Another Musical Interlude
June 10, 2009
Last week I posted a little piece about the British duo grasscut, which is releasing a CD that opens with a song that quotes W.G. Sebald. This week yet another British CD was announced that bears a relationship to Sebald. According to TheLineofBestFit.com, Sleeping States’ CD In the Gardens of the North is “a literary inspired album.” The opening track Rings of Saturn is described as a eulogy for WG Sebald, while second track The Next Village is inspired by Kafka. Sleeping States is the stage name for singer-songwriter Markland Starkie. The CD comes out August 17. The Guardian’s take on the project can be found here.
June 11, 2009 at 5:26 am
It is bizarre to see these musical responses to Sebald, when there is a palpable absence of music in his books. The lack of Benjamin Britten in THE RINGS OF SATURN is particularly odd… but then is that too real? Is that brand of cultural pilgrimage too safe for the more exciting explorations of Sebald’s narratives.
August 8, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Terry, another artist bearing a deep relationship with WG Sebald is Max Richter. He is an experimental classical composer, and like Sebald he was born in Germany but has lived most of his life in England. He himself describes Sebald as an influence and many overviews of his work reference Sebald. His compositions are these strange searching landscapes populated by texts and noises and apparitions. I think of him as musical kin for Sebald…