Jon Loomes' Dust in the Sun project

Subject: Jon Loomes' Dust in the Sun project
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 02 May 26 - 02:26 PM

I confess to envying Jon Loomes.
(US folk friends, this is someone you're probably not aware of, but definitely should be.)

He's a SUPERB musician (on many different instruments), and excels at singing, songwriting, art, writing, sound recording – basically *any* creative endeavour. (I think the word "genius" is not inappropriate.) He's grounded in the English folk tradition (think Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, etc) but puts his own brilliant twist on singing and playing. He also has a wicked sense of humour. In short, I highly recommend him, and am 100% sure this project is worth supporting.
Anyway, this will be amazing. I'm really looking forward to having the result in my hot little hands, and urge you to at least have a look so you will see how special this is.

For those of you who are interested in more info on Jon, his approach to music, his accomplishments (which are numerous and seriously impressive), etc, here's a link to his website: https://jon-loomes.com/home

And here is a link to his fundraiser on Kickstarter. (The brief video intro gives an indication of the music – both style and quality.)

Here is what HE says about this intriguing project:

I promised you something new. I think this is ready to be let out into the world. It’s taken a little longer than planned, for reasons I won’t labour here, but it’s ready now.

A little bit of folklore:

It is said (or might have been) that in 1976, a remarkable folk record was made in a remote Welsh village.

It was never properly released. A fire at the pressing plant destroyed almost the entire run.

The label collapsed shortly afterwards, and the record passed into absence.

For years it existed only as rumour.

Dust In The Sun presents that record, alongside the novel that tells the story of its making.

The work is complete.

This campaign is simply the means of placing it into the world in its intended form.

So here it is.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonloomes/dust-in-the-sun-a-legendary-lost-english-folk-masterpiece?utm_id=97758_v0_s00_e23

If it speaks to you, please consider backing it today. Early momentum makes a real difference.
What’s at stake here is not just an album, and not just a book, but a single piece of work told across two forms, built as faithfully as possible to the sound, feel, and method of the 1970s folk revival.

Recorded using period approaches. Pressed as a 'lost artefact'. Written as the story that explains how such a thing could exist.

If that sort of thing matters to you, I’d love your support.

And yes, fair warning, I am now going to become completely insufferable about this for the next month.

If you’re willing to indulge that:
• please back the project if you can
• please share it if you can’t
• and please do keep an eye on it as it unfolds

Every single share makes a real difference at this stage.

Thank you for reading, listening, and sticking with this slightly improbable endeavour.

Jon

Subject: RE: Jon Loomes' Dust in the Sun project
From: Reinhard
Date: 03 May 26 - 03:00 AM

The Kickstarter campaign for this project says:

"Tt is a coherent body of songs shaped by the long traditions of English folk music, with emphasis on narrative, atmosphere, and continuity. ... The recording process draws directly on the sound world of the 1970s folk revival. Arrangement, microphone technique, room sound, and performance approach are treated as part of the tradition, not neutral tools."

This looks to me rather more like P.R. hyperbole than verifiable facts. The audio in the Kickstarter trailer sounds like new-age fluff.

"In the summer of 1976, Bounty Records (London) Ltd was in trouble."

The only reference I can find for a Bounty label in the UK on discogs.com is a subsidiary of Elektra that released about 40 albums in 1966/67, including The Pennywhistlers, Leon Rosselson and Swarbrick, Carthy & Disley, but no albums from then on into the 1970s.

Subject: RE: Jon Loomes' Dust in the Sun project
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 03 May 26 - 11:22 AM

Reinhard, I fear you've missed the point.

Subject: RE: Jon Loomes' Dust in the Sun project
From: Reinhard
Date: 03 May 26 - 12:29 PM

Yes, very probably. I do like Jon's Fellside solo album and all of Pilgrims' Way.   That's why I was so disappointed in that bland Kickstarter announcement.

Subject: RE: Jon Loomes' Dust in the Sun project
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 03 May 26 - 03:58 PM

So, Reinhard, what should he have said?

Subject: RE: Jon Loomes' Dust in the Sun project
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 May 26 - 07:19 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Jon Loomes' Dust in the Sun project
From: GUEST
Date: 05 May 26 - 06:31 AM

I’m not interested in patronising an audience, and I’m not interested in explaining the mechanism behind the work. If you trust me to make something worthwhile, back it. If you don’t, don’t. Kickstarter is a preorder service, not a gun to the head.

I’ve recently had a cancer diagnosis, which has a way of clarifying priorities. Whether this reaches its target or not matters a good deal less than it did a month ago. It would be quite nice to not be five grand out of pocket, but the only thing that changes if it doesn’t fund is that the novel won’t be printed, and I’ll release it as an ebook instead.

What I will say is that a great deal of time went into understanding how records were actually made in the 1970s. Not the mythology, the reality. Signal chains, working methods, constraints. The sort of knowledge you only get by chasing it down properly. The equipment reflects that. It has taken many years, and a small fortune to assemble. One does not buy a pultech eq unless one is serious about sound engineering history.

The arrangements follow the same logic. They sit inside the language of the revival, but they also draw on the broader musical world around it. There are traces of what people like Mick Ronson were doing in the period, and the piano parts nod in that direction too. There’s a pipe solo that leans toward early work by Davy Spillane. Some of the humour is there for people who understand recording, and will pass everyone else by quite happily.

The material itself is not what I would have chosen if left entirely alone. My producer suggested I simply sing a set of songs and make a record. I work best with a framework. The framework became this: make something that could plausibly sit alongside those 1970s guitar records we all know and love.

The Kickstarter video is what it is. I had no voice at the time and a deadline that wasn’t going to move. So it was built from stock footage, with the script reduced to its essentials, and an instrumental bed taken from one of the album tracks. Under normal circumstances I would have spoken to camera. These were not normal circumstances.

There is also a novel. It’s an odd thing, and I didn’t set out to write it. It grew alongside the record and became part of the same object. People who’ve read it seem to enjoy it. That will do.

The presentation is deliberately plain. I have no interest in pretending that every release is a masterpiece. If anything, I find that kind of language off-putting. The work either stands up or it doesn’t. Many people won’t ‘get’ this.

But, for what it’s worth, it seems to be connecting. The campaign is currently around seventy percent funded.

The truth is that the whole thing started as a form of escape. Ive had a rotten time lately, and built a ‘happy place’ - a ‘hiraeth’ version of 1976 that I could live in for a while. Endless summer, a village that may or may not exist, a record being made somewhere just out of sight. I was eighteen months old in the real 1976. It’s the last time I can remember being uncomplicatedly happy. Make of that what you will.

Cheers,
J