Here's Simon performing at The Harrison on Saturday evening! Picture courtesy of Matt ArtPix

On Saturday, I went to ‘Winter Tales 2: The Witching Hour’. This was Carya Gish and Matt ArtPix and Alan Pride’s mini-festival of words and music. I love it. It’s a great and original concept to get darker styles of music together with smart and scary literature. This particular one had a theme of Witchcraft which I think all the artists kept to… or at least sneaked into their sets. :)

Sarah Channing-Wright. A great start to the night as she told us about Devonshire witches and read a bit from a forthcoming novel whilst suitable images flickered on the screen behind her like a hearthside fire on a dark Winter’s night.

Kirsten Morrison. That amazing voice backed up by live violin and backing tracks was brilliant. Cecile loved the Shakespearian witches’ song but I’m a tad annoyed that the song she did about Horace Walpole’s Castle Otranto full of true gothic imagery and atmosphere doesn’t appear on any of her recordings.

Syd Moore. She told us so much about historical Essex Witches and so much about modern Essex that this felt like someone had merged an occult presentation at Treadwell’s with a light comedy biopic from Radio 4. The fact that her application for money to start an Essex Museum of Witchcraft was denied by the authorities, so she instead created it in fiction, says only the best things about Syd and about the power of fiction itself.

Hi-Reciprocity. Well, I may be a tad too close to this project to really comment fairly but I think it was a really fun gig. I somehow got to talk about ‘Margaret Thatcher and all her imps’, compare Kings Cross to Hell, teach people about Buddhist morality and to do a few new pieces about shutting your eyes to horror films, people with funny surnames and accusations of witchcraft. I am a colossus standing bestride the two arts of poetry and song… well maybe a mini colossus but it’s still fun to dabble in both worlds.

Cathi Unsworth. Probably a more suitable subject to be compared to a multi-media colossus, Cathi’s history as a music journalist gives her more recent career as a suspense writer the confidence and grounding in reality that makes great fiction. Here she fooled the audience by sneaking in and out of talking about her new novel with exerts from the book itself… and it’s about infamous witchcraft cases during World War II, so I’m sure I’m going to love it. In fact we had to buy both her latest book and Syd Moore’s because we couldn’t tell whether the light-hearted Moore-ish take on local history (atleast in her two last books) or the cerebral (and visceral) words of Unsworth would make the more-enjoyable tale. :)
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Kate Arnold. The fact that I was humming her songs all the way home, probably says it all. Multi-instrumental and with one of those folk voices that (whether she likes it or not) I’m going to compare to the natural joy of Kirsty MacColl, Kate’s work makes me smile, and bob my head and sing… whether I know the words or not. A duet with Kirsten Morrison on a poem by Hans Christian Andersen was a strange and powerful highlight of the night for me."