The Gurdy Stone: a rock review
The editor wants me to review more rock and roll. Let’s start with the rock.
The Gurdy Stone is a two-tonne piece of Welsh slate, transferred from the west of this sodden island and placed into the heart of the East Sussex countryside, infused with the spirit of the Local Psycho and encoded with a novelty record blending hurdy-gurdy melodies with jungle breakbeats, on the day the Green Comet returned to our orbit after 50,000 years.
Further explanation may be required.
This is the work of two men both denied a Christmas Number One record: Jimmy Cauty - (Justified And Ancient); and Jem Finer (The Fairytale Of New York). Their collaboration began when Finer sent Cauty a recording of him playing the hurdy gurdy, a hand-cranked variation of the violin that originated somewhere between Eastern Europe and the Middle East in the 11th Century. Finer describes it as, “like an ancient synthesiser.” Though it sounds like an underhanded insult, I describe it as sounding like bagpipes with strings.
Cauty took this recording and, in a moment of inspiration that brings to mind mixing the Glitter beat with Doctor Who, turned it into “stone-aged rave.” The result: ‘The Hurdy-Gurdy Song’, a berserk racket of hurdy gurdy, breakbeats, sirens and screaming, credited to Local Psycho and The Hurdy Gurdy Orchestra.
A sell-out 12” run was released by Heavenly Recordings in April 2023. Their sister blog, Caught By The River, is an erudite collection of psychogeographical and nautical writing, recently establishing a literary festival in the village of Kingston-near-Lewes (Lewes being home to Anne of Cleves and Arthur Brown), in close proximity to the local Lovebrook farm.
Why the following happened is hard to explain. What we know:
Ahead of the 2023 festival, Cauty and Finer transported a long, jagged boulder across mainland Britain, to be set in a location that, allegedly, sits on a modern ley line that sees, “every Amazon fulfilment centre in the country”. By coincidence, that just so happened to be atop Lovebrook Farm. 29 April - pagans, ravers, hipsters, and bemused locals, gazed through thick, yellow smoke as Jimmy and Jem used loudspeakers and transducers to “encode” ‘The Hurdy-Gurdy Song’ into the stone, at a point when C/2022 E3 (ZTF) - the Green Comet - would be visible from Earth for the first time since the Upper Paleolithic era.
The journey to the Gurdy Stone. Photo by One Man Underground.
May 2024. It was time for folks to reconvene around the Gurdy Stone and, for me, to introduce myself. With The Good Lady Punk Connoisseur (as my partner will henceforth be known), I left the bunker for East Sussex where, arriving around noon, we walked through the farm, up a hill, across fields, to meet the stone, as yet undisturbed by the crowds it would welcome in the early evening.
Disclaimer: this is the point at which I have written myself into a position where I am required to review a literal piece of earth. I am not sure how, but I will give it my best effort.
The Gurdy Stone, Kingston-near-Lewes. Photo by One Man Underground.
It is stunning obelisk. Standing about 8 feet tall (a further 4 feet set underground), it is a cold, muted grey, though with lighter brown patches on one of its four sides. On another, rain has begun to bleach spots upon the surface, while another is marked by streaks of stark white bird poo, perhaps a reminder that, while landowners may consent, nature remains indifferent to the whim of man.
Listening for the transduced novelty song within. Photo by The Good Lady Punk Connoisseur.
Awed by this imposing piece of modern folk art, I placed my ear to a side of the stone not caked in poo, in an effort to hear the music encoded within a year prior. Alas, I hear nothing. Perhaps I was at fault, my ears not attuned to the frequencies within the stone, or mind closed to the metaphysical properties it carries. Perhaps it suffered a corrupted transcoding process.
Maybe this was all just pseudo-scientific bullshit. Or, indeed, bird shit. We may never know.
Jem Finer at St. Pancras Church in Kingston-near-Lewes, May 2024. Photo by One Man Underground.
Not to worry though, because down in the village church, we were lucky enough to enjoy a selection of written and improvised works performed by Finer himself, lacking any breakbeats or sirens, but armed with a hurdy-gurdy and a churchful of spectral acoustics. In lesser hands this could have been unbelievably tedious or ear-scrapingly horrendous, but under control of tonemeister Jem, it’s a beautiful way to spend half an hour. Experience a taster here.
At the end of a day of talks, interviews, and ambient music, the audience ascended to the Gurdy Stone for… well, nobody really knew what. Not even my insider pal Justin, who had just interviewed counter-cultural legend Richard Norris. Many were present for the 2023 launch; many wondered how Cauty and Finer could possibly top that. As it turned out, they didn’t even try. Jimmy, to my knowledge, was not there, while Jem, without introduction nor fanfare, sat against the stone for a recital of Local Psycho’s one and only song, once again on the hurdy-gurdy.
Jem Finer, leaning against the Gurdy Stone, flanked by The Good Lady Punk Connoisseur. Photo by One Man Underground.
Lacking both the haunting acoustics of the church down the hill, and the ritual theatrics of what had occurred a year prior, it risked being a somewhat anticlimactic end to the day. But as the sun beamed, with the goodwill of spending the day in a beautiful village, hearing interesting people discuss their art while enjoying local booze… it was low-key, yes, but it seemed to fit the relaxed mood of the day in general. Overall, this was all a lovely way to spend a day of a long weekend.
But none of that was why I went. I only wanted to see the stone. To me at least, this was, truly, a rock show in its purest form. And in that sense, it delivered more rock than any group of musicians holding guitars could ever hope.
I think that’s rock covered. Next, the roll…
(For those about to rock, Lovebrook is usually open to visitors on Saturday mornings.)
