The Quietus is pleased to announce that we’ll be at the Aerial Festival this March, taking over the Ambleside Inn to host an afternoon of talks and Q&As exploring creativity in this corner of New Weird Britain, and asking ‘who does this landscape belong to?’. Our friends from Caught By The River will be taking over a steamer on Lake Windermere for music and words from Amy Liptrot and Roy Wilkinson, among others. There’s also a celebration of a decade of work by Richard Skelton and Autumn Richardson’s Corbel Stone Press, featuring writers and music. Richard King’s book The Lark Ascending will come to life in a special event commissioned by The Barbican and featuring Vashti Bunyan and Rob St John. Kate Tempest’s headlining set is already sold out. As previously announced, Aerial features two long-time Quietus favourites as its Artists In Residence. Lakes-born Natalie Sharp and Hayden Thorpe will be creating new work as part of the event.More info on tickets and so on can be found here
Aerial will also see the return of The Dark Outside, the 24 hour FM radio broadcast playing music that has never been heard before, and that you will only be able to hear if you’re near the transmitter in Kurt Schwitters’ Merz Barn in the Elterwater valley. The Dark Outside want YOUR contributions, so if you’ve got some music, your kids singing, poetry you can record onto your mobile and send in, you name it, please email dadarkoutside@gmail.com your tracks. It can be literally anything.
Also playing are a host of local acts, including Aim from Barrow’s Atic Records, Kendal-based producer Sierre, a takeover from BUMS (Barrow Underground Music Society) feat. DJ Gripper, and Celestial North supporting Hayden Thorpe.
Natalie Sharp will be presenting a new work called Marra, which we’re told is "based on her childhood growing up as a first-generation immigrant in rural West Cumbria. Step into a world of dialect and ancient ceremony, endangered voices and esoteric rituals from auctioneers to gurners, a side of Cumbria hidden from view remade in a truly singular and extraordinary way."
Says festival honcho Sam Hunt, “Aerial is the sort of festival that you can dip and out of, rather like wild swimming in Rydal Water. It is designed as a collection of individually ticketed and free shows that allows you to plan a weekend escape to the Lakes on your own terms. Based in Ambleside and in easy reach of the best the area has to offer we invite you to experience why this place has been, and continues to be, an inspiration to generation after generation of artists. See some shows, explore the bars and restaurants, head out on epic fell treks or take a gentle stroll. The Lake District belongs to you and Aerial is all the excuse you need to begin, rekindle or continue what will inevitably be a lifelong love affair with this most beautiful corner of the country.”
