The Marks Upon The Land

The Marks Upon The Land is a 60 page book which collects all 104 images which were created during the first spin-around-the-sun of A Year In The Country. It is accompanied by a 4-track audiological exploration on CD: The Dark Chamber EP by A Year In The Country. Also included is a cassette and download copy of the Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels 12 track album by A Year In The Country. Encasement details: 60 page bound softback book: 8.25 x 6 inches / 21 x 15 cm, matt velvet cover. 1 x all black CDr 2 x inserts 1 x cassette album in jewel case with 2 x inserts and download code. The images in the book are part of A Year In The Country's explorations of an otherly pastoralism, a wandering amongst subculture that draws from the undergrowth of the land - the patterns beneath the plough, pylons and amongst the edgelands. Those wanderings take in the beauty and escape of rural pastures, intertwined with a search for expressions of an underlying unsettledness to the bucolic countryside dream. The Marks Upon The Land takes inspiration from and channels the outer reaches of folk culture and its meeting places with the layered spectralities of what has come to be known as hauntology, alongside memories of childhood countryside idylls spent under the shadow of Cold War end of days paranoia and amongst the dreamscapes of dystopic science fiction tales. The Dark Chamber EP takes its name from the roots of the word camera and is an audio exploration of the creation of the imagery in the book, intermingling field recordings of photographic work with the sounds of the landscape. Airwaves: Songs From The Sentinels is a study of the hidden tales sent out into the world by the silent but ever chattering broadcast towers that stand watch atop the land, weaving and recasting their transmissions and seeming to summon unbidden the ghosts and fractures of a landscape that still contains the echoes and fragments of conflicts past and planned for.