My name is Hannah McGregor, and each month I'll be bringing you different stories of Canadian literary history, and our contemporary responses to it, created by scholars, poets, students, and artists from across Canada. What does literature sound like? What stories will be here if we listen to the archive? Welcome to the SpokenWeb Podcast: Stories about how literature sounds. Can you hear me? I don't know how much projection to do.
Special Thanks to Adam Whitaker-Wilson for technical assistance and recording resources and Douglas Barbour for hosting the Trance Form reading at U of A in 1977. Penn Kemp, Nick Beauchesne, Nix Nihil, Ann Anglin, Bill Gilliam, John Magyar The episode concludes with a live reading from Kemp’s brand-new Pandemic Poems (2020). A clip from her performance of Trance Form at the University of Alberta (1977) is brought into conversation with more recent material from When the Heart Parts (2007) and Barbaric Cultural Practice (2017).
Through conversation with poet Penn Kemp and SpokenWeb Researcher Nick Beauchesne, this episode invites us to explore these questions by tracing the threads of magical practice from Kemp’s early career to the present day. How do these effects complement and contradict one another? How does literary sound produce bodily effects and altered states of consciousness? Where will the trance take us, as listeners? The words on the page produce certain effects, while the voices in the air produce others altogether. Drawing on a syncretic blend of spiritual philosophy informed by Buddhist, Hindu, and Celtic wisdom traditions, Kemp’s work is imminent and transcendent, embodied and cerebral. While her subjects are varied, and her interests and approaches have evolved over the years, Kemp has always understood the power of spoken word to evoke emotion, shift consciousness, and shape the world. Wandering deeper into the shadows, this tune’s rising sense of danger holds you captive at every twist and turn.For Penn Kemp, poetry is magic made manifest. Wiedemann’s murky bass and RY’s earthy vocals crawl out from their hollow to meet the weighty synths head on.
Continuing to hypnotise, Stole The Night darkens the mood even more. Buried below the undergrowth, this stripped back tune naturally flows until it surfaces and takes hold. Recording the track in a studio overlooking a centuries old castle and tree, the tune’s kick drum apparently seemed like the perfect accompaniment to the haunting piano. Opening track Signs moved them from Topanga to the fields of central England. Recording in such a richly raw space using worn gear, Tibetan singing bowls, rooftop rain and just one microphone, this introspective album’s tribal heartbeat awakens when the sun goes down. Mainly recorded in RY’s Topanga abode, they set up an ancient ceremony space as their studio and drew inspiration from their wild mountain surrounds. Prowling through electronic and folk soundscapes, their newly released debut album Sacred Ground entrances all in its path. This one is for the night creatures.Įmerging from the shadows nearly three years ago, the pair took on the moniker of their lead tune and released a raft of new night sounds.
A one off collab, on Sacred Ground Howling tap into the ethereal forces of the world to create a brooding yet lush album.