I’m walking in New York City, listening to Julian Cope’s ODIN on earbuds. It’s his seventy-minute vocal drone meditation on Silbury Hill, an artificial mound of ritual purpose in Britain. Regardless of its scattering of electronic tricks, I always consider ODIN the sound of ancient Britain. Proto-language, even. The radiophonic wobbles and glitches, for me, act to reinforce that. Early British electronic music always came with a powerful dose of haunted history to it, as did British science fiction of the period. And, of course, Cope is also the author of the magnificent MODERN ANTIQUARIAN, a tower of research and meditation on the megaliths and earthworks of ancient Britain.
It is a strongly unheimlich thing to walk through the artificial canyons of New York while listening to breath-drone that summons stone circles and monuments. I reach a cross-street. It is early July. I look down the street and the sun is setting between the buildings. I only learn later that this is the Manhattanhenge phenomenon, where, twice a year, the sunset aligns directly with the city’s street grid.
The ancient world roars in my ears as red light crawls between the megaliths of New York towards me.
(This piece is taken from the top of my next article for EDICT magazine.)