Thank you for following Uncanny Landscapes. Here’s a new episode of the podcast; an interview with writer, researcher and folk singer Elizabeth Bennett. As you know, this is a free project, both newsletter and podcast - nothing is paywalled. If you're able to support my work through a donation (aka paid subscription) - thank you!! I truly appreciate it. And if you're not, perhaps you can support by telling a friend (or two, or 100) about the Substack's free subscriptions and accompanying podcast.
The podcast (and all back ‘issues’) are also available at:
https://uncannylandscapes.podbean.com/
… and on most podcast platforms. As always, books, records and events ‘n’at here: https://linktr.ee/oldweirdalbion
Links:
Elizabeth Bennett on Instagram
Performing Folk Songs book via Bloomsbury
Stick in the Wheel: A Thousand Pokes
Justin Hopper presents The Great Satanic Swindle in Brighton 24 Oct.
Elizabeth Bennett is a Sussex-born folk singer, the child and grandchild of folk singers. Her work as an academic, it’ll come as little surprise, treads similar ground - but in a surprising manner. Far from the typical academic aspiration to understand the folk tradition through ‘authenticity’ and definitive versions, nor to catalogue it with numbers and song-family trees, Bennett imagines the ways in which singing folk songs make us feel. And in particular, how those songs feel - and indeed, in their very being are - different when performed in different landscapes.
Many of the ideas around folk music that seem close to the heart of the uncanny landscape appear in Bennett’s work, expressed and understood in subtly radical new ways. Her book is a coming together of the academic writing that understands qualitative and quantitative; that seeks peer review and replicable statements, with creative nonfiction, in which she would rather present songs and landscapes as ideas and ‘things’ that we can only catch momentarily; slippery, ever-evolving things that we might understand only through feeling.
I hope you’ll have a chance to listen to our conversation, which launches a new season of Uncanny Landscapes. The music is from the mouth-watering new album from folk radicals Stick in the Wheel. If you don’t know their music, prepare to discover your new favourite group. And if you do, I hope you find it relevant to the episode.
And don’t forget, I’ve got some cool events coming up - check ‘em out in this update (as in, like, there’s a link attached to these words ‘n’at). In particular, next Thursday, the 24 Octoberr, I’ll be delivering my new comedy/tearjerker/true-crime/folk-horror performance lecture The Great Satanic Swindle in Brighton - love to see you there!
Uncanny Landscapes Podcast: Elizabeth Bennett