New album - Blodeuben

“Mae brawd gan Blodeuwedd, a'i enw yw Blodeuben.”
“Blodeuwedd has a brother, and his name is Blodeuben.”

I’ve always been interested in the stories of the Mabinogion ever since my Grandmother used to tell them to me when I was small.

I’ve rewritten the story of Blodeuwedd so that she has a brother, Blodeuben, who becomes Gwydion’s lover.

“He lifted his arms and circled the remaining flowers, chanting under his breath. As he circled widdershins, the flowers began to glow again. He watched as the flowers melted together and formed the body and limbs of a beautiful young man, who sprung out of the pit into Gwydion's waiting arms.”

The Erlking is borrowed from German literature. In Wales he is
Y Gwernfrenin, and he’s here for your sons.

“Pwy sy'n marchogaeth mor hwyr trwy'r nos?
Y tad sydd yno, gyda'i blentyn tlos;
Mae'n meddwl mae’r bachgen yn iawn dan ei fraich,
Mae’n dal e’n dynn, trwy ystod y daith.”

“Who is that riding so late through the night?
The father holds his little son tight;
He thinks he’s safe, tucked under his arm,
He holds him tight, he’ll not come to harm."

The three sons of Gwydion and Gilfaethwy, born as a wolf cub, a fawn, and a wild boar piglet, are adopted by Math Mathonwy.

“Math then called the wolf and she-wolf, Gwydion and Gilfaethwy, and struck them both with his wand and they returned to their own trembling flesh.

Too scared to look at each other, unable to look at anything else.”

I wanted to make something that sounded and felt as Welsh as the tales that inspired it.

Diolch
Andy x

7 tracks, plus a bonus track, for £1.

Seren and the New Mabinogion

Seren have commissioned a series of books from Welsh writers, the first two being White Ravens by Owen Sheers and The Ninth Wave by Russell Celyn Jones. I'm elated, obsessed with the Mabinogion as I am, but also frustrated.

Seren should have commissioned me to write my version of Blodeuwedd. It's contemporary, gay, urban; everything Welsh Publishing houses seem to like at the moment. I've got any amount of short stories, poems, experimental fiction and plays - all of which I've been told are too experimental, too urban to be published. No one wants to take risks. The one lead I have is an editor said he wanted to read a novel based on Geraint and Nathalie, after reading a few short stories about them. They are my favourite characters to write about; I've been writing about them for so long that they wrote their own stories now, it's like I just write down the exploits of two friends that I'm growing older with. Great though they are, and fun as they are to write - they are the stories most rooted in the real world. I wish it was the 50s and I was a beat writer. I wish the editor had asked to read about Nathalie and Geraint living in Antiville, my bleak near-future Welsh city. I wish I had more time to write the Geraint novel, or that someone would publish a collection of stories if I promised to write the Geraint novel afterwards. Get me and my angst. It's like being fifteen again.
I read contemporary fiction, and a lot of it frustrates and depresses me. How the hell did that get published? And conversely, why did no one buy this book?

I'm setting myself some deadlines. I want to write the Geraint novel by end of March 2010. Parthian are calling for submissions. I need a binding contract, something spiritual I can use. I will write my testament and seal it inside a beloved book and only open it when I have finished writing my novel. Which book to use?

Off at a tangent again. I love the idea of a New Mabinogion, I absolutely love it - but I am worried that the Blodeuwedd story will be ruined. It won't be as good as mine.

Podcast 4.0

Blodeuwedd's Song

A piece of soundart that I'm trying to get exhibited/played somewhere this year, as it's partly to celebrate Louis Braille's bicentenary and his brilliant invention of Braille (which makes such a difference to blind and partially sighted people’s lives) – and partly to, well, experiment I suppose. I make all kinds of art, material to abstract - and it’s kind of an artist’s duty to experiment. I got all inspired about soundart after my recent trip to New Zealand – Christchurch Art Gallery’s Subsonic exhibition especially.

Blodeuwedd’s Song is my response to how to turn Braille into music. I allocated each dot of the Braille cell a different note of the pentatonic scale, and used a poem I had written about Blodeuwedd as the base. I then transcribed the poem into Braille, and spent about three days placing each note. So one letter in my transcribed version can be up to five notes played together: for variation I spaced them out a little, and lowered the octave of a few, when I felt the poem intensified emotion – so this is a mixture of aleatoric and chosen notes. The soundart is set against a backdrop of a busy woodland and a lone owl.

If you know of anyone/anywhere interested in exhibiting/playing this piece, please pass on my details – the stories of The Mabinogion are a passion of mine, and lots of my art is based on the tales. I’m currently knitting a human skin for Blodeuwedd’s brother Blodeuben, and am also currently making a film called The Birth of Blodeuben.

More information on Blodeuwedd here and here, some on Blodeuben here.
More on Christchurch gallery's subsonic exhibtion here.
More on Louis Braille bicentenary and RNIB's celebrations here.

Unrhymed Blodeuwedd

Leaves and green matter filled my throat
As I gasped for air on the morning I was made,

My lungs forced it out. I ripped moss
From my hair and out from behind my eyes.

I stood in a green world blinking daisies
From my vision, dappled meadows instead of sight.

My first exhalation dropped petals on to the grass,
Slow petals, already starting to dry and wither.

Rhymed Blodeuwedd

I was made from the petals of flowers.
Coloured and folded, until the hours

Dragged me awake and I stood in the light.
I was made for a man, not made for life;

Not hunting, feasting ‘til the light falls dim.
Though I had no choice: I chose to kill him.