For Folk Horror Revivalists who wish to further explore off the beaten track into the wyrder corners of literature, TV, film and music, you are invited to explore the rich, tangled undergrowth of ‘A Year In The Country’. A blog, website and music label, for the last few years AYITC has been quietly but ceaselessly documenting the edgelands of popular culture whilst adding their own unique contribution via such album releases as ‘The Quietened Village’ and ‘The Restless Field’ (featuring folk horror friendly artists such Sproatly Smith, Polypores and Keith Seatman); music which AYITC feels ‘draws from the above strands of inspiration – the patterns beneath the plough and pylons’.

Alongside their musical excursions, AYITC are keen curators of the unsettling and the bucolic. The scripts and writings of Nigel Kneale, the music of The Owl Service, hauntological favourites from TV past such as ‘The Changes’ or ‘Children of the Stones’, contemporary explorations such as Rob Young’s acid folk tome ‘Electric Eden’; just some of the otherworldly characters, programmes and emissions from which AYINC draws its inspiration and focus for its regular features and postings. The site’s curator describes his vision as;

’A set of year-long explorations of the undercurrents and flipside of bucolic dreams, the further reaches of folk music and culture, work that takes inspiration from the hidden and underlying tales of the land and where such things meet and intertwine with the lost futures, spectral histories and parallel worlds of what has come to be known as hauntology. The main website features writing about such work and themes, posts that are intended as a trail of cultural breadcrumbs, starting points for their readers’ own wanderings and pathways through related fields’.

A highly recommended excursion for all curious and avid Revivalists there is much to be found in AYITC’s darkened hedgerows and industrial borderlands. Find them here and wander freely;

ayearinthecountry.co.uk/

article by Grey Malkin