Xenis Emputae Travelling Band's "Idiosyncratically English Works of Magic"

I've always been a pretty firm believer in Sturgeon' s Law, the postulate credited to science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon that "90% of everything is crud" - a number that, in today's user-generated media world, might seem even higher. But I think the percentages are holding pretty steady, it's just that the sheer volume of stuff out there has jumped exponentially in recent years. Which is a great (if sometimes exasperating) thing for dedicated music fans (though perhaps not for their bank accounts), since it means that the overall amount of genuinely creative sound production has also exploded. Certainly the ability to self-release and virtual-distribute one's own music has made it possible for folks who wouldn't have gotten a second glance from most conventional "record labels" to spread their sounds to similarly-minded others all over the world, potentially taking us into an incredibly fertile creative period as working artists are able to share ideas in new ways, and previously marginalized "outsider" genres of music-making find creative footholds out in the cultural long tail...

All by way of setting up the context for a discussion with Phil Legard, chief geomantic sonic cartographer of England's Xenis Emputae Travelling Band. Since 2001 XETB has released a near-steady flow of lovely and varied CDRs charting various mystical regions at the heart of that country's land and culture. Particular XETB pieces and discs are often related to concepts from myth and folklore, especially as those connect to natural patterns and specific places, to the extent that Legard often records in the field (sometimes literally) to capture the special properties of certain spaces. Sonically XETB's sounds cross from misty drones (sometimes synthesized, often made by adapted acoustic instruments) to traditional folk song, inflected by everything from Medieval/early musics to avant-garde noise. And it's all quite lovely, perhaps drawing comparisons to the music of Ireland's United Bible Studies, Oklahoma's North Sea, or PA's own Tim Renner, but with a fog-shrouded depth all its own.

Some of XETB's 16 or so releases (discography here) have been found on such stellar small labels such as Barl Fire, Ireland's Deserted Village (home of the above-mentioned UBS), Phil Todd's Memoirs of an Aesthete, Brad Rose's Digitalis, and Clay Ruby's 23 Productions. But as Legard has taken the mythic bull of self-produced culture by the horns, many of them have come from his own Larkfall label, usually as limited-edition CDRs housed within simple but elegant black-and-gold bordered covers. Larkfall has also featured releases from similarly-minded artists such as the North Sea and Jani Hellen (of Sonic Temple Assassins), plus XETB's alter ego the Pneumatic Consort, not to mention a brand new compilation based around the theme of Reynardine, the trickster fox of folk legend. Legard recently introduced another promising label, Oneiros, devoted to more extreme sounds; the first pair of releases features Italian cosmic free-jazz wunderkind Valerio Cosi, and a split CD from Legard's over-the-top doom-noise project the Neon Death Slittes and the abovementioned Phil Todd's amazing Ashtray Navigations (with whom Legard guests regularly; this all gets pretty incestuous, doesn't it?). And as if all that weren't enough, Legard also scribes a fascinating blog called Tintinnalogia (named after a 17^th century tome on the art of bell ringing) that showcases his musings on topics ranging from alchemy to medieval music to nature magic to punk rock to dew.

Basically, Legard is a kind of postmodern polymath, someone with a genuinely unique aesthetic and worldview whose work can take root and hopefully thrive in the fertile cultural soil discussed above. As such, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to engage Phil in a somewhat epic email interview, presented here for your edification and enjoyment. Thanks to Phil for his time and thoughts!

DW: At the risk of breaking the mystery, can you tell us a bit about your personal background? How did you begin playing music?

PL: My musical background - well, I come from parents who were part of the folk and blues revival of the 60s and kept going to folk clubs throughout their lives. My earliest musical memory is sitting under a table one summer Sunday morning listening to Paul Brady and Andy Irvine singing "Arthur McBride". It's a song about two fellows walking on the beach one Christmas morning and meeting an army sergeant and corporal. They try to get Arthur McBride and his cousin to enlist, telling them about the ‘very fine life' of the soldier. Of course, Arthur takes exception to this - it being obvious that in the army's eyes men like him and his cousin are no more than cannon-fodder for the French. Well, to cut a long song short, they beat up the sergeant, corporal and drummer boy! An action that I don't condone, but it's better than the alternative, I suppose! I think that song probably gave me a healthy mistrust of authority - I'll certainly be playing it to my children.

My parents were into folk, blues and the local folk-clubs. Unfortunately my mother largely stopped dancing, playing and singing when I was born, but got back into it during my teens. I remember that my mother bought me a penny-whistle when I was 16, which I still use on XETB recordings. Shortly after that I got an acoustic guitar and began recording songs and improvisations on an old cassette recorder, inspired by Syd Barrett. I was also studying computers at college around that time and got into sound synthesis and algorithmic/generative music, something that still plays a part in my academic/professional music (I've done degrees specialising in it and work in related areas), but not so much in the music associated with Larkfall.

Can you tell us a little bit about your musical background? How did you first start making music? And when/how did your current direction develop?

I was probably first properly turned on to folk when they took me to a sing-around at Whitby Folk Festival in the mid 90s. The sense of a community and these people singing old songs really touched me and made me delve deeper into the parental record collection - at the time I was mainly into 60s pop-psych stuff, like the UK band Kaleidoscope, Jason Crest, Bulldog Breed, Principal Edwards and so on... oh, and a real soft spot for Gong and their various satellites.

I mainly started making music as a cathartic experience in my late teens, starting out with an acoustic guitar but somehow finding myself in the noise scene that networked across the Internet. I mainly did stuff with processed feedback and some terrible FX pedals that I still use to this day, being too broke to replace them. I was never really serious about music until 2001 when I began XETB. I'd been exploring the coast of Cornwall and passed through the ancient ruined tomb of Men-an-Tol. Within a moment the landscape had been transfigured... an experience I can't quite put into words. Prior to that my mind had been inclined to the stars - the study of medieval astrology and stellar lore... I'd always thought of ‘earth mysteries' as an even flakier practice than astrology for tie-dyed stone-hugging hippies, but in that moment everything made some kind of sense... So, I spent my time making field recordings and improvisations, getting to know the landscape. Practically all other musical exploits fell by the wayside. It was a psychedelic experience in the truest sense - no drugs involved, just a life-changing revelation that has fed into almost all of my musical explorations since.

So, who or what is Xenis Emputae, and why does he or it have a Travelling Band?

Ah, odd... no-one's ever asked that question. I used to release my first experiments in music as Xenis Emputae in the mid/late 90s... who or what XE is will have to remain a mystery! The ‘Travelling Band' part was a direct result of the Cornish recordings that became Full Moon June... I suppose that the name started out as a light-hearted joke, but over the course of the recording became a really profound, life-changing experience. Everything since then has been XETB - I abandoned all the projects I was working on for XE after that summer.

You've really been at the forefront of the movement toward recording and releasing one's own music in recent years via your Larkfall microlabel. Could you comment on that, and how technology has changed the possibilities for artists? (And also, where the name Larkfall came from?)

Haha, you flatter me... I don't think I've been at the forefront of anything. I'm terribly lazy when it comes to releasing things compared to, say, Chocolate Monk or Digitalis Industries!

I started putting out tapes and CDrs in around 1998, initially under the umbrella of Stella Maris Recordings. Larkfall came about in around 2002 in order to release The Suffolk Workings, after Rob Hayler at Fencing Flatworm turned it down for being a bit too ‘gothic' for his tastes. I'm grateful that he did, otherwise it would have taken another year or two to get things going.

I love other people to release my music, but I also like having control over what's available. With Larkfall, it's been my policy not to do limited editions of the releases unless there are special circumstances. However, I think this has worked against the label in some ways - people seem a bit apprehensive about distributing, or occasionally actually buying, a release unless it's a ‘collectable' numbered edition.

Fundamentally I don't think that much has changed on the ‘underground' - people are still putting out DIY releases as they've been doing for decades. The big difference is how technology has made the whole process of putting together releases a lot faster (burning a CDr, versus dubbing a tape), and of course the Internet has replaced the stacks of flyers that you used to get from distros and trades... which is a bit of a shame!

Originally the label was going to be called Larkrise, after Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford. Around the same time I also heard the Padstow May Day song, which has the lyric "Up flies the kite, down falls the lark," which stuck with me for some reason. The name was finally decided on when I saw a reference to the folklore of the lark rising to greet the morning sun, which is a very appealing image to me.

At the same time as you embrace new technologies for releases, it also seems like there's an element of your music that draws on something more ancient... There are elements of folk and avant-garde sounds, but for some reason the word "liturgical" often comes to mind when I'm listening to your music... is that at all accurate? Lots of underground musicians try to surround themselves with the trappings of some kind of mysticism or spirituality (with, to my ears, varying degrees of legitimacy), but XETB seems to come from a kind of deeper understanding... Thoughts?

I've always been into the fantastic, mystical and spiritual... Although I'd class a lot of the music that comes out of XETB as something like ‘sonic daydreams', there is usually an impulse from folklore, music of Hermetic philosophy at the root of the recording. These impulses serve to me as useful starting points for exploring those ideas with music. I often make use of stream-of-consciousness imagery or intuitions that arise during, or either side, of the recording process - and often at a tangent to the original impulse! While I wouldn't say that the figures that sometimes come from the process, such as Hydriel or The Landless Lord, have an objective existence, they're real enough to me on a psychic level.

I think that the ‘liturgical' sound of some of my music is a natural effect of two things... as you know, I'm chiefly concerned with English landscape, folklore and culture, and most things that we think of as quintessentially ‘English' often have that calm, melancholic nature that we often find in liturgical music. The second reason is probably due to the mainly modal basis of music, akin to medieval chant and the melodies of folksong...

The occult, mystical and spiritual has been the catalyst for a lot of really bad music. Many people also have preconceived (and negative) notions about people who employ such elements overtly. Therefore I usually try to avoid being too explicit about these influences or tying myself into any kind of mystical or spiritual dogma, since I prefer the music to speak for itself.

A number of your releases feature "location" recordings, which is a cool idea... Can you say a little about those both in terms of the logistics and the ideas behind doing so?

The locations are usually picked because they have some meaning to me. Perhaps they're places that are visually striking, or maybe they have good acoustics - such as cave mouths. Other places may relate to the lore of the landscape - I do a lot of recording on Ilkley Moor, which has one of the most densely gathered collections of prehistoric rock art in the country, as well as interesting stone circles and geographic features. The surrounding area is rich in folklore, for example, standing at the famous swastika stone you can see Almscliffe crag in one direction and Simon's Seat in the other. The former of these is a place where Beltane fires are still lit, and is said to have been created as a consequence of the giant Rombald having a fight with the devil. The latter is an imposing rock outcrop, which the late 19^th century Yorkshire historian Harry Speight hypothesised may have had a druidical association. This seat overlooks the haunted valley of Troller's Gill, where the black dog and fairies are said to have been seen, and so on. All of these are areas that have featured a lot in the music of XETB.

Since I work alone the process is often to make field recordings and an extended ‘seed' improvisation, or several improvisations, which I build the rest of the music around - adding more improvised layers, editing if necessary, and so on. I usually take with me as much as I can comfortably carry - thankfully I don't own any very heavy instruments or recording equipment. The main problem is things breaking - sometimes because of atmospheric conditions, or more often because I slip over and fall on my arse!

Would you say that the cultural resonances of your music are the most important factor? Or is there something about the land itself that comes out in the music?

Great question, and one I'm not sure I can answer! The cultural elements of the music are often associated with obscurities drawn from the arcana of British folklore and the European magical tradition. Often these elements are tied in with the landscape, for example, I've done a lot of recording in an area associated with the ‘black dog', fairies, giants and folk-memories of the druids. Sometimes these associations will influence the way I play music, what I do with my recordings later in the studio, or what imagery may come to mind while playing. At other times the music might be free from premeditated associations. Often I think it depends on both my own mood and the ‘mood' of the place, which is closely tied in to weather and the seasons. For example, a valley may look like some kind of Elysian paradise on a summer afternoon, but take on quite a sinister appearance on a drizzly, monochrome day. However, I believe there is a constant, fundamental nature present in each place that transcends atmospheric colourations.

Of course, there are also a lot of outside influences - the music is never conceived in a vacuum and often whatever my current musical interest is will have some bearing on the music... Some parts of Gamaaea ended up sounding a little minimalist - for example, the track "Descending Form" with its repeating whistle figure toward the end. I'd been listening to a lot of Elizabethan and minimalist music around that time, which crossed with the XETB aesthetic.

In your blog you delve into a whole range of fascinating topics, most of them not directly musical, yet all seemingly central to your larger concerns. Could you talk a bit about that? How did you first get turned on to these interests? Have you undertaken any formal studies in those areas?

The material on the blog are notes on things that interest me that I think perhaps other people might like. Unfortunately I've not had time to update it recently - it's been a busy month - but there's lots in waiting to be put up there. My main areas of interest are music and mysticism/folklore, so most of the topics on the blog are tangents on that theme. I suppose that I've been studying Western esotericism for as long as I've been making music. My interest in esotericism lies in the writings stemming from the Neoplatonic revival during the Renaissance, up to the late 18^th century. I find both this Hermetic stream and also folklore and myth to be rich sources of inspiration, opening mental doors full of striking imagery. They saturate my perception of the world and have a huge influence on how I approach music and themes with XETB.

Music-wise, I'll probably find myself writing about anything! From obscure technical details to reviews of whatever I'm digging at that moment... Tied with Hermeticism is an interest in the music of the spheres - that is, the realisation of the otherwise inaudible harmonies of the planets and universe, which has been a theme straddling the boundaries of mysticism, music and science for thousands of years. I've not taken any formal studies in any of these, they're just tangential interests. The only formal study I've done have been in relation to algorithmic music, something I'm reviewing my relationship with currently - certainly as far as computers and things are concerned since I'm far more interested in acoustic music. The relationship between a person and a physical instrument is much deeper, especially where intuition and improvisation is concerned. However, from the start of XETB there have been some pieces that have started with basic algorithmic techniques (for example one of the tracks on Under a Soular Moon used a map of notes based on a diagram of the constellation Taurus, and the track "Horizon of Eternity" derived its overall structure from a geomantic chart). Typically, though, the structure of XETB music is more organic, usually deriving from improvisations recorded ‘in the field'.

When a lot of Westerners discover the numinous, it's often via Eastern sources -- Buddhism and the like. But your work and interests seems dedicated to a variety of strains of mystical thought that are part and parcel of the Western tradition, though often marginalized... Is that a fair characterization? What are the threads that tie it all together for you?

I think it's fair. When I was a teenager I remember being concerned that there was no indigenous religion or philosophy extant, so I looked at various strands of paganism and modern esoteric practice, none of which really convinced me. Perhaps, as has often been said, some trace of ancient belief and practice remains in the folk rituals of the land. However, we have to accept that there have been thousands of years of other influences and events shaping the land, replacing or at least moulding the old beliefs into new forms. These events have often led to very interesting hybrids - the Romano-Celtic gods, Christian saints taking the place of ancient pagan gods and heroes - a rich tapestry of borrowings from far and wide, which still remains ‘English' at its core - which is still tied in with the land. Western esotericism is just another influence - deriving from the classical authors in the Mediterranean, then travelling across Europe in the Middle Ages (perhaps before), but reaching its peak in the Renaissance. On one side of the Hermetic coin are the high-brow and intellectually stimulating works of people like Marsillio Ficino and John Dee. On the other side are the conjurors books of incantations and talismans - but it is precisely because of the ‘low-brow' nature of these works that they are so important to the already rich folk-tradition - someone was far more likely to consult a local cunning man because they wanted their stolen cattle returned than because they wanted a vision of the celestial city. An example of the overlap with folk-traditions is when Reginald Scot published his famously sceptical work The Discoverie of Witchcraft. He intended it to expose the dangerous foolishness of believing in witches, but it was perhaps a mistake of his to add a chapter containing sundry magical formulae from the books of two magicians T.R. and John Cokar. By including this material he probably intended no only to dismiss the claims of magical spells, but also to have a dig at the similarly superstitious rituals of the Catholic Church. However, he result was that for the first time Scot had let into mainstream circulation a treasure trove of magical lore - I suspect that it was the only part of the book read by many and probably copied innumerable times by the curious. The recipes given by Scott naturally became part of the village cunning man's store of knowledge. In Ralph Merrifield's The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic he publishes several pictures of magical implements and charms that had been found hidden in the walls of old country houses - almost all of the imagery upon them can be traced back to Scot.

In her book Ritual Magic, Elizabeth Butler makes an attempt to trace the progression of similarly low-brow magic through European history. After discussing how the literature of magic was dragged through bloody and horrific fantasies in Germany by authors wanting to cash in on the notoriety of Faust, she turns to England and identifies Scot's collection as representing one of the few idiosyncratically English works of magic. The terrifying pacts with the devil and his emissaries and bloody sacrifice -so popular in the Faust books - are gone, replaced by something gentler and more fanciful. Most notable is the chapter ‘An Experiment of the Dead', which begins in sombre mood - the magician obtaining the promise of a soon to be executed criminal that he will serve him in the afterlife. Later the magician and his assistant go to the grave of the criminal and command his spirit to appear in a crystal. Then things take a turn for the fantastic - the spirit of the dead man is used solely an intermediary for the magician to make contact with the queen of the fairies! The encounter ultimately leads to procuring a ring of invisibility, and there's even the implication of a sexual encounter with the fairy queen! It's a long way from Faust - far more in the realms of Spenser's Fairie Queen and mythical romance. It was because the experiment with the fairies summed up a lot of my aesthetic interests and tied the European magical tradition with English folklore that I decided to use it as the structure of the first Pneumatic Consort recordings.

Would you say that the music is a primary focus for you, or do you consider the music more of a vehicle that lets you explore the deeper ideas?

Since it's the music the people end up listening to it's the most important thing that I present publicly. What ends up on the releases is usually edited down from quite a lot of material - I really want to make my music engaging and re-listenable. This is one of the reasons that I generally try and keep my releases around 30 minutes in duration. I do have lengthier, more personal and meditative recordings, but I'm apprehensive to release them. That said, the process of actually recording the music is often a springboard for exploring other areas. With field recording and outdoor improvisation you can get very different insights into a location, while I find that letting my mind wander while playing can have striking results - both in the music that comes out and in mental intuitions and imagery. Many of the track titles derive from things I've imagined as I played the music. For example, while recording Last Voyage for the King of Swords while a sea-storm rolled in across Southwold I had a deep mental impression of a ship, crewed by the elemental spirits of the air amongst the clouds. Part of the fascination with this way of working is the building of a personal mythology that exists in parallel with the received lore of the local area.

Can you say a bit about your non-Xenis projects, the Neon Death Slittes and the Pneumatic Consort (and others?)? Are there lines of connection between those and the XETB (similar ideas, approaches to sound, etc.), or are they completely separate in how you approach them?

The Pneumatic Consort basically takes a lot of the same ideas as XETB, but concentrates almost entirely on wind instrumentation (including reed instruments and voice). While making the recordings that came out on the recent Pneumatic Consort album I was delighted to be able to visit a church where, according to local folklore, the fairy queen had was buried! I thought that was a nice connection with the first PC recording, which concentrated on the ritual of the fairy queen which I discussed above.

Initially the Neon Death Slittes also had similarly psychogeographic concerns. The genesis of the project is a vaguely amusing story, so I might as well tell it. I was wandering around a supermarket on the edge of town one day and saw a copy of the Clash's London Calling on a rack of bargain CDs. Someone had obviously decided against buying it, and in putting it back had rotated the cover 90 degrees clockwise. The word ‘London' now looked like ‘zodzor' - a name to conjure with if ever there was one... As I did my shopping I was quietly thinking about what Zodzor would be. In the vicinity of the fish aisle I was struck by an image of a giant dog on a throne, sitting in a long disused subway tunnel - not unlike the amalgamation of Zoltan: Hound of Dracula and something from Quatermass and the Pit, both memorable films from my childhood. Zodzor, then, was the genius of urban areas. It had a name that derived from human language, unlike the formless, nameless, organic spirit that permeates the rural landscape. So, to cut a boring story short, the Neon Death Slittes formed to play Zodzoric music. Unfortunately none of the explicitly Zodzoric recordings have made it out - they collapsed under the weight of their own conceptualism, since they involved convoluted lyrical and musical processes based on rotating things 90 degrees clockwise! Currently the Neon Death Slittes is an all purpose ‘loud stuff' project, although it does still tip its hat affectionately to Zodzor - especially with tracks like Battle Hymn of the Zodzoric Empire and Psychic Underground.

There are also a load of one-off projects that I usually do in very small editions for friends - just my way of trying new things. Names include Semantron, A.A.A.A.A. (pronounced ‘pentalpha'), The Rosette of Sirius, The Gamaaea Hermetic Ensemble, and so on... maybe one day the better things will be re-released in more accessible editions.

Are there any other current artists that you feel a special affinity with, musically or otherwise? I know you're part of the live lineup (and often on recordings too) of Phil Todd's Ashtray Navigations, how did that come about, and how does that work?

As far as I remember I got to know Phil Todd through going to gigs organised by The Termite Club, in Leeds. I'd seen Ashtray Navigations play a few times and had some CDrs of theirs. I got talking to Phil when I bumped into him at a bring & buy sale a week after seeing him play as a trio with Alex Neilson and Ben Reynolds. I was probably gushing about how much like the raw essence of Hawkwind it was, or something!

Anyway, we began trading recordings with each other, and when Ben and Alex relocated to Glasgow we began jamming in his legendary basement - a place piled high with instruments, amps and fx pedals... all of varying functionality and dampness. Around that time, Mel Delaney of Sculptress also moved to Leeds. We've been playing live mainly as a trio for just over a year. My first gig with Ashtray was released on the Cante Jodido Lookalike Contest 3" cdr released by First Person.

How does it work? ... I don't want to give away and of Phil's secrets! For live stuff sometimes he'll have ideas or loops to work with, other times we just see where we go... sometimes it's good, sometimes it's staggeringly awful! Things work similarly for recorded music, but obviously with the ability to edit and overdub. Usually there's a root note to play around, sometimes explicitly as a drone or an electronic tambura - but when the timbral qualities of the instruments exert themselves, along with feedback and whatever effects are in the mix kick in then it really has a life of its own.

Even though our aesthetics are very different, the Ashtray Navigations recordings usually bowl me over, or at least have me scratching my head in a good way. Phil's a very dedicated and creative guy in both music and imagery. Also his knowledge of any obscure band, musician, film or artist is incredible - he's turned me on to some great stuff in his time, most recently the genius of Fred Lane, with Ron Pate and his Debonaires.

As for other current artists I feel an affinity with, the minimal music of Johann Wlight and Jani Héllen has effected me quite deeply. I'm also consistently amazed by a local improvisation group called Inecto School. It seems that no-matter what the line-up, they're always linked by some means of psychic communication!

I also like a trio called Lanterns, two of whom who live up the road for me. I have a soft-spot for anything involving Neil Campbell. I saw him play as Astral Social Club in Manchester and it was a really atavistic experience. I find that there's often some kind of primal psychedelia in his projects that really moves me and takes me places. He played in a few Vibracathedral concerts of such intensity that I was sick! It was great to play as part of Ashtray Social Club a couple of months ago - he brings a really vital spirit to anything he does.

Finally, what do we have to look forward to from XETB? New releases planned? Other ideas or projects in the near or not-so-near future?

Lots of things have come out recently! At the start of the year Beyond Repair did a tape entitled Gamaaea, and I've just put out an archival disc of Pneumatic Consort material, along with the Reynardine compilation.

I've been getting very interested in the voice recently, so there might be some kind of vocal project, possibly with Rhid from Lanterns, who I'm also occasionally recording with for some as-yet-unnamed project.

I had a bit of a rest from XETB over the spring, but I'm about to start working on some new material. I was recently asked if XETB would like to play inside a henge of amplifiers/orgone accumulators at a festival in the summer, which I've tentatively agreed to - could be interesting at least!

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