Birdsongs by Dreaming North

ORIGINALLY released (well, it escaped) on cassette, Birdsongs is not simply about birds. As with other Dreaming North material there are many political messages if you care to look for them. For example, 'Magpie' may just reference Maggie Thatcher, 'Greylag Geese' is a reference to nuclear missiles. Find what you like or just think about the music and the birds...

The cassette also included our 'Small Wars' project and that is here to download, too. It was intended to be heard as one continuous piece but for convenience, where possible it has been split into individual tracks. Of course, we know you will listen to both projects in one sitting!

The 'bonus' track is Keith Morris's 'Stories About Not Being Afraid of Ghosts' based on an old Chinese story.

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BIRDSONGS - A CONCERT OF TALES (Original sleeve notes)

Drake's adventures in the slave trade. The adventures of Doops, a doomed youth on a Sunderland housing estate. The story of the pressed man, Job Hortop. Voyages through the glass oceans of a shopping mall. The travels of an 18th century Northumbrian piper. Explorations, exploits and the exploited; small wars under the skin.

The stories weave in and out of the song cycle, Birdsongs: a roding woodcock's territorial display; a kestrel nesting in the House of Lords; the swallow bringing news from South Africa; the magpie, refusing to enter the ark, preferring to jabber over the drowned world...

'No society,
just individuals
with their sharp
hard bargain eyes
on the sparkling
jewjaws and bangles
in the rain,
the falling skies ...