The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
Fourteenth century France was a place of radical musical developments, particularly in rhythmic structures, polyphony and notation systems. The greatest testament to this style is the Chantilly Codex, a book of music by French and Italian ‘Ars Subtilior’ composers featuring the exquisite mannerist notation of the time. Containing heart-shaped musical scores and canons set out in 33-bar spirals, this codex is one of the most exquisite syntheses of two artforms: graphic design and musical notation. The experimentation of composers such as Solage) and Trebor (Robert backwards) gave birth to an effervescence of richness and strangeness, a radical pushing of the boundaries of notational complexity, a period of highly idiosyncratic art which left little in the way of posterity. In this respect it has the capacity to connect deeply with contemporary artists; this fleeting and isolated style, in leaving no immediate descendants, retains its perennial novelty and remains forever gilded in mystery.
Fred Thomas is currently preparing a recording of this music using contemporary recording techniques and a wide range of strange instruments, both old and new.
“Music is everywhere. Countless radio stations pump it out 24/7. It sells cars, shampoo, drinks – even political parties. Music is always there to cover up a lull in the conversation; it soothes us on take-off and on landing, and it makes us feel good… or does it? Subconsciously we crave for something that goes much deeper: well-crafted, inspiring music with real emotional meaning.
Thankfully, each new generation is blessed with a few young people who embrace music as an art form. They explore, invent, discuss, rehearse, and live their music. What they create enriches and entertains the audience without patronising it.
The artists in the F-ire Collective will give you depth, inspiration, surprise, and above all, hope.”
Jamie Doe and Fred Thomas have been making music together since they were 11 years old.
The Magic Lantern is the musical moniker of British Australian singer-songwriter and composer Jamie Doe, an artist dedicated to examining the limitless depth of human experience in our search for meaning.
The sound of A Reckoning Bell starts with Doe’s inimitable, soothing voice, before building outward from the piano, from jazz and Debussy-influenced harmony (Fault Line, Holding On, There’s a Light), to minimalism inspired ostinatos (Bound for Glory, This Life, Weariest River). Groove plays an important role in propelling the songs along, with both live and programmed drums interacting to create a mood of late night introspection. The arrangements are supported lush orchestration from the warmth of stacked bass clarinets (Weariest River) to a chorale of trombones (Bound for Glory), swelling strings (This Life) or the subtle echos of the shakuhachi (There’s a Light). The album also includes beautiful examples Doe’s trademark classical guitar based songs (Blades of Grass, Enough, Learning to Swim).
Working with a core band from London’s genre-banding jazz scene, improvisation played an important role in the album’s arrangements, most notably on How Simple, recorded as an acapella folk ballad before inviting different players to improvise around the vocal melody, without hearing any other instruments. The result is joyous example of chance interaction as a compositional tool and focusing attention on what really matters – the message.
On making the album Doe himself says:
“Making music has always been a way of working out what I think, but in the midst of this in- tensely emotional time, it has also been a raft when the ground has given way. But as much as music helps me, I don’t make records for myself. I do it because I believe that music has a social function in allowing people to project themselves into and onto songs to come to know them- selves and their own lives better. This belief gives me a sense of purpose and that is the spirit in which I offer this music to you, that it may be useful if it’s what you need”
Born in Australia, before moving to the UK at 12, Jamie adopted the stage name of The Magic Lanternand began writing songs while studying philosophy in Bristol. He lives in London and has released four full length albums and two EPs in addition to a compilation of other artists versions of his songs for the male suicide prevention charity CALM.
A Reckoning Bell is his unashamedly emotional fourth album written and recorded while helping to care for his father with Alzheimers disease – who’s portrait features on the album’s cover. A Reckoning Bell examines what loss can teach us about love and how love’s many small acts give a life meaning. The result is a study in masculine vulnerability that sits with and acknowledges the inevitability of a loss witnessed in slow motion and the unexpected moments of joy that sustain us.
Working with producer Chris Hyson, A Reckoning Bell manages to sound both dreamy and direct, the richness of the orchestration belying the devastating songwriting. Lyrically, A Reckoning Bell is one of The Magic Lantern’s most powerful and accomplished achievements and while containing references as diverse as Woodie Guthrie, Macbeth, the New Testament and Don Quixote, it is most notable for Doe’s knack of using startling simplicity to imply something greater than the sum of its parts such as the chorus for There’s a Light:
‘Today’s going to be a good day / I decided that while I was crying / You can’t keep folding a tragedy over and over again’.
The Magic Lantern is part of a thriving scene of genre bending contemporary musicians in London who are going about things their own way. The Magic Lantern has toured the UK supporting artists including This Is The Kit, Sam Lee and Alabaster Deplume, sung with Jamie Cullum at the BBC Proms and as a guest vocalist with Sikh virtuoso Manika Kaur in Trafalgar Square. He has performed for the Queen and over 50 Commonwealth Heads of State, sung in the Sussex Woods with nightingales and recorded in Abbey Road Studios as part of the Help Musicians UK ‘Music Minds Matter’ campaign.
The Magic Lantern has received praise from numerous supporters including BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens, BBC 6 Music’s Guy Garvey, Lauren Laverne, Gideon Coe, Tom Robinson, BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction and BBC Radio 2’s Jamie Cullum, Mark Radcliffe and Bob Harris among others; and publications such as The Guardian, Acoustic Magazine and Atwood Magazine among others.