Concrete Atlantis present a spectral Sussex harvest of words spoken by Justin Hopper, unseen pictures from Rachel Poulton and live music from Gilroy Mere
Doors 7pm
Tickets: £10
It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie:
The time flew by, wi' tentless heed,
Till 'tween the late and early;
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed,
To see me thro' the barley.
Multi-instrumentalist musician Oliver Cherer under the alias Gilroy Mere will be performing songs from his forthcoming album on the Clay Pipe label, Furlongs, inspired by the art of Eric Ravilious and the chalky landscape of the Sussex downs.
In early 2025, Ollie was diagnosed with cancer and had to travel to Brighton Hospital for radiotherapy treatment. Taking the daily 40-mile train ride from St-Leonard's-on-Sea and through the Downs, Ollie filled the journey making music:
‘Cutting through the landscape that Ravilious had painted 90 years earlier, the muted colours and undulations became textures, tempos and modulations. After more than a month immersed in his scenery, my laptop sketches crystalized into something that began to sound like a record, and by the end of the six weeks, I had more than enough material of an album’
Many of the pieces on the record were inspired by specific paintings that were already familiar to me, while others are reactions to the landscape gently swooshing past the windows of the train and which I knew from walking its footpaths with an ordnance survey map in hand. Furlongs is the name of the cottage where Eric and his wife Tirzah often stayed, and where he created many of his paintings. Beachy Head and Chalk Paths are tributes to well-known Ravilious works, whereas Hope Gap is an exploration of a place with an isolated coastal bleakness that I felt reflected the sadness of his early death.’
Rachel Poulton is a Chichester-based writer, photographer and educator whose interests lie with our connections to the past and place. Her work examines philosophy, inner and outer landscapes, myth and reality, the past, the present and the borderlands between, and which she explores in her photographic zine, Unseen.
Justin Hopper is a writer of landscape, memory and myth. Born in America but based in Essex. His acclaimed non-fiction book The Old Weird Albion, resulted in a collaboration with the folk artist Sharron Kraus and the Ghost Box label's own Belbury Poly and the album Chanctonbury Rings, a musical psychogeographical response to the prehistoric hill fort of Chanctonbury Ring on the West Sussex Downs.