AI as our future, our saviour, our threat. A world where we can sit twiddling ever-expanding thumbs, surfing through an ever-increasing array of social media, yearning for a newspaper or weekly journal to plop onto the doormat. A reassuring and exciting presence, rather than a mini world, on a little screen in front of us. The modern world should be better. More nature. More free time. Greater freedom. A life worth living. Supporting the planet and actually enjoying it rather than mercilessly moving forwards, striving for the next thing. Samantha Harvey’s wonderful Booker prize winning Orbital, providing an expansive view from above, defining the gaseous layers which sweep around the little fluffy clouds of our beautiful orb.
AI has been around for ages, having a greater impact in certain areas. Music has utilised AI technology since the 1970s, through automated synthesisers, Kraftwerk on Tomorrow’s World, still looking futuristic today. AI will suddenly be implemented at pace, when everyone realises it has been there for so long, waiting in the wings for its opportunity to pounce. Early Dr Who episodes through stricken derelict London sites, Mad Max meets the time lord. Earthy. Dated. Tomorrow’s world is here today, always has been, constantly striving for the new, pushing forward in ever increasing ways that is meant to mean improvement, subtle alterations aimed at de-snagging. The present or future is not always improved. Thinking about my generation, we were lucky to have existed in a world that straddled the internet, saw rapid changes in technology but had a grounding in the analogue basics. Relate to the past but be excited about new technologies, providing a grounding so that AI isn’t let loose without contemplating the past, thinking about what will be missed, experience of technological advancement. Is there life on Mars? 1984 predicted a future before Big Brother, nasty Nick, a dystopian world which always seems to hang on a date slightly out of reach. How about 2032? That currently feels far enough away to have mystique so that the truth doesn’t need to be connected. A dream date. An impossible reality where everything is shiny and silver, silent, smooth, sensuous. The human condition of constantly looking forward whilst burying collective heads in sand about climate change. I mean the planet is always going to exist, things will be OK, global warming is a myth made up in a lab by boffins who are always proven wrong. Experts eh! The future will always be there, temptingly out of reach, tomorrow’s world ahead of today. In the blink of an eye time moves on, tempting new ideas just about in reach. AI can help unlock our lives, reduce the amount of time needed to be spent on daily chores, gathering information in seconds, the robot the research assistant of the future. Or the present really as the future has always been with us, just moments ahead. Iconic German band Kraftwerk still feel so futuristic, ahead of the game, computer dummies producing evocative minimalist music to cycle to. But there is a stark coldness to the thought of AI, not something comfy and fluffy. Images of sheet metal glistening in a bright orange glow, the ozone layer thinning daily, the end of days feeling nearer as our world becomes increasingly dystopian.
New Orleans soul singer Acantha Lang is performing at the Marine Theatre Lyme Regis Dorset on Friday 6th December, supported by two top Funk and Soul DJ’s. It’s an unbelievable coup for the town and area so here is some info about Acantha
“She’s brilliant … destined for world domination.”
The Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show, BBC 6Music
New Orleans-born (London-based) rising Soul artist Acantha Lang has been compared to legends Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight. Her acclaimed debut album ‘Beautiful Dreams,’ released in 2023, charted at #3 on The Official UK Jazz & Blues Albums Chart, garnering critical praise and rave reviews with 5-star ratings in Echoes Magazine and Soul Bag Magazine (France). Acantha graced the covers of the iconic Blues & Soul and Echoes Magazines and received Album of the Month honours from Soul Tracks, Relix, American Songwriter, KCRW’s ‘Top Tune,’ and more. Tastemaker Craig Charles (BBC 6Music’s Funk & Soul Show) notes: “She’s brilliant…destined for world domination.”
Lang has also been captivating audiences globally, making her US TV debut on CBS Saturday Morning and performing at the prestigious 2024 SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas, major venues in Spain and the UK, and renowned clubs like Bizz’Art (Paris, France) and Melkweg (Netherlands). In April 2024, she was a featured artist at The Dew Drop in New Orleans and performed alongside The New Mastersounds at The House of Blues and Blue Nile as part of the BACKBEAT Jazz Fest series during New Orleans Jazz Fest weekend where she met new fans like Anderson.Paak. She was also invited as a special guest for Jon Cleary at his sold-out show at the renowned Jazz Cafe in London.
Lang’s songwriting prowess was recognized before her solo career, crafting tracks for the GRAMMY-nominated Robert Randolph & The Family Band. Her debut EP, ‘Sugar Woman,’ earned her critical acclaim and the 2021 Soul Tracks Readers’ Choice Award for New Artist of the Year. She was also accepted into the Recording Academy’s (Grammy) 2022 member class.
Currently writing album #2 with further US and European touring to come off the back of a string of sold-out recent shows in Spain, this GRAMMY-nominated songwriter has established a dedicated legion of fans with her 13m+ viewed “Standing On The Shoulders Of” soul series.
With over 3 million streams and placements on top Spotify playlists like All Funked Up, Best Retro Songs, and Best Funk Songs of 2023, Lang’s music is resonating with a global audience. Radio support in the UK (BBC 6Music’s Funk & Soul Show) and the US (KCRW’s Top Tune of the Day) further solidifies her rising star status. Her most recently released single was a re-imagined funk cover of Bill Withers’ ‘Grandma’s Hands’, that was named Jazz FM’s Breakfast Show record of the week, added to the A List, plus also got love from esteemed DJ Trevor Nelson on BBC Radio 2. Acantha is currently preparing to return to the studio to write her sophomore album, slated for 2025
Why can’t I just sit at home and exist. What drives me to make some sort of mark on the world, create a lasting legacy, be constantly active, a diary full for months in advance, no time just to sit around and think. It always seems to be the way, agreeing to things without really first engaging the brain. A desire to do stuff, to be helpful, to explore ideas and put on events. Why can’t I just say no or keep my powder dry. Surely it would be easier just to sit on the side-lines, let other people run events but maybe that’s my nature of being an artist. One of the organisers. I’m not even sure it is one of my strengths. Well actually wooing is, so getting people to do stuff, to work with people, help, facilitate, be the natural number two. Peter Taylor to your Brian Clough. There is nowhere to go after over promising. You have put an idea into some else’s head and to stand and deliver. Or else try and back down gracefully without losing face or reputation. Keeping your mouth shut, thinking about things before promising. Review the logistics, the costs, the possible scenarios that could unfold in your head. It’s generally better to under promise, set expectations at a base level so you can gradually work up, surprise people, start to reveal the full extent of what you hope to achieve. Or don’t even say anything, keep your powder dry, have thoughts running around in your head that can stay there, under control, a multitude of concepts swirling within the brains matter. Is it a need to be liked, an area of conversation or just a desire to collaborate, support projects. By saying something it means you really have to deliver, it puts the concept out in the open. Surely this can be a good thing though as it counters inertia. Provides the possibility of creating something great, making a change, a mark on the world that delivers happiness to yourself and others once you have battled through the stress of putting the event on. If you don’t go out there and put your head on the line then you are not a competitor. You are someone happy on the side-lines, which is fine. Some people need to be the creators, innovators, those who push things forward and support a change in the world. Over promising is their reality. Realising dreams. Is there any point in any of this though. I mean we all shift off this mortal coil. Famous people are dying all over the place. Geoff Capes, iconic strongman of early TV. Seemed like a lovely bloke. He will be remembered. DJ’s Janice Long and John Peel, an anarchic Top of the Pops double act, laughing, joking, no longer here. A young guy from pop reality stars One Direction, plummets to his death from an Argentine balcony. Going in one direction, down. Quite youthful world cycling megalith Sir Chris Hoy, terminal cancer. All that healthy exercise and being superfit leading to inevitable doom. Maybe he should have just sat around smoking fags. Same result. You see people heading off for their daily jog or skulking around corners with rollies dangling from their mouth. Which one are you, what path do you choose. Lady Di. Princess of the people, changing the world, battered in a Parisian underpass alongside son of rapist, Dodi Al Fayed. He should have been the one in the car. Justice. If there was equity and fairness in the world then all those out exercising, eating healthily, being kind to the planet, one or no car families, care workers, doctors and nurses, nutritionists, musicians, actors, authors, recyclers, councillors, counsellors, cancellers, administrators, supporters, non-hierarchical activists, and famous shot putters should have the longest lives. We should know how long there is. Surely that’s fair. Otherwise, really what is the point. To be remembered? To leave a mark? To have in some way helped to make the world a better place through selfless behaviour? It is within your own heart and soul that this probably needs to occur, by doing stuff, creating events, putting your neck on the line, trying to improve other people’s lives, being proactive and making a difference is probably worthwhile. You might not get a medal but there should be peace of mind, inner comfort, a warm glow emanating from you, understanding that you have maximised your time on earth, nothing has been left undone or unsaid, like riding through the final 10 minutes of a spin class, pushing until the end, warn out but satisfied that nothing else could have been done.
Time disappears as you move around, nothing really going on except for the exercise of travelling. Sat on a train that traverses the country, from bottom to top and back again. You aren’t really doing anything except for being stationary whilst an element of transport moves you around. It can be possible to read or catch up on work. Stare out of the window marvelling at the grey skies shrouding any kind of view, which veers from countryside to outskirts of towns, ugly regions designed cheaply and ineffectively. Blue covered seats, thick and padded, still retaining the stench of fag smoke, from a previous era. Compartments where you peered in, slid back the door and met you new companions. Time to watch the world streak by. To watch and engage with people too. On the train you get occasional moments of excitement as you pull into cities you have never visited, places resonating with history and stature. Glimpses caught of dramatic buildings, bridges over rivers, people waiting on the platform, eager to find a forward-facing seat, building up adrenalin as they prepare for the scramble onboard. Sometimes you might be keen to talk, a new neighbour arriving with their own history to tell. Other times the needs of work or your own for solitude mean that you will other passengers to take alternative seats, squashing together like equally smelly sardines in a tin. Driving takes your mind into an alternative state. One of concentration but extreme familiarity, manoeuvring a vehicle through windy roads and wide-open motorways. Talking to your partner, listening to the latest news, sport or music, whiling away the hours as you move from one place to another. Time lost. Although it is an opportunity for Zen like behaviour, turn everything off and let the mind wander and focus. Ideas or concepts floating around and seeping into the brain. A time to think, connect the rushing lines, plan the future whilst remembering the past. You should be able to reclaim those hours spent travelling. Static but in motion. Complete a claim form to send off to the ministry. I would love to be cycling rather than driving, being active, fit, healthy and alive. Still able to pontificate but out on the path, moving from city centre, urban sprawl, the sound of the suburbs, the air gradually lightening and freshening. You can breathe more deeply now. In through the nose, out of the mouth. Travelling with a purpose rather than just existing to get somewhere else. It does get you to where you need to be, meeting with family and friends, attending a conference, going on holiday. So much time spent travelling whilst on holiday. Moving from place to place. Just stay still and enjoy the moments. Have days where you exist in your locale. The covid pandemic provided this life, a time where you weren’t allowed to travel. You had to exist in your own space, which would be a nightmare except for the privileged who had the room to feel comfortable. Finishing a journey after driving for hours can feel mesmeric, as though time didn’t move. Time apparently lost but possibly invaluable. Exhaustion gradually taking over. Arriving home but without true knowledge of the journey that got you there. I should stop flying. The planet really needs us all to do this if we are serious about attempting to reverse climate change. But we aren’t. Not until it is slap bang in front of our face, peeling away, melting, burning, flooding, collapsing. Driving an electric car whilst it would be better just to stay in your own locale. A boring world where we don’t move around but the world survives, cools down, quietens itself and lets nature come back to life. Back to reality.
Sitting in a coffee shop underneath the arches waiting for my train to arrive. All manner of people, Bristol people, venturing in and out, collecting baked goods created in front of their eyes, too bleary to understand the lack of mystery. Various fashion, individualism, collective lives, coffee. Expectant and a little fraught, a workday in early September provides a unique buzz. The calm beauty of summer gradually seeping away towards getting your head down for the graft of winter. Jumpers and jackets back out of storage, straight away, no real meander but straight back into the thick of it. No time to sit and contemplate what has been, just marching on to the next stage, free flowing downhill into the abyss of winter.
The lcy coldness of early autumn mornings, where the memory of summer is still present but the heat is starting to dissipate. Skies radiate with an orange, purple blue cobalt metallic quality, much lighter than in previous months, a pastel thinness as the light is lower and less intense. The sun more gradually rising, a lower trajectory that adds greater interest like the lamps you have in your rooms rather than the over bright overhead light. Birds seem to talk and fly more delicately, less insistent, waning in energy as they start the process of either heading south or hunkering down. The squawking youthfulness of spring and summer replaced by a thoughtful resigning to the gradual onset of darker and colder times. Like the birds I sometimes get Seasonal Adjustment Disorder, sadden by the onset of darker, colder and often wetter times. The lack of light proving difficult to cope with. I love wrapping up and kicking through fallen leaves on country paths or city avenues, my camera coming to life as vistas take on greater interest, the flatness of summer replaced by interest and hue. I stare at the sky a lot more in autumn, slightly wistful but also thankful for the beauty. September, which veers uneasily between seasons, getting colder but often dry and mini heatwaves providing the last remembrance of fanciful summer times. The last chance to dive into the sea, it’s warmest time of the year, a fitting memory of immersing in nature. The classic colourful months of autumn. Woodland walks. The last chance of light. Bitter sweet. The end of something and the start of the new although it feels more like gradually disappearing, going into a cave, going underground, darkness enveloping. Memories of light transferred into darker days. Wet, cold, neon lights. Avenues of golden trees glinting in the lowering sunlight, rays softly etching patterns on the forest floor. Autumn seems to start earlier every year, snatching summer moments before they have even been fulfilled. Leaves browning and falling in July. I am sure that never happened in my youth where long hot summers seemed to stretch for eternity. Now though early autumn provides a somnambulant air, sleepwalking into colder, wetter and shorter days, life snatched from your very grasp. Before the beautiful colours emerge, it is a prewinter state, a warning sign of life passing. Time turning. Gradual ageing. The garden goes into hibernation, plants stop growing and start to wilt. Stasis is on the horizon.
Numbers or letters connected to your name are meant to define who you are by society. Are you bright, intelligent, diligent, conscientious etc… Years of being at school, slaving over a hot desk scratched with the names of former victims, that familiar sweet and woody smell as you lift the lid. Reaching underneath to feel gum squelching into each of the four leg joints. A place which is your present but will decide your future. That moment when you look at the wall, should you start high or low to see where you come in the roll call of grades or opening a brown envelope, peering in to view the figures that might decide your future. Formerly there were letters A,B,C but now numbers, searching for the 9’s but generally hovering around the 6 region. On the edge. A point where you are unsure what to do next, a grade just below what was required by the sparkling university you visited a few months ago in great expectation and belief. Did I pick up the right envelope, maybe these are someone else’s marks. The buzz of friends and enemies around you collecting their fate. All is evened out. The brainy swats finally having their moment of fame. Oxford or Cambridge for you is it dears. Bristol poly for me then. Possibly. If I can persuade someone in their applications department that I might be worth a shot. Numbers or letters deciding your fate. Life turning in one moment, from the path of riches, fun, laughter ahead to one of struggle stretching forward. This obviously isn’t true though. What do grades really mean? That you knew how to remember some things, that you have a settled home life, interested and engaged parents, parents, lack of other interests such as music, football, cricket, culture, fashion, sex, drink, drugs, books, humour, travel. The past controls your future, how lucky did you get in the roll call of life, providing a backbone to drive forwards from. It carries on to university too if you decide to go there. More exams, testing, grades. 3rd, Desmond, 2:1, first. You can only go to the next level if you get over a certain grade. Computer says no otherwise. You are thrown out with the trash, left with massive debts, hangovers, some new friends and no idea what to do next. Already a perceived multiple failure by the age of 22. You know your place. Grades don’t take account of humans, the fact that we all develop at various speeds, start to get into our skins, realise who we are, be the real me. We should all be tested for happiness really. Where are we on the scale? Are we doing the things that we love and are suited for, making the most of our talents and personalities, being the best person, we can be. All perfect 10’s if we need to give it a number. A**.
Interesting article on Bandcamp. One of the main inspirations growing up for my love of electronic filmic music, 80s electronica and the synthwave revival.
