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VILLAGE OF STONES
Selected Poetry of Brian Lee
Read by Brian Lee
with Claudia van Buren and Paul Cheneour
Poetry from the intimate to the infinite, from city streets to ocean deeps, woven through with songs by Claudia van Buren and the virtuoso flute playing of Paul Cheneour.
NL107CD
Track Listing
Total Running time 40’16″
1. Travellin’ 1:16
2. I have barely learned to speak 0:27
3. I looked for me in books 0:33
4. To speak and to sing 0:30
5. Poem 1:53
6. In the middle of the words 0:25
7. Did you know? 0:41
8. Waiting for Clouds 0:17
9. And the three sirens sang to him 0:27
10. A List of Saints 0:25
11. Senryu 0:14
12. Tohu & Bohu 1:27
13. Kilburn Bridge 1:17
14. Elegy 1:14
15. Recipe 0:42
16. Music for the Dark of the Moon 0:19
17. Cantilena 2:35
18. A Long Limbed African Woman 0:36
19. … to Chalice Well 1:01
20. Prelude to the Obsidian Mirror 2:00
21. Khamsin 3:00
22. Three Postcards 0:38
23. Arrival 0:28
24. Butterfly 5:50
25. Ocean Diary 6:27
26. Village of Stones 3:26
27. Resurrection 1:06
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When we performed Songs for Gaia during the Brighton Festival in 2006 (brilliant gig! you should’ve been there!) we put together a first half consisting of what we called Brian’s other stuff, to make a full evening of poetry and music.
Claudia had set a couple of my poems as songs, Travellin’ as a Delta blues giving it a new dimension quite different from the way I read it; and Resurrection as a vocal solo that just rips me up every time I hear her sing it.
Some of the poems are really more like very short radio plays – Khamsin with the background of the wind and the sound of Paul playing the ney (a middle eastern flute used in Sufi music) and the poem set over that. Then Elegy which Claudia reads like an announcement against a background of airport noise and I’ll leave you the listener to work out what it’s about. Also we give the short haiku-like piece Senryu a touch of rap (just a touch).
Then there are the pieces where the flute counterpoints and punctuates the words: Paul playing sleazy on Poem (yes, I know, a stunningly original title), loose limbed on Tohu & Bohu (with a nod to Cole Porter), atonal on Prelude to the Obsidian Mirror, and then accompanies the title track Village of Stones with his own idiosyncratic way of playing guitar.
The purely spoken word pieces complete the album. All of them are also available in the book Village of Stones apart from the long piece Ocean Diary which will be published in a forthcoming collection.
Total Running time 40’16”
Catalogue number NL107CD
Selected Poetry of Brian Lee
Read by Brian Lee
with Claudia van Buren and Paul Cheneour
Brian Lee: voice, tamboura, tingsha
Claudia van Buren: voice
Paul Cheneour: flutes, ney, guitar, synth bass
All words by Brian Lee except Butterfly, words by Claudia van Buren.
Music to Poem, Tohu & Bohu, Cantilena, Khamsin and Village of Stones composed by Paul Cheneour.
Music to Butterfly, Travellin’ and Resurrection composed by Claudia van Buren
Recorded at Hoohah Studios 18 Oct 2006
Produced by Brian Lee
Engineer: Jonathan Wood
Post Production: Pete Townsend
Cover Photograph: Martin Smith
Cover Design: Nick Breeze Wood
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